It's impossible not to love Paris. If you have never visited the City of Light, it is everything they say it is and more. The only thing that is not true about Paris is the rumor that its residents are rude to people who do not speak the language. This is decidedly untrue. Besides, come summer, most of the Parisians leave the city to make room, or to avoid the tourists.
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When Agnès Poirier couldn't find a Paris 'greeter' to show her around the city she decided to offer herself as a guide. Follow her Vélib cycle tour with winning reader Aisling Quiery
Last December, I tried my luck at a new scheme called "Paris greeter", whose volunteers take you on an intimate tour of Paris. The original idea behind the initiative was to fight the city's unfriendly image. I applied and was ignored. How typical I thought - but it seems that I had probably just been unlucky since I later received a dozen emails all enthusing about the Paris greeter association, praising its professionalism and friendliness.
However, at the time, in order to salve my city's honour, I offered myself to Guardian readers as their very own Paris greeter. Among the 73 applicants who wrote to me, explaining in a few words why they would like to go on a tour with moi, I picked Aisling Q, a young Irish woman. She wrote: "Paris captured the hearts of Samuel Beckett and James Joyce, my literary heroes. As an Irish woman learning French, I am longing to discover the beauty of modern Paris for myself. Then, I hope, I can tell you why it is the most beautiful city in the world." Her words, like those of her literary heroes won me over.
We agreed to wait until the beginning of July, in Samuel Beckett's own words, "les beaux jours". A month before our Saturday tour, I sent Aisling a questionnaire: how well did she know Paris? Was she a shopping addict, a museum lover, or a keen walker? Did she like croissants, cinema and flea markets? None of the above?
Aisling had been to Paris only once, climbed up the Eiffel Tower and that was about it. She seemed open to everything and was a keen cyclist. The day before we met, I browsed through L'Officiel, the 35 cent weekly bible to what's on in Paris, selected a large array of activities, events and exhibitions and hoped for fair weather. Aisling liked cycling? Easy, we would cycle everywhere by Vélib, the free bicycle scheme that has changed the face of Paris since its creation in July 2007.
We met near her hotel at 12am, Au petit fer à cheval, a café that has a 1930s bar in the shape of a horse-shoe (fer à cheval). I scanned the faces. "Salut!" said a tall 32-year-old woman smiling at me with a red flower in her hair. She had brought Le Monde with her and had already ordered a "petit noir". She told me bravely, finding her words, that we should speak no other language but French during the trip, which she had started learning at school and then in francophone Africa while working for a medical NGO as a biology graduate. Now training to become a doctor, she is planning to work in Toulouse this summer and perhaps return to Mali in a couple of years.
The decision was taken to cycle up north through the unfashionable but colourful areas of République, Barbès and Clignancourt to Les Puces de St Ouen, the place where the concept of flea markets (puces) was first invented in the late 1880s. We got a Vélib day pass for a token ?1 and set off north. I gave Aisling a few tips about choosing a Vélib and then about cycling in Paris: always beware of the unruly Parisians, assert your presence by (almost constantly) ringing your bell. In Saint Ouen, Aisling bought 1960s advertising key rings, all with a different shape and slogan. Cycling had heightened our appetite, so we chose to stand at the zinc bar of typical Brasserie Paul Bert (20, rue Paul Bert) for a quick and extremely good value ?6 lunch of marinated salmon with potato gratin.
Back in the saddle, we pedalled north to Montmartre and the Sacré-Coeur basilica for an all-encompassing view of Paris, before freewheeling down to le Moulin Rouge and from there to Opéra, Place Vendôme and Le Louvre pyramid. Showing no trace of fatigue, Aisling was keen to go on cycling. We glided past boulevard St Germain up to the St Louis Island where I declared cycling truce. We had reached the Berthillon stand, the best ice-cream in Paris, time for a mango sorbet I thought.
There was little time for meditation though. From one feast of the palate to another: Aisling wanted to buy cheese to bring back to her family in Ireland. I took her to Fromagerie Laurent Dubois, Place Maubert, where she chose a camembert for immediate consumption and a Corsican goat cheese to keep. Keen to perfect her French in a friendly and painless manner, Aisling thought she could brush up by reading French comics. Luckily, we were in the comic strip strip, just near Paris's oldest bookshop selling graphic novels, Album. With Marjane Sartrapi's Persepolis and Jean Tardi's sleek historical comic strip classics under her arm, Aisling was ready for more culture. Nothing easier in the heart of the Latin Quarter. We had just time to catch the 6pm screening of Alexander Mackendrick's The Ladykillers, a 1955 gem of British cinema, at the famous art-house theatre, Action Ecoles - a film that is next to impossible to see on a big screen in Britain. Then, after the screening, and on my recommendation, Aisling went to bakery Kayser, rue Monge, to get a ?4 poulet and tomates confites baguette sandwich which she savoured in her room with a glass of wine.
Our Paris tour could have ended with a glass of Gigondas but it didn't. We met again the following morning at café Panis, opposite Notre-Dame for a petit crème and pain au chocolat. Undaunted by Parisian traffic and having mastered the art of Vélib, with her pass still valid for another 12 hours, Aisling wanted to make the most of it. I showed her the way to another flea-market: les Puces de Vanves. I saw her off, and waved good-bye as her silhouette, vanished effortlessly, ascending Rue St Jacques.
I don't know whether Paris enchanted Aisling but I certainly never tired of seeing the city I love through her eyes. Outsiders always make you see things for the first time, and make you question what you held as certainties. I don't know whether I was a good greeter but Aisling certainly was a great visitor.
Aisling Quiery It was the little things only a Parisian could know that made the tour so special, like how to enjoy un café et croissant for half the price (sit at the counter rather than at a table), where to find the best boulangerie in St-Germain-des-Pres (Rue Monge of course) and the best ice-cream (hint - look for the long queues) and how to avoid the embarrassment of your fresh camembert stinking out Eurostar on the way home (get it vacuum wrapped at the fromagerie). C'est vrai, I was a Parisian for a day. I just hope that, like a true Parisian, I won't be able to stay away for long.
Getting there
Aisling and Agnes travelled with Eurostar from London St Pancras to Paris Gare du Nord. Tickets from £59 return per person. eurostar.com
Paris hotel: Little Palace Hotel, 4 Rue Salmon De Caus Cnr 100, Paris, 75003 booked via hotels.com £125 per person for a single room.
London hotel: Holiday Inn, Kings Cross/Bloomsbury. Rooms from £93 per night holidayinn.com
Locating a man you've never met in an unknown apartment heaving with strangers sounds like a challenge, yet it takes me less than 10 seconds to spot Jim Haynes. As people mill around the open-plan kitchen, spilling out into the living room and the garden beyond, he is easily identifiable, perched on a stool, specs resting neatly on the end of his nose.
Guests have been flooding to American-born Jim's converted artist's studio in the 14th arrondissement for more than 30 years. Every Sunday evening, he operates an open-house policy, cooking dinner for anyone who cares to drop by. All you have to do is call or send an email. You don't need to have any mutual contacts; those passing through for a night are as welcome as old friends. Most startling of all - in these credit crunched times - is that he doesn't charge but simply asks guests to leave a donation in an envelope (€25 suggested).
I arrive expecting an informal dinner party, with a small group seated around a table, but instead I find the place packed with more than 70 attendees. "I'm so glad you made it," says Jim, with genuine enthusiasm, after I make my way through the crowds to introduce myself. "You needn't have brought anything," he adds, eyeing the bottle of wine in my hand.
I discover teetotal Jim, 75, always provides not just food at his weekly gatherings, but also all the drinks - boxed wine, bottled beer and soft drinks. Profits from donations go to various artistic and social projects.
Tonight's Indian theme sees mountains of chicken curry, dhal, raita and rice being dished out of huge vats, and it's surprisingly good considering the numbers they're catering for. Each week, Jim invites a guest chef, and their success has even inspired a cookbook on group catering, Throw a Great Party: Inspired by Evenings in Paris with Jim Haynes (iUniverse, £9).
Guests step up to the hob to be served, then find a place to perch - either on one of the chairs laid out in the garden or on a sofa underneath walls crowded with souvenirs and photos. I'm amazed by how approachable everyone is, whether they're a first-timer, like me, or one of the core of regulars. Here "working the room" involves no actual work, it seems to happen effortlessly.
Guests' ages range from 20 to 80. I meet artists and scientists, locals and expats. Antonia, a British expat and tonight's guest chef, introduces me to a young filmmaker from Guadeloupe; an American pianist invites me to one of his recitals; and a local called Michael insists that next time I visit I attend his own open-house dinners, held every Saturday evening near Notre Dame (see meetup.com/TalkTime). Everyone here seems to have a story to tell. But could any surpass Jim's?
Born in Louisiana, he spent his teens in Venezuela, followed by long stints in Edinburgh, London and Amsterdam before finally settling in Paris. I discovered he started an experimental theatre in Edinburgh, co-founded a magazine celebrating sexual freedom in 1960s Amsterdam, and has been called the "godfather of social networking" following his 1980s series of self-published People-to-People guides, which listed addresses of local people willing to help or host travellers. It seems Jim was setting the hospitality-tourism trend 20 years before the birth of CouchSurfing.
With all this in mind, I expected some bolshie extrovert, holding court in the centre of the room. But Jim is the opposite: softly spoken and unassuming, possessing an interesting mix of unshockable worldliness and an appreciation of the simple things in life. ("I've just had a lovely lemon tart," he writes in an email to me before we meet.)
"These nights began by accident," he tells me later, as guests begin to disperse (a typical Sunday night dinner runs from 8pm sharp until 11pm). In the mid 70s, a young American dancer knocked on his door and nervously explained that she had just arrived in the city. A friend had suggested Jim as a good person for any newcomer to know. It was quite an understatement. Jim immediately offered his spare room, and she offered to return the favour by cooking for him and his friends every week. Before long, these nights became legendary. An estimated 120,000 have dined chez Jim over the years, sparking countless friendships and even weddings. He tells me how he once introduced female twins from Suriname to two brothers from Edinburgh, and both sets ended up marrying. "Sunday dinners: an ongoing story" reads his website. Fancy being a part of it? Just drop him a line. Everyone's welcome.
? To put your name on the list for a Sunday dinner call 0033 1 43 27 17 67 or visit jim-haynes.com. After over 40 years in his apartment,Jim plans to move in 2009 but he will remain in Paris and the Sunday dinners will continue. Details will be added to his website in due course. Eurostar (eurostar.com) runs from London St Pancras, Ebbsfleet and Ashford to Paris from £59 rtn. 2binParis.com (+1 47 34 01 50) features about 120 B&Bs throughout the city, with rooms from €35-€100pp pn.
Come dine with me: More supperclubs
Worldwide
Like-a-local.com has a range of listings for places around the world where you can eat with locals, including a houseboat in Amsterdam, a roof terrace in Barcelona and a Porto apartment where the host serves wine from his own vineyard.
From €36 per head.
US
The Ghetto Gourmet, an underground dining experience that started in Oakland, California, in 2004 has spread across the US. Meals are typically prepared by a professional chef on their day off at a non-restaurant location. Priced between $40-$100. theghet.com.
US and Europe
"We're not a professional travel agency ... just a normal couple from Colorado with a big idea," reads the website for dinewithlocals.com. Their idea involves pairing travellers with hosts willing to invite them around to eat. It operates worldwide, but is most active in the US and Europe. Guests pay $46 for a two-hour dinner, out of which the host receives $30.
London
Last week Horton Jupiter served eight friends a nine-course Japanese-themed meal. So? So, the evening was dubbed The Secret Ingredient, the friends were paying (a tenner each) and he plans to make it a weekly event. The front room of his Newington Green flat is small but he's hoping to "squeeze in an intimate table for two in the corner." Sounds too far up its own trendy east London backside? Maybe, but supperclubs like this are all the rage in the US, so Horton just might be on to something.
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