A Literary Walking Tour

John Baxter is described by his French in-laws as a "bon raconteur" and it is this attribute that ensured he was accepted into the family. He now lives in the 6e arrondissement in a building whose staircases and bannisters have been touched by the shoes and fingertips of writers such as Hemmingway and Fitzgerald. I visited John in May when he suggested I might like to be more involved with this year's workshop than simply as their web designer and attendee. I love him for the suggestion!

John conducts walking tours of the city, especially the area around Montparnasse where he explains why artists and writers were drawn to this particular part of the city in the 1920s, how the writers lived, how café culture grew as a result of Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann's sweeping changes to the city, where the most exquisitely overlooked Art Deco buildings can be found and how the philosophers, artists, actors, writers, and their muses lived and partied. 

He shepherded a group of us along rue Vaugirard, boulevard du Montparnasse, rue Delambre, Square Delambre and the Montparnasse cemetery for 2 hours and on Tuesday next week he will do the same thing in the film that Tom is making.