Guest post sent by Andrea from
Paris – 28/Feb/2008 19:00
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...
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There are many methods of discovering good restaurants and avoiding bad ones in an unfamiliar city. The simplest one I know of involves walking the 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)...
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They are a familiar sight on the banks of the Seine - those faintly weary people manning the 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 the mid-16th century, although it was only from the late the 1790s, when they were first officially recognized, that
les bouquinistes gradually came to occupy most embankments on and around the
Île de la Cité - despite organized resistance from the more “orderly” bookstores which, as you may know, are aplenty in Paris...
More»Guest post sent by Lori Z from
Paris – 25/Dec/2006 17:20
No, not the Paris Mob. I’m talking about l’Empire de la Mort - The Catacombs!
The Catacombs span the entire city of
Paris. The tunnels and passageways spiral in an incredible distance of 186 miles! Yet, the legal tourist area spans only about a mile. For a very low entrance fee (2.5€ 26 and under, 5€ 27+) you can explore the sectioned off tunnels for as long as you want. Just bring a jacket, it’s 11 degrees C in there year round...
More»Guest post sent by Hilary M. from
Paris – 20/Nov/2006 00:05
The story goes like this: an American college student is seated on the terrasse of a fancy Paris café. When the waiter (finally) arrives, she asks for
«
a tall skim latté with sweet’n’low.»
«
- Madame,» says the waiter, «
we are not a pharmacy !»
OK, probably apocryphal. However, learning the Paris coffee rules will make your next trip to that oh-so-picturesque café all the more pleasant...
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