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Cabinet of Chic Curiosities
Category / Paris Like a Local

Did the Rooftop Bees of Notre Dame Survive?

It took me several days to think of the bees. After the smoke had cleared and the heartbreak settled in, I remembered: they kept beehives up there. So you might be wondering too: were the honeybees spared from the fire that ravaged Notre Dame and left the world in disbelief on that black Monday evening…

Thoughts for Our Lady of France

I wish I had taken your picture a thousand more times, my beautiful neighbour. For all the history lovers, architecture lovers (who feel that buildings have souls), Paris lovers: we are all no doubt feeling the same helplessness and sadness for Notre Dame. I think of the artisans who have spent the last decade tirelessly…

We’re Soon to be Dining in an Abandoned Metro Station in Paris

It’s finally happening. A sleeping ghost station in Paris’ revered 6eme arrondissement; just a few steps from iconic French cafés and the world’s first luxury department store; a forgotten metro stop is finally going to be transformed, slated to become the city’s hottest new underground restaurant. If this all kind of talk rings a bell, it’s because…

A Tale of Two Cities & Beyond with MessyNessyChic in 2018

In 2018, MessyNessyChic became a tale of two cities. We’ll always have Paris, but now we have New York too. In preparation  for Don’t Be a Tourist in New York, book number 2 (touching down in 2019), this year our rabbit hole led us across the pond in search of a sleepless city’s secrets. Armed with a…

Reviving the Real-Life “Middle Earth” Maps in a Secret Paris Museum

Maps and Miniatures — these are a few of my favourite things (along with Paris and all its secret places, of course). But you might be wondering what secrets I could possibly find at one of the most recognisable landmarks in Paris, Les Invalides? So big you can’t miss it, built four centuries ago for the invalids…

Man steals Goat from Paris Park, takes it for a Joy Ride on the Metro

First of all, you need to know that there are goats in the Jardin des Tuileries that tend to the lawns of the iconic gardens,  introduced several years ago as a form of “eco-grazing”. But more importantly– that’s a goat, on the Parisian metro– stolen from the Tuileries on November 13th and smuggled underground onto…

Interview with a Vampire in Paris

It was a dark and stormy night – or, at least, I had hoped it would be. The quaint and sleepy residential streets appeared an unseemly location for some of the most terrifying creatures imaginable to reside, until I arrived at a rusted cast iron gate overrun with foliage that also claimed every inch of garden…
The Vault

Rocky Horror Picture Show in the Paris Catacombs

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).…

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Paris Has a Brutal(ist) Side

Love it or hate it, brutalist architecture has an unavoidable presence in every major metropolis– even Paris. In fact, the French capital is something of a haven for futurist concrete architecture. Brutalist boomed here during the 60s and 70s in response to Modernism’s utopian vision, and after Haussmann, came superstar architects like Le Corbusier and an…
The Vault

Secrets of Belleville

Paris: The Birthplace of Communism explained Belleville is a neighbourhood in the East of Paris that has a vibrant multicultural community. It’s French, it’s Chinese, it’s Vietnamese, it’s Moroccan, Tunisian, it’s Jewish, it’s Muslim, it’s Christian, it’s even part hipster too. And they all co-exist here peacefully. On the main boulevard, you’ll find a hodgepodge…

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