paris greeter

We went on a walking tour of Paris with a local named Das. Paris has this program called Paris Greeter, and they employ volunteers who are all locals of Paris to give tours to anyone for free. We got Das, and since he lives near Montparnasse, we asked him to show us that area instead of the touristy spots. The program focuses on off-the-beaten-path places, so we loved the walking tour. We saw Montparnasse in a completely different light, found some new parks [Montsouris], and found streets where famous artists, writers, and politicians lived.

Lots of artists and writers lived on this street. It's full of very old houses, some have been burned but remain standing like the one above, and just waiting for someone to fix it and love it! I wish I had the money to redo this house, the vines and such growing on it are fantastic!!!

Lenin lived in this building when he was in Paris, and the dark spot on the wall [near the bottom of the pic] use to be a plaque that the government put up to say that Lenin lived here. However, there was a lot of anger when the plaque was put up, in addition to a fire that erupted inside the building, so the plaque was taken off.

View of La Tour Eiffel from Montparnasse train station.