They Came to Paris Tour Overview
Experience Paris’s cultural history from a different angle

It is 1910 in Paris, and Coco Chanel has just opened a shop selling stylish, lightweight hats near Place Vendôme. A little farther down the Seine, visitors to the Paris Motor Show can admire the new neon lights on display. Up the hill in Montmartre and across the river in Montparnasse, a revolution is underway. Pablo Picasso has already painted (although not yet publicly exhibited) his shocking, angular Demoiselles d’Avignon. His friend Guillaume Apollinaire is working on a collection of “cubist” poems, Alcools, that experiment with perspective and will pave the way for generations of European and American poets looking for new modes of expression.
Step back into this world at once foreign and familiar, and experience the cultural history of Paris from a different angle. The 1920s of the “lost generation” are often seen the point of rupture with the conventions and values of the prewar world. In fact, by the early 1900s a new order is already taking shape. Paris will be the epicentre, drawing ambitious writers and artists from across France and around the world. The work done here will reflect a restlessness felt far beyond the French capital.
Trace the rise of modernism in all its forms

On this journey, you’ll trace the rise of modernism through the cafés and clubs of Montmartre and Montparnasse, the glamourous Grand Rex cinema, and more.
Custom guided walks, literary discussions and museum visits will deepen your understanding of life in Paris in the early years of the 20th century and the role the city played in the creative explosion that took place during and after World War I. You’ll see how the war intensified and accelerated a profound cultural and social shift we still feel one hundred years later.
Read favourite books with fresh eyes, and discover new wonders

You’ll meet plenty of larger-than-life characters along the way, including Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Guillaume Apollinaire, Le Corbusier, and Kiki de Montparnasse. They lived through and tried to make sense of a time that was exhilarating and glamorous but also desperate and confusing. Read favourite works with fresh eyes, and let new readings give you an expanded sense of how writers, artists, architects and musicians strove to create a new way of being in a world that had become unrecognizable.
Enjoy the benefits of small groups, always
You may have seen tours of 35 or 40 people advertised as “small group.” Or even been on one of these big-bus experiences. Our tours are truly small, with a cap of 16. This means lots of face time with your guides and the chance to visit sites and restaurants that are off-limits to larger tour groups.
Paris Itinerary at a Glance
Day 1: Arrive to Paris / Discussion # 1
Day 2: Montmartre walk
Day 3: Hemingway walk / Cooking class
Day 4: Discussion # 2 / Existentialism walk
Day 5: Rue Mallet-Stevens & Villa La Roche / Appartement-atelier
Le Corbusier
Day 6: Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris / Trocadéro (optional)
Day 7: Discussion # 3 / Time at leisure
Day 8: (beginning of optional extension; more details soon) Depart tour or continue to Normandy, with cheese and Calvados tasting
Day 9: All-day guided coach tour focusing on Canadian and US D-Day sites
Day 10: Visit to Caen Memorial / free time
Day 11: Depart Normandy
All Classical Pursuits tours are sold by and operate through our longtime partner Worldwide Quest, a licensed Ontario tour operator. Created in 1970 (as Quest Nature Tours and Worldwide Adventures), Worldwide Quest is Canadian owned and operated with offices in Toronto, Canada and New Delhi, India. TICO Reg. #2667946
Accommodation
The Trianon Rive Gauche, located near the Luxembourg Gardens, lies at the heart of many of the journeys we will make on our walking tours.
In Bayeux, we will be staying at the Belle Normandy or similar.
Readings
All Classical Pursuits tours include readings that we send directly to you, and that help you connect more deeply with the places you’ll see and the people you’ll meet on the tour.
- Selected poems by Guillaume Apollinaire
- The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
- Selected works by Kay Boyle, Simone de Beauvoir, and others
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