The Man with the Baguette

A Day-by-Day Account of a Month in France

During a brief visit to Paris many years ago, John Blattner and his wife Peggy were leaving their Metro station one evening when a man scurrying past them in the crowd caught John’s attention.  He was wearing a small backpack and holding a sack with a baguette in it.  John fancied that he was an honest-to-goodness Parisien, not a tourist, headed home at the end of the day with bread for the dinner table.  What would it be like, John wondered, to be the man with the baguette?  To experience life in France, even for a short time, the way les Français do?   

Part memoir and part visual journey, this book tells what happened when that question was answered.  It’s a day-by-day account, in words and pictures, of a month spent wandering in Paris and Provence.  It describes not just the people, places, restaurants, and wines John and Peggy discovered, but also what they learned from—and how they were changed by—their experiences.