Not just a hotel dining room, the Brasserie of the Hotel Lutetia is one of the hot spots of the Left Bank. On any given night you might see writers, movie stars and politicians. Even model first lady Carla Sarkozy has visited. Decorated by the Left Bank’s most ubiquitous designer, Sonia Rykiel, with full respect for [...]
Paris on a tight budget? Believe it or not, it’s possible. The website ParisFrance.com has a selection of hotels with rooms for less than $150 per night. Here are a few of the many you will find on the ParisFrance.com website. The two-star Hôtel de Londres et d’Anvers (right) offers sunny interiors in the trendy, [...]
Located in La Butte aux Calles, an adorable, remote neighborhood dense with lovely little treasures, La Clarière is a wonderland of hand-printed linens produced in limited series on site. But if you’re looking for precious chichi motifs with elaborate affect you’ve got the wrong address. La Clarière’s linens are clean compositions of color, shape and [...]
As I was walking home last week, I was greeted by a not-so-friendly message from the FNJ — the youth arm of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s ultra-nationalist party le Front National (FN). Within the stencil of la belle France are the words “AIMEZ-LÀ OU QUITTEZ-LÀ.” In English that translates to “France: Love it or Leave it.” If these [...]
Bird on the Wire is a cute little boutique in the 4th, on the river side of rue St. Antoine, which I happened upon the other day. Filled with great gift ideas including notebooks, jewelry, knitted objects, fun Japanese candy and gadgets. I loved the tights from Les Queues de Sardine with handprinted clouds, flowers [...]
It snowed twice Wednesday and today as well in Paris: huge fluffy flakes that quickly coated everything in a blanket of white. An hour later, the sun shone and the snow melted. This afternoon, another flurry came down hard, only to vanish in an hour. That’s the thing about weather in Paris: not only is [...]
Did you think you have to go to Rio de Janeiro or Venice to celebrate the Carnival? This year, forget these obvious destinations and join the Carnival celebrations in Paris! On Sunday, February 14th at 2.30pm, the Carnival de Paris procession will start from Place Gambetta, reach Belleville at 4pm and Place de la République at [...]
If you don’t know about the passages, you must learn. I don’t mean to sound professorial, but I made the same mistake—coming to Paris for an embarrassingly long time before I finally made the discovery. The passages are old-fashioned shopping malls from the late 1700s and early 1800s that provided cover from rain, mud and [...]
Discovering the home of a mustard factory in Paris is amusing but not surprising. One hundred years ago the city was home to many similar institutions, with Parisians producing a variety of things that ranged from paper to cars. Today the smoke and odours have disappeared but several traces of this industrial past, such as [...]
When I was first applying for my carte de séjour, I remember being asked during my mandatory medical exam whether or not I exercised. I thought about it for a moment, and decided not to lie, so I told the doctor that since arriving in France, I’d stopped doing yoga, but felt like I got [...]
