Map of Paris, Women of Paris Tours

Picking a subject for February's map was easy this year - Parisian women of note .

The drawing was not so easy. Deciding who to put in and who to leave out. My choices are strictly personal.

Since I pass Sainte Genevieve daily on Pont de la Tournelle and adore her statue by sculptor  Paul Landowski (who created the far better known Christ the Redeemer in Rio) she is included. After all she is Paris' patron saint, plus she saved Paris by diverting  Atilla the hun's army. I loved Yvette Guilbert's yellow dress. One does need some color.

To help choose other Parisian women of note I took Heidi Evan's SUGAR AND SPICE tour of women writers on Wednesday (42€).

Writer George Sand was already a choice. She lived for a while at 31, rue de Seine.

I didn't know a license was required from les flics to crossdress. Nor that she is still France's second most-read writer.

We stopped outside writer Colette's apartment on rue Jacob. She was more or less kept prisoner here by her first husband, Henry Gauthier-Villars (1859 – 1931) to keep her writing the Claudine stories, so he could collect the fame and $$$.

Intermittently we stopped for pastry and candy delights to fortify us for the 3 hour tour. I abstained. But note that Popelini colored all their creampuffs lovely shades of pink for St. Valentines day.

At Henri Le Roux I could have easily taken over for Heidi and talked an hour about French caramels but it was not my tour.

Here we visited the original site of Sylvia Beach's Shakespeare and Company on rue de l'Odeon.

We stopped briefly at Restaurant Procope, Paris' oldest restaurant.

Daniele and I lagged behind admiring the windows/lechë vitrine at fabric designer Pierre Frey. Dubliner Rebecca Devaney leads textile tours of Paris and formerly embroidered in the haut couture (but not on Natalie Portland's coat of the famed 900 hours). I hope to go and report back on her tours too.As a reward for abstaining from all the sweets on the tour and going back to work on the Feb Paris map, I got a vanilla dixi cup 😳 I'm turning it into a piggybank and will deposit 2€ daily instead of at Picard frozen foods. I may get to Lisbon yet🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼 Thanks for reading Parisbreakfast. Please share with a friend. Get a taste of Paris letters 💌and watercolors in your mailbox 📮Xxx❤️Carolg🐻Bear