December 2011 Interview on BlogTalkRadio's The Gist of Freedom Our own Monique Y. Wells was the featured guest on the BlogTalkRadio show entitled The Gist of Freedom. Among other things, she talked about how middle school and high school teachers can increase awareness of the African-American connection with Paris among their students and encourage them to travel there. Listen to the interview here.
October 2011 Visit to a Microbrewery We paid a visit to Florent Deneubourg's new microbrewery in the Paris suburb of Montreuil. In this video, Florent talks about how he began brewing beer and the types of beer that he brews.
August 2011 Visit to a Coffee-Roasting Boutique The Brûlerie des Gobelins is our favorite coffee-roasting facility in the 5th arrondissement. Not only does it sell fresh-roasted coffee and coffee-making equipment, but it also sells cakes, cookies, jams and jellies, chocolate, and more.
Exploring African-American History in Paris with Discover Paris! We had the distinct privilege of assisting Dr. Francine Allen, assistant professor at Morehouse College, with the research that she is conducting on James Baldwin.
Here is an excerpt from her testimonial (which is the longest and most detailed that we have ever received!):
"The ease with which Discover Paris! enabled me to travel throughout Paris and to other areas of France allowed me to focus on my primary purpose for visiting the City—delving into the African-American experience in the City. As Monique revealed in her tour, this experience is wide and deep, with building after building in Paris testifying to the black presence in Paris. There stands, for instance, the Casino de Paris where Josephine Baker performed. Then, among the never-ending array of Paris cafes sits the famous Café de Flore where, in one of its upper rooms, James Baldwin wrote Go Tell It on the Mountain. Along a road running by the cabaret Moulin Rouge arises the residence where Langston Hughes lived briefly. Beyond these buildings, there stand other buildings and areas that testify to the many lesser-known African Americans who also lived in the City, opening businesses in Paris at a time when doing so would have been unheard of in the United States."
July 2011 Monique Y. Wells Named "Black Culture and Heritage VIP in Paris" African Diaspora Tourism (ADT), an online magazine dedicated to exploring the culture, heritage, places and influences of people of African descent, past and present, recently named Monique Y. Wells "Black Culture and Heritage VIP in Paris." Click here to read the announcement.
June 2011 Paris in Black and White™ Discover Paris! revived its black history in Paris bus tour for a group of Maryland travel agents who took a "fam" trip to the City of Light in March. Because the group was interested in learning about traditional French history and African Diaspora history in Paris, we dubbed the tour "Paris in Black and White™." The organizer of the trip, Pam Biller of All Ways Travel in the Baltimore area, recently sent us the following testimonial about the three-hour tour:
I engaged Discover Paris! for a bus tour of Paris that featured French and black history for my group of sixteen travel professionals. Our guides, Monique Wells and Tom Reeves, were prompt, flexible, and well prepared for our excursion. They are personable and knowledgeable tour guides who work well together as a husband and wife team. The tour was very informative with regard to French history and black history, and all participants were intrigued and pleased with the facts and anecdotes presented.
May 2011 Visit to a Chocolate Shop We stopped by Mococha, a chocolate shop located at 89, rue Mouffetard, and made a short video about the owner, Marie, and the chocolates that she sells there.
March 2011 Women’s History Month March is Women’s History Month. We had the pleasure and privilege of providing our "Paris Was a Woman" walk for U.S. Embassy staff and friends on March 12, 2011. The tour covers Montparnasse and Saint–Germain-des-Prés, and features French, American, and UK literary women whose works were published during the 20th century. Many of them were modernist writers who enjoyed the fast-paced and exuberant café life of 1920s Paris. Among the writers discussed were Gertrude Stein, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Djuna Barnes, and Simone de Beauvoir.
Women's History Month Walk for the U.S. Embassy
We'll soon be offering two walks on this topic that present the women of Montparnasse and the women of Saint-Germain-des-Prés separately and in more detail, so stay tuned!
Our First Special-Offer Client for Entrée to Black Paris™ Barbara Paroissien was the first client to take advantage of the special offer that we extended on Entrée to Black Paris™ tours and activities in January. Barbara had this to say about the walk that she selected:
On a glorious spring day in Paris, I met Monique at Maubert Mutualite in the 5th arr. to walk and talk about Black Paris after World War II. Coming from Australia, this is certainly an area which does not even remotely come into our history lessons.
I found Monique’s knowledge and descriptions of the lives of many of the Black writers and artists to be fascinating and informative. We walked along the streets where they worked and lived and saw the cafes where they no doubt spent many hours, and learnt of the many influences they have played in the establishment of the Black literati in Paris.
I thoroughly enjoyed my morning, would certainly recommend it to people who are interested in the history of Paris, and I will definitely look for more books to read on this subject.
Barbara Paroissien
Monique Y. Wells and Barbara Parossien in front of Presence Africaine
February 2011 Black History Month Walk for the American Embassy Arcadia Letkemann, Coordinator of TMM Public Outreach/Special Projects at the U.S. Embassy, asked Discover Paris! to provide a private tour for Black History Month. She had the following to say about the tour:
The Discover Paris! Black History Month walking tour, especially prepared for the American Embassy Paris, was a relaxing and informative experience. Don’t be daunted by the length of this tour; two hours went by quickly – especially because the tour was not strenuous and the pace was leisurely.
Monique Wells is a very personable and knowledgeable guide who was both well prepared and flexible; she even threw in information about landmarks, history and traditions that were not specifically geared to African-American history per se, but which enriched our understanding of the larger context that attracted black writers and artists to Paris during the 20th century.
For anyone looking for a tour with a warm and knowledgeable guide that goes beyond the usual monuments and landmarks, I highly recommend taking a Discover Paris! tour.
Black History Month Walk for the U.S. Embassy
Will Discover Paris! Finally Get Its 15 Minutes of Fame? On Friday, February 25, we met Amanda Rogers and Steven Mann of RPP Productions in New York at the Café Tournon to participate in a documentary for a Web TV program on "literary Paris." They had heard that we have expertise regarding the African-American literati who frequented the café in the 1950s, and they wanted to film us talking about that history.
Photo by Bryan Pirolli
Lové Anthony Goes Gourmet with Discover Paris! One of our gourmet walks is featured in food aficionado Lové Anthony’s Love2Eat video series! View it below:
January 2011 After years of evaluating restaurants for readers of our Paris Insights newsletter, we are taking the restaurant review to a new level! We are pleased to announce our new series of articles entitled "Art and Food Pairings™"! Read more…
A Review of the Year Gone By
December 2010 Discover Paris! entered into a collaboration with Context Travel for the co-promotion of two walking tours. Context Travel is promoting our Black Paris after WWII walk, and we are promoting their Le Jazz Hot – An American Art Form in Paris walk.
November 2010 Entrée to Black Paris™ provided commentary on a three-hour bus tour entitled “Black Paris and Sites of "Rememory," which was sponsored by the Toni Morrison Society during the group's sixth biennial conference held in Paris, France from November 4-7. Read more…
In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Richard Wright's death (November 28, 1960), Discover Paris! released a new edition of its downloadable, self-guided walking tour entitled "Richard Wright's Paris.” The tour contains descriptive commentary and photographs of the numerous sites that Richard Wright frequented during the ten years that he lived in the Left Bank. The latest edition incorporates new text and enlargements of previously included photographs, as well as new photographs that illustrate the walk, a photographic portrait of Wright, a chronology of his life in Paris, and original photos of Père Lachaise Cemetery, his final resting place. Discover Paris! released the first edition of this tour in 2008, in celebration of the centennial of Wright's birth.
July-August 2010 We expanded our "Discover African-American History in Paris!™ itineraries and activities to incorporate contemporary Black Paris in our heritage travel services. Additionally, we extended outreach for the program to mainstream English-speaking travelers so that our entire client base can appreciate the vivacity and complexity of Black Paris today. In celebration of these new services, we rechristened our Afrocentric program "Entrée to Black Paris™." Read more…
June 2010 We celebrated the 7th edition of the Fête de l’Apéritif in France this month by revealing three of our favorite before-dinner cocktails to our readers.
The online magazine Prissy Mag published a fantastic review of our book Paris Insights – An Anthology! Read more…
May 2010 We distributed "High Fashion and High Tea for your Paris Mother’s Day" as a bonus gift for those purchasing Paris Insights – An Anthology as a gift for Mother’s Day.
March 2010 Discover Paris! co-founder Monique Y. Wells presented the story behind Paris Insights – An Anthology at Alliance Française in Salt Lake City.
February 2010 Discover Paris! co-founder Monique Y. Wells presented "Black Paris and the Myth of a Colorblind France" at the American Library in Paris.
We distributed our "Ten Favorites List for Best Chocolate in Paris" to persons who purchased Paris Insights – An Anthology as a gift for Valentine’s Day.
We had the distinct privilege of assisting Dr. Francine Allen, assistant professor at Morehouse College, with the research that she is conducting on James Baldwin.
