All posts filed under: paris

paris travel hacks - a view of the seine from the elevated road

12 Necessary Paris Travel Hacks

Published by Diana

Paris is a city of immense beauty, but also immense, if occasional, complication. These are my best Paris travel hacks for navigating the city. 1. I feel safe here, but property crime is real. Within the city limits, I’ve never felt unsafe in Paris — not even walking home solo at 2 a.m. I don’t know anyone who’s been the victim of a violent crime. I feel physically safer in Paris than in the other big cities where I’ve lived — New York, San Francisco, London, and Rio — and I’ve never walked into a mall here looking for the exits in case some lunatic starts shooting up the food court. That said — that said! — property crime here is real. Pickpocketing is real. I feel like relative to NY and SF, you’re less likely to get your bag back if you leave it in a restaurant. And — pièce de résistance — earlier this summer a thief came through a window into my apartment and swiped my laptop. Bizarrely, parallel-ly, I feel like …

best non touristy neighborhoods in paris - image of canal de l'ourcq in the 19th arrondissement

The Best Non-Touristy Neighborhoods in Paris

Published by Diana

Ever wonder about the best non-touristy neighborhoods in Paris? Our letter-writer did! (Pre-PS: If you have travel questions, please do send them to us via Instagram DM; there’s nothing better in the whole world.) The question: Can you recommend your favorite residential arrondissement — not touristy? Absolutely!! I want to open with two brief provisos in terms of the best non-touristy neighborhoods in Paris: #1: Paris is so small that I honestly believe you can stay anywhere within the city itself and have a wonderful time here — meaning that the more residential arrondissements shouldn’t put you off. The 15th is 1000X closer to the center of Paris than, say, Park Slope is to Manhattan, or Chiswick is to central London (and I say that as someone who lived in both of those latter neighborhoods — it’s not a dig, it’s just geography). #2: In terms of having a non-touristy experience: timing is as important as location. Montmartre in July is a nightmare, and I say that as someone who walked through the Place du …

Everything You Need to Know About Paris in August

Published by Diana

Last summer, I was the last of my friends to leave Paris for the season — and I spent all that time alone doing the weirdest but also most interesting thing I could think of, which was documenting the exact vacation dates of all the Paris storefronts that close up shop in mid/late July through late August/early September. (I say “storefronts” rather than shops because “storefronts” includes boutiques, restaurants, and services (i.e. hair stylists) — anyone who might leave a sign in the window explaining why they’re gone). It took a very, very long time to sift through all that data — but it’s done, and now I can tell you: The average number of days a storefront closes shop in Paris in August: 19.15 I was a little surprised this was as short as it was — respect to the real ones who closed their doors for a solid month. The longest closure on my list was for 33 days. The shortest was seven days. Note: This is more the average of shops taking …

What to Do in Paris: 101 Ideas for Museums, Food, Day Trips, Festivals, and More

Published by Diana

What to do in Paris: The Absolute Must-Dos 1. Sit along the banks of the Seine as the sun sets — ideally in June, but if you get lucky with the weather, you can do this literally all year round. And ideally you’ll get to do this several nights in a row — which means you can try out a bunch of different spots. My favorite include: the Right Bank right below the Sully-Morland métro stop, the southern bank of the Ile Saint-Louis, the stretch of the Left Bank between the Sully and the Jardin des plantes, in the Jardin Tino Rossi. If you’re there in August, look for the Paris Plages. 2. Well, you probably have to go up the Eiffel Tower; it’s required. 3. Even better, though, watch the Eiffel Tower put on its nightly sparkle show from the steps in front of Sacre-Coeur, up in Montmartre. Obviously you’ll want to go late; follow it with dinner at La Boite aux Lettres, on rue Gabrielle. The show lasts five minutes, and starts every …

7 Perfectly Minimalist Earrings From My Favorite French Jewelry Maker

Published by Diana

Minimalist jewelry is so tricky if you’re looking for something sleek ‘n’ chic but not utterly without interest. Paris-based designer Raphaël Schaltegger walks that line expertly with his Goutte de Terre brand, which mixes super-smooth Limoges porcelain with gold and other organic details. These are the best minimalist earrings on Etsy, as far as I can tell. Schaltegger has a gallery and shop in the 11th but also sells his work online, which is all to the good. The prices are reasonable enough — my favorite piece below, the Seine earrings, are about $50 — and utilitarian enough that they could withstand the transition from day to night, classroom to office, or whatever big move might be on your agenda. If you like these but they’re not quite right, check out their Instagram, which has new pieces not yet online. Affiliate links below.  1. Kisale Earrings BUY IT HERE:  “Kisale” earrings, $50 That’s a very particular green, but if it works for you, it looks great with gold. 2. Seine Earrings BUY IT HERE:  “Seine” earrings, $50 …

The 21 Most Beautiful Paris Apartment Interiors on Instagram

Published by Diana

These are the 21 most beautiful Paris apartment interiors on Instagram — which, all things being equal, is a pretty good place to look for them. Note: These get increasingly more fantastical as we go on, so while we start with this lovely, regular-person space — with the nice cat sleeping on the nice rattan chair — we definitely do conclude with, for example, the Hotel de Soubise (the construction of which was partially funded by an affair with Louis XIV) and additional castle-like spaces. The good thing about Paris apartments that not everyone knows is that (thank you, Communist Party) rents are kept down pretty assiduously by law — so while Paris rents are expensive by French standards, they are a fraction of what they’d be in, say, San Francisco or London. Dream big! Best Cozy Corner in History (@m.art.ion) Can you even? Those plants, that cat, all that rattan? Best Giant Gilded Mirror in the Service of Holiday Cheer (@jackiekaiellis) Fact: A gilded mirror is worth having all year round, but possibly especially …

I Sort of Dated an Emily in Paris-style Gabriel, and Actually, It Was Pretty Terrible

Published by Diana

I didn’t meet Francois in my building, like Emily met Gabriel, her not-single chef: I met Francois, my not-single restaurateur, in an even cuter way: His parents sold me a vintage desk lamp at a garage sale. The desk lamp was adorable, and his parents, equally so. Along with the lamp, they gave me a card for their son’s restaurant, which happened to be a 10-minute walk from my apartment. “Stop by!” they said, in their perfect English. “Talk to Francois!” I did. He looked not like Lucas Bravo but like Eddie Redmayne, which for me, was a win. I told him to thank his parents for the lamp. He gave me a basket of something like cheese biscuits(?). He told me to let him know if I had any problems with the lamp — so when it stopped working a week later, I emailed him. This time, instead of meeting at the restaurant, we met at the apartment above his restaurant. I looked for any signs of a partner — he was just moving …

What It’s Like to Travel to Paris Right Now (October 2020)

Published by Diana

Wondering what it’s like to travel to Paris right now? I would say: not great. Last week, I traveled from New Jersey to Paris. I either had to come back or give up my residency visa, which expired the day after I arrived — believe me, I wanted to stay where I was. Here, then, is how I made it to France: Step #1: The groundwork I called around to clinics near me — some would only offer tests to those who believed they’d been exposed to someone with covid. Most, though, could only offer a hazy timeframe of “2-4 days” for the results, which wouldn’t work. The good news, I guess, was that these tests were all free — but since I didn’t want to (a) miss my flight or (b) show up in France after my visa expired, I couldn’t take the risk. It took a couple weeks of sifting around the internet — I have no idea why this wasn’t easier to find — I saw a recommendation for Excell on, of …

How Can I Decorate My Home Like a Parisian?

Published by Diana

If you’ve ever wondered: How can I decorate my home like a Parisian? I have good news: It’s easier than it looks. It’s true that Paris apartments often have beautiful bones — it’s a small city, with much century-old housing stock (though plenty of new as well). In general, though, it’s not that hard to find a beautiful apartment with beautiful moldings and parquet floors. That said, a Parisian apartment can be procured the old-fashioned American way: by buying it. Parquet floors can be laid by hand. Oil portraits can be purchased on Etsy or Selency. A grand, antique mirror is only as far as 1st Dibs. Generally, I think that there’s a native way of styling apartment that’s unique to wherever you are — a Brooklyn apartment wants to be a Brooklyn apartment while a Miami apartment wants to be a Miami apartment, and ditto in San Antonio or Seattle: All of these places have different amounts of sunlight, sun intensity, color temperature, and local vintage stock. In that sense, I’d say that if you’re …

The Best Luxury Paris Apartments

Published by Diana

There are plenty to choose from — but these are in my humble opinion the best luxury Paris apartments. And their chandeliers. And gilded mirrors. And parquet floors. And more. One good thing about Paris is that thanks to stringent rent controls, it’s not impossible to find an apartment there for under $1000 a month. Will it have an elevator? Oh mais non. Will it be bigger than a bed? Only maybe. Will you need to use a communal bathroom in the hallway? Probably not, but I’ve seen it. Of course, on the absolute other side of this equation: No one knows how to do grand apartment interiors quite like them. Here, a selection of the best Paris luxury apartments and their interiors — some, but not all, owned by a billionaire. Of all them, the thing I want most is Morgane Sézalory’s tan leather couch: Mon dieu! Et so on. For more — and more accessible, and no less creative — Paris apartment interiors, see this piece on the 19 Things I Learned About …