Cities to explore
Where would you like
to be told a story?
Forty-nine cities are on our map and 517 places are already written. Saint-Malo is waiting for you today; four cities are being walked in testing before they open, nineteen are written and under study, twenty-five are being scouted. Here is exactly where each one stands, with nothing rounded up.
Where each city stands
Four states, said plainly.
A city does not open the day its texts are finished. Between the last line written and the first visitor there are still the translations, the images, the mapping to the metre and the walk on site. These four words mean exactly what they say.
Live
You can walk it now. Texts, routes, mapping and the walk on site are all done. One city.
In testing
The route is written, the offer is in place, and the city is being walked right now to check that every trigger lands where it should. Four cities.
Under study
The places are researched and written, sources cross-checked. What is missing is the images, the last translations and the walk on site. Nineteen cities.
Being scouted
We are checking a city has enough stories to whisper before committing months of writing. Twenty-five cities.
In testing
Four cities are
being walked right now.
Their routes are written end to end and the itinerary is in place. We are pacing them street by street to make sure every story fires at the right kerb. They will open in the order they pass that test, and not before.
Cancale
The port that looks out at the Mont.
La Houle, the oyster beds, the bisquines and the cod fleet: a town that tells itself at low tide as well as at high, facing the bay of Mont-Saint-Michel.
Annecy
The lake at the end of the canals.
The Thiou, the arcades, the Palais de l’Isle and an old town wedged between two mountains: a city born of a crossing on the water that later turned to face its lake.
Nantes
The castle, the Loire and the Machines.
The castle of the dukes, the Bouffay, Graslin, the island and the estuary. It is our richest city, and the first to speak seven languages.
Lisbon
Seven hills and the Tagus.
The Baixa rebuilt after the earthquake, the Chiado, the Alfama, the castle and the miradouros: the first Murmures city outside France.
Under study
Nineteen cities
are already written.
For each one the places are chosen, located to the metre and written up, with two or three concurring sources per fact and the false legends dismantled in the text itself. What is missing is the images, the last translations and the walk on site: that work decides the order they open in.
Prague Under study
The city of a hundred spires: Charles Bridge, the castle, the old town and the Vltava.
Dinan Under study
The medieval town on the Rance, from the castle down the rue du Jerzual to the harbour.
Mont-Saint-Michel Under study
The abbey set on the bay, the Grande Rue, the Merveille, the sands and the great tides.
Aix-en-Provence Under study
The cours Mirabeau, the fountains, the Mazarin mansions and Cézanne’s studio.
Avignon Under study
The Palais des Papes, the bridge, the ramparts on the Rhône, and where you really dance.
Deauville Under study
The Planches, the parasols, the villas and a certain Norman idea of elegance.
Colmar Under study
Little Venice, the half-timbered fronts, the flowered canals and the Maison des Têtes.
Dinard Under study
The Belle Époque facing Saint-Malo: the villas, the Clair de Lune promenade and the beaches.
Honfleur Under study
The Vieux Bassin, the slate fronts, Sainte-Catherine and the light the impressionists came for.
Bayonne Under study
The banks of the Nive, the half-timbered houses, the chocolate and the fêtes.
Biarritz Under study
The Rocher de la Vierge, the surf, imperial elegance, and who really built that footbridge.
Carcassonne Under study
The fortified city, its fifty-two towers, its lists, and the truth about Dame Carcas.
Chamonix-Mont-Blanc Under study
The Mont Blanc valley, the Mer de Glace and the pioneers of mountaineering.
Arles Under study
The Roman arena, the antique theatre, Van Gogh and the gates of the Camargue.
Collioure Under study
The Catalan port of the Fauves, its belltower in the water, between vines and the sea.
Rocamadour Under study
The sanctuary city hung on its cliff, its chapels and the great stair above the Alzou.
Les Baux-de-Provence Under study
The citadel of the Alpilles, cut from the white rock, with the Val d’Enfer below.
Vézelay Under study
The eternal hill, its basilica, its tympanum and the start of the road to Compostela.
Gordes Under study
The village perched facing the Luberon, its calades and Sénanque abbey below.
Being scouted
Twenty-five cities
we are going to see.
Nothing is written for these yet. We walk them, we listen, we check they hold enough stories to deserve months of writing. They will join the study list in the order they convince us.
Every city, whatever its state, has its place on the map, with its rivers, its relief and its roads. See the map of whispers →
Where we stand
Why so few cities
open? On purpose.
Written, not generated
A city means months of archive research and authored writing. We refuse the endless catalogue of interchangeable content, where the same template is served up from one city to the next with the proper nouns swapped out.
Tested on foot
Every route is walked, timed and rewritten on site, in all weathers, until the story lands exactly right at every street corner. That is the whole point of the testing state.
Several cities inside the city
A city does not have one route but several threads, and one does not tell the same story as the next. In Saint-Malo, following the corsairs or following the shipwrecks is not the same day out. Writing those threads is the slowest part of the work.
Start with
the corsair city.
Forty-nine places told, three threads to follow, and the city’s price shown on its own page. It is the one everything started with.