 You may remember the tragic accident at Paris
Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle Airport's Terminal 2E four years ago.
A large part of its glass roof collapsed killing
four people and injuring several others.
Well, it only took four years and about 150M€ for engineers to
fix the damn roof, but they finally did it. A couple of weeks ago first
scheduled flights started using the terminal...
Read the rest of: "Terminal 2E Reopens at Paris Charles-de-Gaulle"»  It's only natural that any project signed by
Philippe Starck
guarantees attention to an establishment, whether it be
a hotel, restaurant or a high-rise apartment tower.
But now the maestro seems to be making space for another
family member - his daughter Ara.
In the latest example,
she was charged with the only truly "artistic" part of
a restaurant renovation project for the
Meurice hotel, while
her famous father was busy desgnining the 600+ pieces of furniture
that went into the restaurant...
Read the rest of: "The Starck Surreality: Le Dali at Le Meurice"»  When you feel like having a coffee in a classic
Left Bank café setting but shudder at the thought of
neighboring a group of starry-eyed tourists (which is almost
inevitable if you go to either the Café de Flore or
Les Deux Magots), I have an
alternative suggestion.
A few blocks away from the two oh-so-atmospheric
stalwarts of Parisian café life sits a slightly
less frequented etablishment: Le Rouquet...
Read the rest of: "Le Rouquet: The Lesser Evil of St-Germain"»  Going to Paris this time was a treat – and that's despite the fact that, having lived in a warm climate for a while, I didn't have anything warm to wear. (Worse, I couldn't even make myself buy anything in Europe since the local trends in men's fashion don't really inspire me to get anything… call me old-fashioned). However, I didn't let the cold or the wet winter of Paris hold me back and I made the best of my weeklong stay in the city. Let me share a few places from my latest trip...
Read the rest of: "Paris La Belle"»  Whether we like it or not, we live in an age
of product placement. Anyone doubting that can
ask the judges of "American Idol" how they're liking their Coke.
Kube Hotel in Paris is an appropriately modish collaboration
between Grey Goose Vodka and Murano Resort
centering on the concept of cubicity (cubicality?).
Its 41 high-tech rooms are cube-shaped, as is the foyer, the
elevators and the exterior spaces...
Read the rest of: "Kubic Volumes"»  One grey New Year's Day in Paris my sister and I decided to go for a walk. Our senses happily dulled from the night before, we wandered through Montparnasse; a high wall herded us along the sidewalk.
Suddenly, it broke into large gates: a cemetery lay beyond. We hesitated, but our curiosity was piqued, so we went in...
Read the rest of: "Rambling About (In) Cemeteries: Montparnasse Cemetery"»  For all of us who like to go to restaurants
and imagine we've been invited to somebody's
dinner party, there's now a perfect place
to do just that.
Chicago native Daniel Rose (who originally came
to France intending to study philosophy... more on that later)
runs his 16-seat restaurant called "Spring"
almost as some sort of a one-man show...
Read the rest of: "Spring in Paris"»  There are many methods of discovering good restaurants and avoiding bad ones in an unfamiliar city.
The simplest one I know of involves walking secondary streets of the target neighborhood in the evening, taking note of restaurants that quickly fill up with locals. Avoid the empty ones, avoid the ones with people who look like tourists. Above all, avoid the ones with menus in English. Obviously, read the menus. That's pretty much it.
As simple as the method may be, most of the time it just works. Et voici my latest Parisian discovery: L'Absinthe Café in the 3rd arrondissement (not to be confused with the restaurant L'Absinthe in the 1st)...
Read the rest of: "L'Absinthe Café: First Impressions"»  They are a familiar sight on the banks of the Seine - those faintly weary people manning dark-green wooden stalls filled with used and new books, postcards, posters, paintings, compact disks, LP's other pre-digital-era media curiosities.
They are Paris Bouquinistes - a tribe that has existed (and flourished) since as far back as mid-16th century, although it was only from the late 1790's, when they were first officially recognized, that les bouquinistes gradually came to occupy most embankments on and around Île de la Cité - despite organized resistance from the more "orderly" bookstores which, as you know, are aplenty in Paris...
Read the rest of: "Paris Bouquinistes"» 
If skate-sailing is your thing and Paris your kind of town, I have the perfect location for you. By all means, try doing this on Quai d'Orsay next to the Air France terminal. You'll have the fresh wind from the Seine, more than enough space for maneuver and the attention of both tourists and motorists. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you where to get the gear (I don't know). But surely, if skate-sailing is your thing, you do. So, smooth sailing!
France  |
