From: Dani
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1996 15:24:15 +0200
Subject: European Barefooters Meeting

Hi all,

The first European Barefooters Meeting happend on saturday 17th and sunday
18th august 1996 in Paris, France.
We had very nice weather and pleasant, almost hot temperatures. There was
little traffic in the streets because of the vacation period, which was
comfortable. But there were long queues of tourists, making it inconvenient
to visit hot spots like the Eiffel Tower or the Cathedral.

We walked barefoot all over the streets of Paris, used the underground, eat
in some restaurants and visited several bars. Our soles became rather black
towards the end of the day. All this without any troubles, but with strange
looks from time to time. French people in general are very private and
therfore only look but never give comments. And we did not see other real
barefooters. Only some people who took off their shoes in front of a
fountain, or a woman who seemingly suffered from her shoes and therfore
went barefoot with the shoes in her hand.
After that "all-barefoot-weekend" everybody was happy and all our feet were
in great shape. For unconditioned soles the sum of kilometers we did most
likely would have been too much.
The meeting was a big success!

On saturday morning the participants of the EBM met underneath "La Tours Eiffel"
(Eiffel Tower). Not many people showed up, but by 10 o'clock we were the
glorious barefoot four: Stefan, Dani, Heinz and Patrick together with Frank
and Gabi who accompanied us.
We started our tour towards "Montparnasse", had a look at the "Musee
Rodin", the "Hotel des Invalides" and visited  "Les jardins de
l'Atlantique", a park on top of the Montparnasse railway station. Little
fountains and water installations where you can walk in, together with the
grass and stones around formed a nice field  of different textures for our
bare feet! Finally we ended up in a creperie for lunch (restaurant, where
you eat crepes).

In the afternoon we first went to the "Jardin de Luxembourg", then to the
"Pantheon" and continued through "Rue Mouffetard"(famous street) to the
"Place de la Contrescarpe" (square of the clochards) where we sat down for
a drink.
We saw "Les arenes de Lutece" (roman arena), "La faculte de Jussieu"
(faculty of law) and "Le jardin des plantes" (museum of natural history)
before we arrived at the "Quai Saint bernard" (waterfront along the river
Seine with a lot of modern sculpures and a lot of people laying in the
sun).
The "Cité" (main island and heart of the city) was so crowded, that we only
had a look at the "Cathedral Notre Dame" from the outside.
Passing over to "Beaubourg" we came accross "L'Hotel de Ville" (city hall),
visited "Les Halles" (a large shopping mall) and the famous fountain of
"Nikki de Saint Phalle" with its turning and water spitting machines close
to the "Centre Pompidou". We were not allowed to enter the "Centre
Pompidou" without shoes and therefore cancelled the visit. The guard at the
entrance argued with safety reasons and we were embarrassed given the fact
how free and  modernistic art is presented here!
In the evening we went to "Montmartre" and had dinner in a small restaurant,
relaxing with an excellent glas of wine and a  fantastic (hi hi) view over
the city of Paris.

On sunday morning we met again at the Metro station "Porte de Clignancourt"
and visited one of the largest flee markets in Paris. A big part of this
market is an assemly of individual shops within a large building, organised
like a department store. The non-professionals are outside in the street
and create the real atmosphere of a flee market with their mixture of
goodies and trash.

Afterwards we took the metro (underground) to the "Bois de Boulogne" where
we had lunch in a shady little restaurant. On the way back to town we had
the chance to give our soles some soft lawn relax, which was very welcome
after so many kilometers over hard concrete and asphalt surfaces.

In the late sunday afternoon the 1st European Barefooters Meeting came to
its official end in front of the "Arc de Triomph", were we shot a final
picture! (will be soon published somewhere on the net). Everybody happily
disappeared on his own path, and Paris  slowly (Stefan and Gabi stayed for
two more days) turned back into its shod normality. Never before the
sidewalks of Paris have been visited by such an amount of bare feet for a
whole weekend! It was great! Most likely there will be EBM2 in 1997
somewhere in Europe...?

Dani



                         .oooO  Oooo.
                         (   )  (   )
                          \ (    ) /
 -dani (jddbs@access.ch)   \_)  (_/   bare fun and black soles!
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