Paris

[Nylah]

okay, I'm going to London this February but I plan to take a side jaunt to Paris.
I have been everywhere in Europe except the southern countries like France and Italy

So for you all that have visited Paris please come with your suggestions, etc.....please skip the standard tourist stuff like the Efifel tower, the Arc. etc.

I love markets so if anyone has suggestions that would be appreciated

and any romantic activities that you know of would be appreciated as well!

[Seveen]

Re: Paris

nylah - meet my friend Lily - she spent some time in paris in july - good blog about shopping, taking the train and finding cheap housing, if you blog her any questions, she will answer back - she's in jamaica right now - with another big trip planned to somewhere she hasn't told us yet

she's very interesting! BTW - i shared your trip report with her

http://www.sunshineandstilettos.com/2009/07/

[Nylah]

Re: Paris



Excellent Seveen

I do have her blog bookmarked for her Jamaica chats but didnt really pay attention to her other travel

[Marielle]

Re: Paris

Great trip!

Are you going by train? The best way to get from London to gay Paree! Thru the chunnel (Channel Tunnel). Think you have to change at Brussels, not sure.

There's an african area in Paris, have to check the name. Oh, here it is.
"Paris Mali suburb - Montreuil "Mali's 2nd city""
Don't know where it is, cos haven't been (yet). It'll be great tho.

The African women in Paris look amázing!! In all their African finery....

Montmartre is nice for wandering around the little cobbled streets, the Sacre Ceour (sp?) is beautiful.

Last time I was in Paris was 20!! years ago......on my list tho for 2010.

Have a great time!!

[Nylah]

Re: Paris

Yup We are planning to use the Eurostar. Cheap and easy way to get there.

I got Montmatre on my to do list but I hadnt heard of Montreuil. I found a beatiful hotel that is less than 100 Euros per night in the heart of Paris...dont ask me the name cause it alludes me as I type So this will make it easy to disburse and mill about the place

since I had to put off the Spain trip til next year, I want to make this one really fun and enjoyable!

[Marielle]

Re: Paris

Yea, Paris is as wonderful as Spain.....a whole different culture, too.

Do you speak any French? Maybe you do, living in Canada...

Must be different now, but when I was there, they refused to speak english....even asking politely, do you speak english, they answer in french. quite arrogant in that sense.
Since then, I up"loaded" my 5 years of school french travelling in Senegal and Mali and being married to a Malian (who I met there).

I hear they are trying to find french words for the internet, le internet, etc.

Have you seen the film "La Haine"? Very good, it's about the banlieus, it's very heavy there for the people, especially the women!!. Must be an awful place to live. There were riots in 2006/2007?? But don't worry about that!! No-one riots in January/February. Too cold!!
(except for Copenhagen in December LOL, luckily a sit-down resistance).

Yea, Europe is great!!

In London, no doubt you are going to Brixton market, love that place!! I still have to stop off at Stockwell tube station (stop before Brixton) where Jean-Charles de Menendez was murdered by the brit police, to lay some flowers and light a candle.....another to do on the list for 2010.

[Marielle]

Re: Paris

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Marielle</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Yea, Paris is as wonderful as Spain.....a whole different culture, too.</div></div>

and of course, the food is to die for!!!

[Marielle]

Re: Paris

Anyone going to Paris should check out this place for a fun night out!

http://www.satellit-cafe.com/public/rubrique.tpl?rub=20868

I will be there on Tuesday!!

[Marielle]

Re: Paris

Re. Africa in Paris, not sure if it is Montreuil, maybe the area is called that, but found this:

Take the metro to Château-Rouge (not on Monday) and step outside. For the price of a subway ticket you are transported in the heart of Africa. You'll find everything - African princesses who have become stars on French TV, thieves, drug dealers, artists, French middle class families who live here and fight for their turf or who just come to Château-Rouge to do their groceries or buy colorful fabric.
The heart of the neighborhood is the rue Demean. Every day, the most amazing market takes place there. Sunday is the busiest day. Here, fruit look like vegetables, bananas are huge and vegetables look like nothing you know. You'll also see fish you cannot find anywhere else like the sompate and the machoiron from Sénégal, or small sharks. If you take the rue des Poissonniers, you'll find grocers from the West Indies and Africa, not fish mongers. Ask and you will be told how to prepare the macabo from Cameroon. You don't need to want to buy anything to go to Château-Rouge. Go there just for the sounds and the colors and the atmosphere. It is a very different Paris.


Our addresses
Tout Kin. (meaning: all Kinshasa): You'll find all the products from Congo, but not only. 63, rue Doudeauville. 75018. Tel: 01 42 52 42 30
Au Marché de la Côte d'Ivoire. This store sells things coming straight from Ivory Coast: dried fish, manioc leaves. You can also try the &quot;bissap&quot;, a pink drink made with hibiscus flowers. 66, rue Doudeauville. Tel: 01 42 51 67 65.
Kabaco. This little store is full of medicinal plants and objects from Sénégal, Mali and Burkina-Faso. You'll find wonderful earrings, fabric dyed with the black mud from marshes, little shells. 36, rue Polonceau. Tel: 06 86 24 27 31. Metro: Barbes-Rochechouart or Château-Rouge.
Le Porokhane. The owners will greet you as if you were family. The food is good and you'll be serenaded by the music from the peule people. Try the &quot;thieboudiene&quot;, a red rice with stuffed fish. Open until 2am. 3, rue Moret. 75011. Tel: 01 40 21 86 74.
Chez Aida. Very good Senegalese restaurant. People come here for the mafe (meat cooked in a sauce made with peanuts and tomatoes), and the tie-bou-dien, the Senegalese national dish (rice with fish). 48, rue Polonceau. Daily except Wed. Tel: 01 42 58 26 20. Metro: Barbes or Château-Rouge.

African Art

Musée Dapper. This private museum dedicated to the pre-colonial art of Africa has just reopened. It closed its doors for two years for renovation. Now it has a theater, a bookstore, a café. The museum also is making space for the living arts - dance, theater, music. The opening exhibition is called &quot;Art d'Afrique&quot; and presents 130 exceptional pieces. 50, ave Victor Hugo. 75016. Tel: 01 45 00 01 50. Daily 11am-7pm. Metro: Victor Hugo.
Musée des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie. This extraordinary museum was built for the colonial fair of 1913. The concrete building is a blend of Art deco and neo Greek architecture. Inside, an extraordinary mural (1,300 square meters), lauds the French colonial experience (this is 1913, after all). In 2004, the museum will move to the new museum being built near the Eiffel tower. The collections are very rich. Also, the MAAO, as it is known, is in the Bois de Vincennes, in an area of Paris seldom visited. 293, ave Daumesnil. 75012. Tel: 01 44 74 84 80. Daily except Tues. Metro: Porte Dorée.
Louvre. After decades of battles, African and Asian-Pacific arts have finally found a home in the Louvre to join the Mona Lisa and the Venus of Milo. Finally, the art which represents 80% of the world is recognized. The new wing of the Louvre has been a huge success. It is near capacity each day. Musée du Louvre. Pavillon des Sessions. Permanent exhibition. Tel: 01 40 20 51 51. www.louvre.fr
CSAO. The Compagnie du Sénégal et de l'Afrique de l'Ouest, presents in a vast space hundreds of objects from artists and artisans from Western Africa. It is a really wonderful place where you'll find extravagant attaché cases made with tin recycled from advertising, jewels and fabric. 3, rue Elzevir. 75003. Tel: 01 44 54 55 88. Mon.-Sat. 11am-7:30pm. Sun. 2pm-7:30pm. Metro: Saint-Paul.

[Marielle]

Re: Paris

also found this: (the internet is a wonderful thing!! )

<span style="font-weight: bold">Little Africa in Paris is a continent within a city </span>

Sunday, October 27, 2002

By Ervin Dyer, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

PARIS - As a child, I dreamed of Paris.

I wanted to sip coffee and smoke cigarettes in the little shops that James Baldwin had frequented.

I wanted to visit the jazz alleys and the smoky cafes in which Langston Hughes had toiled as a young poet.

I wanted to shake my booty where Josephine Baker did her banana dance and became the toast of the City of Light.

Surely, if these black Americans had found a respite from American racism in Paris, then I could do the same.

I dreamed.

As a man, I went to Africa: Ghana, Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire and South Africa.

The sun-splashed villages, the painful lessons of the slave forts, the pilgrimage of spirit.

Paris would have to wait.

Africa had stirred my consciousness, and whenever time and money allowed, I knew I'd make my way to the motherland, sup on her riches and breathe in her magnificence. There was no place else I wanted to go.

But -- Paris didn't wait. In July, I had the opportunity to travel to Barcelona, Spain, and before departing Europe, I decided to give Paris a whirl.

What I found there was the best of both worlds.

I took a daylong walking tour of black Paris, visiting sites and connecting to the African-American jazzmen, writers and artists who had come before me.

The highlight of the tour was a stop in Goutte-d'Or, a community also known as Little Africa.

It's a mystery why this hilly, crowded community in Paris' 18th arrondissement (or district) is called Goutte-d'Or, or shower of gold.

But the name Little Africa is more than appropriate.

When the neighborhood swept into view, I saw Accra, Dakar and Abidjan.

I saw the whole of Africa, as little slices of the continent thrive here.










Not knowing where to turn first, I stop in the middle of Marche Dejean, a sumptuous, exotic open-air market that is a blast of colors, sounds and people.

I sniff the spices of African life: Gumbo, dried fish and plaintains. Peppers, pineapples and mangoes.

A ginger soda from the Haiti market is a savory late afternoon pick-me-up.

The women of Goutte-d'Or walk the narrow streets dressed in traditional boubous, the brightly patterned dress of their homeland. Many carry their babies in sacks tied around their backs.

Street merchants sell their goods from the sidewalk or from cars. Many African artists call this neighborhood home; African bookshops lure; and there's no shortage of African art shops. The community moves to its own rhythm.

There are Ghananian perfume stores, Muslim butchers, Arab bakers and dozens of shops hawking artificial hair and other products.

Afternoon worship concludes at a community mosque and reveals its rainbow of tolerance and mix of ethnicities.

But all is not paradise.



If you go ... Black Paris Tours
Ricki Stevenson's tour costs 80 euros (about $80). Lunch is on your own, but Stevenson uses the time to become more familiar with her clients.

It is best to contact her a month in advance to arrange a tour. We contacted Stevenson via e-mail before we left the country and phoned to confirm the evening we arrived in Paris. She gives detailed notes on how to rendezvous with her at the tour shop, a very public space.

For more information on Black Paris Tours, visit http://www.tomtmusic
.com/id24.htm or e-mail [email protected]. From the United States, call 011-331-46-37-03-96; in Paris, call 01-46-37-03-96 or (cell phone) 06-62-68-03-96.

-- Ervin Dyer







A police van is parked nearby. It is a mobile station that rounds up les sans papiers, or people without papers, illegal immigrants. There is a growing number of them, said our guide, and Africans are often stopped and questioned. Those without proper credentials are jailed and sent home.

After all, this is the same neighborhood about five years ago where the French police forced a group of immigrants without permits out of St. Bernard Church, claiming their papers were out of order.

I get to Little Africa under the direction of Ricki Stevenson, owner of Black Paris Tours.

A lively, glowing woman, Stevenson meets her small tour group near L'Arc de Triomphe in a nearby tourist center. She is 40 minutes late. She explains her delay by saying she's on FTP, French People's Time, a schedule that allows for late subways and casual stops to chat and shop before arriving at a destination.

She is dressed in black and gives each participant a kiss on each cheek. C'est chic.

Stevenson came to Paris is 1994, pulling up roots in Oakland, Calif., to start over.

She created her tours two weeks after her arrival -- spurred on when friends came over and she took them out to see the city.

A former journalist, she did her research and unearthed dozens of tidbits on Africans and black Americans in Paris. Before we walk an inch, she unfolds a list of more than 100 black Americans who've had some link to France, and begins her lesson.

Africans first came to France as explorers; then as griots, astrologers and entertainers, establishing a long history of French and African connections, she said.

&quot;When it rains here, everybody's hair gets fuzzy,&quot; she joked, referring to generations of multiracial intermingling.

Before we start our tour, which will last for seven hours, Stevenson tells us to be wary of child pickpockets, many of whom troll subway stations haunting tourists.

Soon, we're off, in search of the stories of legions of black expatriates who flowed into Paris hoping to escape American segregation and find artistic liberty. These men and women -- intellectual Paul Robeson, author Richard Wright and poet James Weldon Johnson -- are the spotlight of Stevenson's tour.

We gallivant down the expansive Champs-Elysees, the grandest boulevard in Paris, and bits of black history seem to hide on every corner.

One of the first stops: &quot;The Marble Palace,&quot; the building that housed the apartment of Josephine Baker; across the street, the former embassy where Thomas Jefferson lived with his black girlfriend Sally Hemings.

It's a wonderful journey.

Around the corner there's the Milliardaire Cabaret, a 1920s hangout for black American musicians and entertainers after World War II. One street over, we walk the block where jazz great Sidney Bechet opened his nightclub Chez Sidney in 1951.

Stevenson's tour uses city buses and subways, but comfortable shoes are essential because we walk a lot.

In her huge bag, she has books, music tapes and photographs to illuminate her factoids. Stevenson dispenses advice and literature on restaurants and entertainment spots for blacks visiting Paris.

Before going on to view evening sites, there is lunch at a French restaurant.

Along the way, we take the tram to the top of Montmartre -- the highest point in Paris -- for a stunning view of the city. Once known as the Harlem of Paris, this area swelled with black culture before the 1950s, when blacks began to shift to the Left Bank.

It's just a few blocks away from Paris' Little Africa, a neighborhood worth a visit.

[Marielle]

Re: Paris

http://www.nileguide.com/destination/paris

OMG! I suddenly remember that I know this beautiful lady who lives in Paris, met her at a festival she sang at, when I was working for them......she gave me her card....(she's from Mali and happens to live in the same place as family of mine, small world indeed.....).

what a fabulous dress she is wearing!!

http://traitdunion.info/GUERRY/ACTIONEXTERIEURE/FEMMES3000/2008/w-soiree2008_html_41fdb8ea.jpg

[Marielle]

Re: Paris

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[Marielle]

Re: Paris

OMG!! Have been checking the map, and the african area is right by Montmartre and the Sacre Coeur(sp?)....

thought it would be like Brixton in London, at the end of the tube line, but it's a couple of streets away....

[Nylah]

Re: Paris


thanks for the wicked info Marielle dont know if I'll make it to Paris yet but this is great

[Seveen]

Re: Paris

watch out for the dog poo . . .