Ryan's Paris

A personal tour through some unknown
features of the French capital

Ah! la charmante chose
Quitter un pays morose
Pour Paris... ..
(Guillaume Appollinaire, 1880-1918)


The 20 arrondissements of Paris

The site, like Paris, is organised by arrondissement. Simply click on one of the numbers on this map of Paris to be brought to the arrondissement in question.

Here follows a photographic and literary (?) essay on one of the world's favourite cities. It is the fruit of my last 10 years of living in the French capital, some research and, above all, several months of pounding the pavements from one corner of Paris to the next armed with a camera and notebook. That said, the better-quality photographs are due to Pascal "Atget" Augy, a fellow pavement-pounder, while the more pitiful efforts are my own.

The site has no pretention to be the "ultimate" site on Paris. Such a site can never exist. Instead, my aim is to present facets of the Paris "experience" through the eyes of an outsider who has been resident in the city for the past decade. The only criteria I have used for including titbits of history and everyday life is that they should not be included in any guidebook of note. This is definitely NOT a site for somebody visiting Paris for a long weekend and hoping to see the main sites.

I hope you enjoy my modest efforts! Please let me know what you think by sending me an e-mail.
Isidore Ryan (Esq.)

Visit my other Paris site, www.irishmeninparis.org