Escape from Paris? Yes, sometimes even the truest Parisphile needs a little break from the romance of this concrete jungle in exchange for some country air. We arose early to the sun gently warming our toes peeking out from under the duvet and knew, this was our day to escape. But where to…? “Somewhere less…
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It’s that time of the year again. Parisians close up shop for August to chase the last rays of summer outside la capitale, turning the city into a veritable ghost town. Tourists and locals alike are left wondering where on earth they can find an open boulangerie, where they can shop, dine, and make merry…
If you’ve ever lived in Paris or had notions of living in or travelling to Paris, a twenty year-old podcast episode from This American Life is essential listening. For the program’s 25th anniversary, producers dug up the episode for rediscovery, and as the author of book called Don’t be a Tourist in Paris, the podcast…
The Montmartre annual wine harvest has been a festive Parisian tradition since 1934, but we’ve come across some photographs from the 1950s that reveal a time in the vineyard’s history when the grape-picking ceremony added an extra kick into the celebration. Wink wink. Since the 19th century, the Parisian vineyard’s closest neighbours have included the infamous cabaret and burlesque houses…
Paris and New York: both have islands, both have Statues of Liberty, crazy people on the metro, and unbeknownst to most, they both have parks in the sky. Until a little while ago, I was under the impression that New York’s much-adored HighLine was a totally unique feature to the Big Apple. But when le…
In the dappled light coming through the trees, a jovial bohemian crowd have gathered to dance and dally at the Moulin de la Galette, one of the many windmills that originally stood at the northern tip of Paris. By the time Renoir’s famous painting had captured the scene in 1876, the unlikely venue was already…
For our latest adventure on the Don’t be a Tourist in Paris web series, we go 30 feet beneath the city to discover the subculture of iconic midnight movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show just in time for Halloween. Below ground, we’re in the subterranean cinema of Alexander J E Bradley a photographer, filmmaker and catacomb-dweller (aka. cataphile).…
In the mood for something cozy and pastoral for fall in Paris? Something “cottagecore” – internet slang for all that is effervescently au natural. Think gingham tablecloths, and cottages on rolling fields with cuddly donkeys. Think quaint bee houses in the Luxembourg Gardens, or a stroll through Paris’ accidental gingerbread house street. Fun fact: 31%…
This week the French are celebrating Bastille day. It’s a really big deal, sort of like American Independence day and we celebrate being Frenchies and all that patriotic stuff. So I thought being half French myself, I’d do a little patriotic post on why it’s awesome to be French… 1. We were infamously led into…
Today I found a photograph of an ordinary German coffee shop circa 1941, with German signage above the windows that read “Soldatenkaffee Madeleine“. What made this photograph of a coffee shop so very unordinary, was that it was not taken in Germany, but on the Place de la Madeleine in Paris during the Nazi occupation. How many other places like…