If you love France or are planning a trip, download one of my FREE travel guides! A truck whizzed by me, the air pushing me ever so slightly closer to the edge of the already quite narrow shoulder. Frantically, I looked behind me, thankful that it now seemed the wave of vehicles had abated. Peddling […]

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I decided to go to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, except that there was a castle (and not a very pretty one). However, immediately after stepping off the escalator of the metro, I probably said WOW at least five times. We walked right into the Domaine National de Saint-Germain-en-Laye and there […]

The train rolled into the station and I reached into my pocket, searching for my phone. I was already running late and it was a little drizzly, so I was trying to figure out what exit to take for Belleville. To my dismay, which turned to anxiety, I realised that in my rush to get […]

If you love France or are planning a trip, download one of my FREE travel guides! OH LA VACHE. Aka, holy cow!!!!!! There will never be enough exclamation points to convey my wonder. A weekend trip to Etretat Normandy was MORE than I dreamt it would be. Usually I go places hyped up on photographs, […]

It’s all opulence and grandeur at this hôtel particulier on Boulevard Haussmann. The Musée Jacquemart-André is a private art collection with everything that you might expect. Rich, deep red velvet walls; fine Italian Renaissance and Byzantine art; a Fragonard (currently, unfortunately, on loan to an exhibition); an unexpected, but very delightful, run in with Élisabeth […]

My first encounter with Honoré de Balzac, the man (I was obliged to read his literature in school), was at the Musée Rodin, and I will say that the sculptor must not have liked him much, because the rendition is anything but flattering. However, I had also been seeing many posters for the re-opening of […]

This was a lesson in spontaneity. One bitter cold winter afternoon, not long after I’d arrived, I discovered a (new to me) bookshop across from Jardin du Luxembourg called The Red Wheelbarrow that had such a jolly red awning I had to stop in. I ended up picking up a copy of The New Paris, which […]

We took an “early” (8h20) train for a day trip to Rouen, France because I’ve had the desire to see the cathedral, which starred in Monet’s series of paintings on a study of light. To think we stood in the same square as a genius! I can only hope that the photos Cecil and I […]

I was not always the biggest fan of Montmartre, Paris. It was rather far from where I was living at the time; there are too many hills and not enough escalators; it’s a little gritty; and on the other hand also very touristy. I find myself always on extra alert for pickpockets, especially near the […]

There’s a delightful surprise in the Latin Quarter, something wildly unexpected and out of the blue — or, rather, the appropriate expression is “out of the Haussmann architecture.” It’s la Grande Mosquée de Paris. There is a small admission fee, but if you love architecture, this is such a treat. It was built between 1922 and […]