My 5 Favourite Posts of 2013

Following last week’s list of the most popular articles this year, here are the five articles I personally enjoyed producing. Visitor numbers were not quite so high for these, so if you have not done so far, please click on the links and read the stories!
 
I hope that next year I will still be able to publish such a list and not just simply reproduce the only 5 posts of the year!

The list is in no particular order.

Searching for Somewhere on the Road to Nowhere 
I could sit and study historic maps of Paris for hours on end, which is just as well because that is exactly what I did for this post. I am always very happy when articles I have published previously spring back into life, with readers bringing valuable new elements. In this case, a reader contacted me after seeing mention of the building in which he lived, giving me a little bit of extra insider information. Bizarrely, as I went to investigate I even managed to bump into him outside the building!

Invisible Dossiers - A Room with a View 
Of all the things I have produced in nearly 4 and a half years on this blog, this is probably the document I am most proud of. For once, it is also something that seems complete, although there remains the tempting mystery of the missing film. The post itself is just a link, pointing towards a 10-page PDF document that tells the full story.
 
The postcard, the book and the post also led to a friendship. What more could I possibly ask for?

Concrete Paris: a New Invisible Paris Walking Tour 
I enjoy producing walking tours, and in many ways I think they are the ideal support for the material I produce on this blog. Finding an audience for them is another matter. I rely on partners to create and distribute them, but in this particular case I think they have priced the service too high. Although producing these walks does take an extraordinary amount of my (free) time - I will keep working on new themes in 2014!

Through La Chapelle, In Search of the Croix de l'Evangile
Walking is an essential element of this blog - perhaps the essential element. A walk is a journey, but also a way to open up particular districts of the city, and to tease out their idiosyncracies and narrative threads. When I later report these walks - as was the case here - a certain amount of deception is involved (they are often the reflection of several visits rather than just one particular stroll). Yes, there is an element of fiction on this blog, but I will leave it to you to imagine where and when.

Crop The Block: How Parisians See Paris

A blog that lives in isolation is of no interest. We all need to feel part of a larger community, and linked to people who have similar ideas and similar ways of looking at things. This is why I was delighted this year to welcome Lyon to the Invisible family. It is also why I was very happy to feature Crop The Block on Invisible Paris. I don't do videos of Paris - they do them very well!

Thanks again for reading in 2013 - I hope to see you all again in 2014!