Take A Literary Tour of Paris with Us This Fall!

Earthbound Expeditions & Eagle Harbor Books Present…

Americans in Paris
A Feast for the Senses in the City of Light 
October 20-27, 2012  

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”
Ernest Hemingway 

Do you dream of sitting in the Shakespeare and Co. Bookstore, chatting with Sylvia Beach and James Joyce or laughing in a café with the Fitzgeralds and the Hemingways? Then join Janis Segress of Eagle Harbor Books and Suzanne Droppert of Liberty Bay Books for a journey back in time to literary Paris. Enjoy dining in cozy Parisian bistros, taste delicious cheeses and meats from the same markets where famous writers and artists shopped and enjoy the gorgeous skyline that’s virtually unchanged since the “Lost Generation” danced and drank their way around the capital and wrote so brilliantly about loss and love in the most beautiful city on earth.

EXPEDITION HIGHLIGHTS

• With hosts, Suzanne Droppert and Janis Segress
• Private wine and cheese tastings
• Outings to colorful neighborhood markets
• Visits to cafés, boulangeries, pâtisseries, confisseries and boucheries
• Intimate walking tours of Paris neighborhoods, highlighting the history of famous artists and writers
• Dine in cozy neighborhood bistros
• Plenty of free time for independent exploration (or your own novel-writing)
• Optional Cooking demonstration at the Cordon Bleu
• Rodin Museum
• Père Lachaise cemetery

IT’S INCLUDED

• With host, Janis Segress of Eagle Harbor Bookstore and Suzanne Droppert of Liberty Bay Books
• Fully guided by local experts
• All breakfasts, three lunches and two dinners
• A tasting of French cheeses and wines
• Visits to charming French markets
• Six nights of accommodations in a charming, centrally located hotel
• Paris metro tickets and a Paris metro lesson
• Neighborhood tours with a knowledgeable local guide
• All entrances listed in your itinerary
• Gratuities for guides
• A Paris city map and a French phrase book
• Pre- and post-tour planning assistance
• A pre-trip educational reading and viewing list
• Alumni appreciation discounts applied toward future Expeditions
• Travel carbon-neutral via Earthbound’s partnership with Carbonfund

TERMS, PRICES, DATES, and RESERVATIONS
8 Days/7 Nights Literary Adventure
$2,595 Double Occupancy with 18-26 guests (Price does not include airfare.)
$795 Single Supplement  (waived if you are willing to share)

Post-Tour Extension to Le Mont St. Michel

PRICING: Price is based on an exchange rate of .78 Euro to 1 USD and 18+ guests. A small group comfort charge of $175 will be added if the group number falls below 18.

RESERVATIONS: A $500 deposit is required. Please refer to our Terms and Conditions for our refund policy.

YOUR LITERARY JOURNEY BEGINS…

DAY 1, October 20, 2012: Médames et Messieurs, bonjour!
Arrive in Paris. Clear customs and transfer to the hotel. We’ll meet up in the early evening for an introduction to your Parisian guide, a neighborhood orientation and our first dinner together.

DAY 2: Writers in Paris
This morning, your Parisian guide will take you on an historic walk and have a gourmet tasting tour along the way, which will include local vendors selling delicious baguettes, chocolates, pastries, meats and cheeses. Experience the intimate markets of the Latin Quarter before continuing on to Notre Dame and the island where Paris was founded, the Ile St. Louis. There you may wish to sample an ice cream at the city’s most famous producer, Berthillon.

Across the Seine from the Ile St Louis is the famous “Shakespeare and Co.” bookstore, originally founded by Sylvia Beach who welcomed the likes of Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Hemingway and Gertrude Stein into her bookshop. Forced to close during WWII, Shakespeare and Co. was reopened in a new location by a young American named George Whitman, who sadly passed away in December of 2011 at the age of 98. Infamous for his eccentric ways (he once threw a book out the second floor window at a customer below because he thought they might enjoy reading it), he nevertheless nurtured struggling young writers, just as Sylvia Beach had done, including Allen Ginsberg, Anais Nin and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. George’s daughter, Sylvia has replaced him as manager and continues his legacy of welcoming writers to come and speak, eat and sleep in the room above the store.

The Beat Hotel, 9 rue Gît-le-Cœur, 75006 & Natalie Barney’s Literary Salon 20, rue Jacob A little way up the Seine from Shakespeare and Co. is a hotel formerly known as the Hôtel Rachou, now renovated into the five-star Relais Hôtel de Vieux Paris. Beat writers and poets such as Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs & Gregory Corso stayed here during the 1950s when it was a mere flophouse above a bar. Jack Kerouac, father of the Beats, never stayed here but he did visit; he stayed around the corner at 28, rue St-Andre-des-Arts.

Natalie Barney, an American expatriate playwright, poet and novelist held literary salons that rivaled Gertrude Stein’s. Due to the long-lived enmity between James Joyce and Gertrude Stein, Joyce opted to hang out here instead. It was also the preferred salon for poet, Ezra Pound.

DAY 3: Art & Jazz in Montmartre
Spend the day with your guide in the lovely district of Montmartre: one of the many “villages” within the boundaries of Paris. For decades, Montmartre lured artists such as Van Gogh, Monet, then later, Picasso, Dali and Modigliani and other famous souls for a variety of reasons. Cheap rent was one reason, another being the nightlife. Americans looking for fun flocked to the newest club of Bricktop’s; Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Humphrey Bogart drank elbow-to-elbow in her bistros, lured by the ambiance and more importantly, the hostess herself. Bricktop was a charming, black chanteuse and dancer originally from Chicago, whose christened name Ada Smith, became “Bricktop,” because of her bright red hair. Cole Porter was so captivated by her that he wrote “Miss Otis Regrets” for her, and a chagrined John Steinbeck begged forgiveness with a taxi full of yellow roses after she had him bounced one night for unruly behavior. Her last club was at 66, rue Pigalle (known today as: rue Jean-Baptiste Pigalle), but the building no longer stands.

Still a charming neighborhood dotted with restaurants, quaint little streets and gorgeous views of Paris, we’ll stroll through and sample some of the edible wares.

DAY 4: Chartres Cathedral & Village
Today we’ll make our way out of the city to the lovely medieval village of Chartres. Famous for its amazing gothic cathedral, which houses one of the world’s most impressive collections of stained glass, we’ll have time for a guided tour which will include the highlights of the famous windows. You’ll also have time for lunch and to wander the delightful village of Chartres. We’ll be back in Paris with plenty of time for dinner.

DAY 5:  In the Footsteps of Hemingway
Now a lively market street selling artisanal cheeses, seasonal produce and much more, la rue Mouffetard is a great place to sample specialties alongside the locals. Up the street on the Place Contrescarpe, the Café La Chope used to be the Café des Amateurs, which Hemingway described as ‘the cesspool of the rue Mouffetard,’ and which even he avoided. To the right as you look at the café is rue du Cardinal-Lemoine, and No.74, is where 22-year-old Hemingway and his wife Hadley found their first Paris apartment. He remembered it as having cold water and a squat toilet on the landing, the contents of which were pumped into a horse-drawn tank wagon at night.   Stroll up to the rue de l’Odeon, called the “bookstore street,” due to being the original location of Sylvia Beach’s “Shakespeare and Co” bookstore and Adrienne Monnier’s “La Maison des Amis des Livres” bookstore. It was therefore also a favorite haunt of many famous writers, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce and Hemingway. We’ll stop by the Luxembourg Gardens and see Bartoldi’s Statue of Liberty, as well as the busts of famous French writers, Baudelaire and George Sand.  Turning onto the rue de Vaugirard, we’ll stop at  No. 58, the former home of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, then stroll along Rue de Fleurus, where Gertrude Stein hosted, among many others, Guillaume Apollinaire, Henri Matisse and Paul Cézanne.

With the rest of your day enjoy some free time to visit one of Paris’ many museums, neighborhoods or make the short trip out to Versailles. Your guide will be happy to help with suggestions.

DAY 6: Rodin Museum and & the Cordon Bleu
This morning tour the small and lovely Rodin Museum, filled with the works of both Auguste Rodin and his talented and tragic mistress, Camille Claudel, an excellent artist in her own right.

Today those interested can participate in a cooking demonstration at the Cordon Bleu, presented by a French-speaking chef. The ingredients are passed around to inspect, you are free to ask as many questions as you like, and the session will be translated live into English by an interpreter as the chef works. There is also a mirror that ensures maximum visibility. Afterwards, everyone gets to taste the results and receives a certificate of participation, suitable for framing and showing off to future dinner guests.

DAY 7: Ghosts of the Past—the Cemetery of Père Lachaise
Take a journey back in time through the Père Lachaise Cemetery, the final resting place of numerous artists, musicians, writers and lovers. Tombstones for Jim Morrison, Maria Callas, Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf and many more famous and historic souls can be found here. Even Abelard and Heloise, the famous lovers from the 12th C are buried here next to each other in a neo-Gothic tomb, their remains moved to rest eternally together, upon orders of Josephine Bonaparte.

This evening we’ll have our gala farewell dinner–another delicious Parisian feast and toast to our fabulous adventure but save “au revoir” for the morning.

DAY 8, October 27, 2012: Tour Over Au revoir mes amis!
Some of you may stay on to do some shopping and others may be traveling on to other destinations. Whatever your plans, we wish you a très bon voyage! 

 -Itinerary subject to change-

“Every man becomes civilized between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. If he does not go through a civilizing experience at that time of his life, he will not become a civilized man. The men who went to war at eighteen missed the civilizing … All you young people who served in the war are a lost generation. You have no respect for anything.”
-Gertrude Stein (pictured above with Hemingway’s first child “Bumby”)

Free Time Suggestions
Old Book Market on the Square Brassens, 104 rue Brancion, 15th arrondissement, Sat & Sun 9:30-6:00 pm, Métro: Porte de Vanves or Convention.  Not as popular as the flea markets of Paris, this market is fully dedicated to ancient books and aimed at bibliophiles. If you are a collector or just a book lover, you will find gems here.

Maison de Victor Hugo Place des Vosges  4th arrondissement, 10 am-6 pm Tues-Sun, Métro: Bastille, Saint-Paul or Chemin-vert. Victor Hugo was 30 when he and his wife, Adèle rented a 280 square meter apartment on the second floor of this building. The mansion, now known as the “Hôtel de Rohan-Guéménée,” was converted into a museum, thanks to a large donation made by Paul Meurice to the city of Paris.