The acrid odor you get accustomed to over time, the boats dispatched to dredge clogs like polar icebreakers, the stuffed sewer rats put on display by the waste treatment authorities.

Yes, the self-guided tour of Le Musée de l’Egout (Museum of the Sewers) gave Rogers and me some common underground to talk about Paris – even though I spent just three days there in 2006.

Rogers, meanwhile, a 1991 North Kitsap High School graduate, has lived in Paris for the past four years.

Last year, she and her business partner, Aussie Jade Maitre, launched Gadabout Paris, an online English language travel guide you’ll find at gadabout.biz.

But Gadabout isn’t your blasé reference to the standard classics – Eiffel Tower, Musée du Louvre and Champs lysées.

No, Rogers specializes in the real Paris like the local bohemians experience it: The Cuban bar with the best mojitos. Explorations in the 1,400 miles of mostly off-limits catacombs under Paris. The secret courtyard on a Seine River isle where locals sunbathe naked. La Crypte Polska, the Polish restaurant in a burial crypt beneath a church where the waitresses speak only French and Polish. The best riverside spot for a wine and cheese picnic with the locals. Le Louis Vins, the side-street bistro where you’ll get real French food. Moon City, a spa for swingers. The sewer tour.

“We thought most of the touristy stuff was lame,” said Rogers, 35. “If we list a touristy thing, it’s only because we think it has value.

“We’re mostly trying to list things the locals do. The places they go where you won’t find tourists. Anyplace in Paris that caters to tourists, the quality is low and the prices are high. The places where the locals go, the quality is higher and the prices lower, because the locals expect it.”

Rogers and Maitre put the results of their research in an e-zine published six to eight times a year, videos, online articles and podcasts that you can download for self-guided tours.

Some downloads, like “How to Use the Paris Metros” you can download free. More detailed tours, like “Historic French Garden Tour” or the forthcoming “Artists of Monmarte,” cost a little more than $7 each to download.

“With your iPod on, then you’re a tourist without looking like one. You’re not following this big herd of people,” Rogers said. “You can stop at any point through the tour and get a cafe au lait. … Each stop is its own audio file, and there’s a map with the best places to eat on each tour.”

How did a small town girl from Hansville at the tip of Hood Canal wind up as a guide to bohemian Paris?

“When I was 18, I decided I needed to get out of Kitsap County or I might never leave,” she said.

Then while studying botany and biotechnology research at the University of Washington, Rogers’ best friend married a Frenchman in Saint-Malo, a Middle Age walled island city in Northwestern France.

Rogers, the maid of honor, fell in love with the best man.

“It’s very cliché,” Rogers said.

She found a job teaching English to French high schoolers. Eventually, she used her UW degree to get a job teaching online courses in cultural anthropology and environmental science through Ashford University.

And the romance? “That went downhill quickly due to cultural differences,” Rogers said. But her love of the City of Lights lasted.

She didn’t speak French, so she enrolled in a language class. That’s where she met Jade Maitre of Sydney, Australia.

“Jade and I were living here about a year and found we had to carry around two or three different guidebooks to get everything we wanted in one place. Even that wasn’t helpful. Most of the stuff in the guidebooks is fluff,” Rogers said.

“That’s when we got the idea for Gadabout. We thought we could do our own walking tours and resource pages for all the things that were useful to us but we learned the hard way after living here.”

The literary cafes. Cocktail spots. Where to buy cheese and bread for your picnic. Seven French wines and the foods to pair with them.

Once the Gadabout business model catches fire in Paris, the duo hopes to launch Gadabout Sydney – Maitre’s hometown. Then, perhaps, comes Gadabout Ireland.

This Gadabout duty sounds like grueling research, huh?

“We’ve worked our heinies off to make it happen,” she said. (I think she meant derrieres.)

Dan Voelpel: 253-597-8785

dan.voelpel@thenewstribune.com

Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | About Our Ads | Advertising Partners | Contact Us | About Us | Site Map | Jobs | RSS
1950 South State Street, Tacoma, Washington 98405 253-597-8742
© Copyright 2009 Tacoma News, Inc. A subsidiary of The McClatchy Company