Faraway Places, a Travel Blog (Mostly About Paris)

Latest Posts

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 hour on the hour.

4. Have you even been to Paris if you haven’t take a boat ride along the Seine? Batobus is the best of all the options — more utilitarian, sure, but there are better places to have dinner in Paris, and with a Batobus pass you can trade the métro/Uber for a day to roam the river to your heart’s content.

5. Notre Dame is now one of the world’s most expensive construction sites, but it’s still a necessary stop. Go to the eastern end for a view of the damaged roof; on the western end, take a look at the temporary exhibits along the sidewalk showing the interior of the structure, and then head all the way to the western tip of the island to see the beautiful (if small) Square du Vert Galant.

6. Sainte-Chapelle is right next to Notre Dame — but for an even better historic chapel, hop on ligne 1 to go just across the city limit to the Chateau de Vincennes. (Here’s a full field report.)

7. The Chateau de Vincennes feels like a military fortification (there’s even a moat!). If, however, you want a chateau in the sense of a palace — well, for that, you obviously want Versailles, easily accessible by RER (or Uber, if you’re swimming in cash). Do whatever you can to avoid crowds (coming off-season will help) and just accept the fact that there will likely be crowds. If you like, watch Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette beforehand, even if the film was largely shot elsewhere (including Vaux-le-Vicomte and the Château de Chantilly).

8. The Jardin des plantes is just the most wonderful place in Paris, and that’s really all there is to it. Possibly most beautiful in April, as the cherry trees are blooming, but the hard-working gardeners make sure there’s always something to see. Bring a lunch and grab one of the benches beneath the plane trees. This is the first place I take people when they visit.

9. If you’ve had your fill of outdoor drinks along the Seine, next up is outdoor drinks along the Canal St-Martin.

10. Keep walking north along the canal to where it intersects with the elevated ligne 2 — then continue beneath it to the Bassin de la Villette, with its own outdoor drinking spots, plus swimming during the summer and paddle boats, too. There’s a movie theater on each of the facing quais in case you’re looking for something slightly less active.

What to do in Paris: Museums

1. If you’ll be in Paris for any length of time — maybe a month? — do yourself a favor and become an Ami du Louvre, which allows you free access to the museum. Go every day, get to know a single specific gallery, and spend the next six months boring your friends back home with every detail of the Islamic Gallery (which is exactly what I did). The trick with the Louvre is to bite off precisely as little of it as possible, and go deep, versus wide. I mean, go wide too, and see everything, but come back with your membership pass and dive into a single room.

2. You’ll probably want to see the Mona Lisa, but the painting I always make a beeline for is Jeune orphéline à la cimitière, by Eugène Delacroix.

3. Other than that, the sculpture garden in the Cour Marly is extremely lovely.

4. The Orangerie is a spectacular way to see Monet’s eight, huge water lily paintings — depending on your tastes, it’s might the best visual art experience in the city.

5. You wouldn’t want to miss the Musée d’Orsay, with its spectacular setting (a former train station) and world-class collection of mostly pre-WWI French art (basically every painter you were ever tested on in art history).

6. The Centre Pompidou is worth visiting when it has an excellent exhibition on (this happens often). Of course, the building, by Richard Rogers, will be of interest to architects; those not excited by the whole world of aesthetics will want to get a look at the Parisian skyline from the top of its bank of escalators. Note it will close in 2023 for a years-long renovation.

7. The Palais de Tokyo doesn’t have a permanent collection, but its exhibitions — showcasing the most contemporary of contemporary art — can be excellent.

8. Fondation Cartier feels midway between a museum and a gallery (a very beautiful, high-end gallery, of course). The grounds themselves are worth a look, with architecture by Jean Nouvel and a small woodland to the building’s rear, designed by German conceptual artist Lothar Baumgarten.

9. It’s worth trekking out to the Bois de Boulogne to see the Fondation Louis Vuitton, with a collection safely tucked inside a building designed by Frank Gehry. If you’re looking for a post-museum activity, you’ll be right near the starting point of the GR1, a 500+ kilometer trail that swings all the way around Paris.

10. Especially if you don’t want to leave town to see one of the palaces, the Musée Jacquemart-André is part stately home, part art gallery. The former includes what is undoubtedly the prettiest stairway in Paris.

11. I really should not mention the Musée Nissim de Camondo because I find it a bit boring compared to the other museums on this list, but it does have the most Wes Anderson-y, beautifully designed bathroom.

12. If you’ve been to the Picasso museum in Barcelona, I’m not sure that the Paris version is worth the time, especially if you’re on a tight schedule — it really depends on the quality of the visiting exhibitions, which have ranged from sublime to so-so. The building itself is beautiful, and take the time for a drink at La Perle, the neighborhood hotspot about 50 meters west.

What to do in Paris: Food

1. My favorite thing to eat in Paris is a croissant. There are all sorts of lists of where to buy the best, but I love all croissants equally. (Though possibly those at Miss Manon in the Marais slightly more than all the others.)

2. I do not love all beignets equally. In fact, I am quite a snob about them, and only eat beignets from the Coquelicot bakery in Montmartre, which was my local spot before moving back down that massive hill.

3. Speaking of bakeries! It’s French law: You need to eat a baguette within 30 minutes of buying it (yes the entire thing) or you are sent to jail. Seriously, though: It’s not Wonder Bread (I was raised on Wonder Bread, I’m not judging), so forget “saving it for the morning.” Note that a tradition is the better version of a baguette. (Here’s a primer on the differences.)

4. You might like those cute little épiceries with a half-dozen products for sale. I, however, am from New Jersey, and so I must naturally gravitate toward the most mall-like offering — in this case, La Grande Épicerie at Le Bon Marché, which has everything — a fishmonger, a bakery, a cheese shop, etc. etc. — a person could want from a French food experience (as well as an entire shelf devoted to American products, including Fluff.)

5. If you’re looking for a slightly more refined experience, try Maison Plisson. Don’t let all the perishables on the ground floor put you off — head down the steps for a travel-ready selection of oils, snacks, sweets, wines, and much more.

6. If you would prefer to actually go to several specialty shops instead of just one, it is time for a tour down rue des Martyrs in the 9th. It is sort of a food paradise, with one fancy food shop after another — my favorite is the local outpost of mini-chain La Meringaie, which sells nothing but meringue pastries with seasonal fruits.

7. If you want to eat and drink how actual Parisians are eating and drinking, head for one of the Wild & the Moon locations — it’s “vegan to go” as inspired by the co-founder’s time in New York (presumably taking a lot of meetings at Sweetgreen). I would be lying if I said I hadn’t ordered many, many protein shakes from the one on rue Amelot.

8. Of course, you might want something more sophisticated than an acai bowl. In that case, it’s time to go to one of Paris’s many Michelin-starred restaurants. And oh — what’s this? A list of 17 Michelin-starred restaurants offering meals (read: lunch) at under 55€?

9. The trick at 99% of cafés with lovely Parisian outdoor seating is: Don’t eat there. Just drink there. My current favorite is Le Bastille.

10. If you’re still looking around for somewhere to eat, Le Fooding is your next stop. I found most of my favorite restaurants by plugging my postal code into their “best restaurants” finder, including Le Mary Celeste and the Café de la Nouvelle Mairie — plus, it’s free and in English!

What to do in Paris: The Day and Weekend Trips (Local)

1. Nothing can beat Monet’s garden at Giverny, which is just staggeringly beautiful. Crowded, always, but for some attractions, you just gotta live with it, and this is one of them.

2. There are several Van Gogh-related attractions in Auvers-sur-Oise, but the best choice in the matter is to do as Van Gogh himself did, and head out into the surrounding countryside for a wander. The French love a hike, so if you do, too, just search for “randonnee” plus your destination — for example, here’s Visorando’s hikes around Auvers.

3. Thanks to the super-fast TGV trains, Lille — a three-hour drive — is but a one-hour, extremely comfortable, not-cheap-but-not-cataclysmically-expensive ride away. I love Lille, especially as a counterpoint to Paris — it’s right on the border of Belgium, something that should be evident from all the Flemish-y architecture and the seemingly universal preference for beer over wine. While you’re there, visit Louvre Lens (the Louvre satellite in nearby Lens) and La Piscine in equally nearby Roubaix, which is part museum, part spectacular indoor/highly Instagrammable pool.

4. Le Havre is just as great as Lille, and with an entirely different feel: Norman, not Flemish. While in Lille you can still hear the echoes of World War I, here it’s the effects of World War II that remain visible: The city was heavily bombed (by the Allies, and particularly the British Air Force) toward the end of the war, leaving literally half of its 160,000 inhabitants homeless. The modern architecture, though a product of tragedy, is beautiful: Be sure to see Auguste Perret’s Star Wars-esque Eglise St-Joseph, the excellent Museum of Modern Art, and Perret’s apartments, created after the war to provide immediate low-cost housing to the displaced.

5. Imagine the Hamptons, if instead of a beach you had rolling French countryside, and you have le Perche, where generations of Parisians head to their parents’ magnificent country homes. It really is beautiful. I don’t like all the travel writing in the Times, but this account of visiting, though from 2007, is spectacular: “It’s two hours from Paris, I was told, in lower Normandy, not far from Chartres. “It has glorious manoirs and chateaus and is famous for its Percheron,” Michèle wrote to me, “the noblest, absolutely most gorgeous horses in the world.” Let’s go!!!

What to do in Paris: The Day and Weekend Trips (International)

1. London!!! If you haven’t been, you must. There is nothing more magical than heading north for the weekend, and coming back on Sunday with a suitcase full of books, Cheddar cheese, Marks & Spencer snacks, and as many Sunday newspapers as will fit. Go via Eurostar, from the Gare du Nord.

2. Amsterdam: In under three hours via Thalys, you can go from the Louvre to the Rijksmuseum, for a sunny stroll along the canals. Amsterdam is just wonderful, as is the surrounding, easily accessed countryside — especially in April, when the entire place is carpeted in tulips (well, maybe not the entire place, but enough.) Go via Thalys from the Gare du Nord.

3. Zurich: It is, rather unbelievably, possible to do Zurich as a day trip from Paris, as long as you don’t mind spending a lot of time on the train. If you go in winter, head immediately to the Thermalbad spa, with heated pools overlooking the surrounding mountains — and if you’re there in summer, join the rest of the city at the many outdoor pools. Go via TGV Lyria from the Gare de Lyon.

4. Luxembourg: When will you have another chance to see an entire country in a single day? What’s there to do? Not much. The Adolphe Bridge is very pretty, as far as bridges go. The cathedral? Why not! Then hop back on the train and come back to Paris. Go via TGV from the Gare de l’Est.

5. Antwerp: Personally I prefer Antwerp to teeny-tiny Bruges, which to me feels a little Showcase of Nations. Antwerp feels like a real city, inhabited by real Belgians, who may or may not be very involved in the making of designer chocolate. Go via Thalys from the Gare du Nord.

What to do in Paris: Festivals

1. The Paris Marathon is usually in April (after taking place in the fall in 2020 and 2021), right when the cherry blossoms are blooming. The course goes from bois to bois, mostly along the Seine, where the crowds are best.

1. Speaking of: Cherry blossom season in Paris is super-magical. See here for my favorite places to spot them.

1. The Salon du Livre, or Paris Book Fair, is a giant festival of books, held at a conference center at the Porte de Versailles, on the city’s southern rim. It’s definitely better if you speak and/or read French, but even anglophones will find plenty to enjoy from the hundreds of book-loving exhibitors. There are tons — tons! — of great small presses in France; this is the easiest way to find them all, and quickly.

2. Fête de la Musique is the best night of the whole year in Paris. It’s also the shortest: On the summer solstice (a.k.a. June 21), bands big and small play in every corner of Paris, and long into the night. It’s magical.

3. Bastille Day (July 14, or “quatorze juillet”) is like a three-quarter speed Fourth of July, with fewer barbecues but just as many fireworks, which in Paris are set off from around the Eiffel Tower.

4. “Late August” isn’t officially a holiday on the French calendar, but it is certainly an unofficial one, with anyone who can taking off for the hinterlands (read: beach cottage/country manor/castle). That means Paris, in late August, is marvelously devoid of Parisians, and the city slows down to a crawl — if you like wandering through a beautiful city in the late-summer heat and stopping frequently for wine, this is your time. People start leaving for the rest of the season as early as Bastille Day, with every weekend seeing more departures until everyone comes back in early September.

5. Paris’s version of the international phenomenon known as Nuit Blancheis in early October, with events and parties going all night long. At my first Nuit Blanche, I saw a Cai Guo-Qiang fireworks show on the Seine, and it was spectacular, and none has been quite as good, but hope springs eternally.

6. So you’ll definitely need to leave Paris for the best Christmas markets — in my opinion, you’ll want to head east and not stop before you hit Strasbourg (even better, keep going all the way to Baden-Baden, my superior Christmas Market destination). The right Christmas market, in my opinion, is one of those rare things that’s as good as their press: cheerful, singular, and full of mulled wine. These are all excellent.

What to do in Paris: Cafés and Bars

This is a highly personal list of my favorite cafés and bars: Your list, surely, will be different from mine, not least because mine is largely dependent on including options only within a five-minute walk of where I’ve lived. Rule: It is the rare cafés that offers food equal to the pleasures of sitting outside with a glass of wine; it is perhaps unfair of us to expect a café to do the work of a restaurant. Choose wisely (or go on a full stomach, or with reservations for dinner afterward).

1. There are so many cafés on Ile Saint-Louis (my first Paris home, on my second time in Paris), but for whatever reason I always seem to end up at this one (I literally had to Google the name: La Brasserie de l’Ile Saint-Louis) — most likely because it has a very sunny view of Ile de la Cité.

2. The outdoor seating is supposed to be thing at the Café Delmas, spilling out onto the place de la Contrescarpe, but equally appealing are the warrens of indoor cubbies offering semi-private drinking for small parties.

3. There are a half-dozen cafés overlooking the traffic roundabout known as Bastille, but my favorite is the Bastille, because of its extremely stylish vintage decoration.

4. I feel like this might be the perfect Paris café – Le Progres isn’t as much about sitting outside as it is watching everyone walk through Montmartre through the gigantic windows.

5. I wrote half my book (my new book) on a banquette in the back of La Barbouille. (I always get the salad with goat cheese. And a Diet Coke lol.)

6. Cafe de l’Industrie has a very special place in my heart, as it is the café where I both met my first-cousin-once-removed Ashley and where she and I crawled under a chair because we thought we were about to be killed by terrorists. (Here’s that story.) It’s still a first-rate café! (Don’t get the pasta.)

7. With its industrial-style steel finishes and subway-tile walls, La Favorite is the pumpkin spice latte of Parisian cafés – it’s that basic – but it is also delicious and extremely comfortable and has both excellent wifi and enough electrical outlets to go around. J’adore.

8. With a similar style, Café Charlot offers prime people-watching along the fashion-y rue de Bretagne — it’s an entertaining nightmare during Fashion Week(s).

9. The “cafés and bars” section here is perilously short of bars — perhaps to make space for the Comptoir Générale, half-hidden down a courtyard in the 10th. Once inside, you’ll find a sprawling complex consisting of a huge bar, shop (including a brand-new “épicerie cave à rhum“), gallery, and more. Extremely friendly, extremely busy; go off-hours unless you like a crowd.

10. If you like to see how the other 1% lives, make a res for cocktails at Bar Hemingway, the authorially themed bar located in the Ritz and made famous by Hemingway himself. If you’re traveling on a budget, an evening here can more than suffice as the night’s activity; just be sure you bring someone who’s good for gossiping about all the Richie-Riches at the surrounding tables. Do go downstairs to the bathrooms, for a look at a bit of luxury.

What to do in Paris: Parks

1. There are no big parks with the very center of Paris, though the banks of the Seine are a good equivalent of Central Park or Hyde Park: that lovely place in the middle of everything where everyone goes when the weather’s nice. The closest exception would be the Jardin des plantes, which is as close to perfect as it gets: restful, ever-changing, immaculately cared for. It’s just wonderful.

2. Just slightly west of the JDP and along the bank of the river, you’ll find the Jardin Tino Rossi. It’s best known as a spot for nighttime dancing in the summer, but it’s lovely in the spring, when the willow trees are leafing out and the cherry trees bloom.

3. Speaking of! There are cherry trees all over Paris, but the best collection might be at the Parc Sceaux, which has both a lovely garden and a chateau of its very own.

4 & 5. Paris’s two bois — the Bois de Boulogne on the west and the Bois de Vincennes on the east — are wilder and woolier than, say, Central Park. I like the Bois de Boulogne because it’s near the start point of the GR1, a 325-mile circuit around Paris, and it includes the Fondation Vuitton, a worthy art museum in a spectacular, Frank Gehry-designed building. The Bois de Vincennes is worth visiting, too, for the Parc Floral (more cherry trees, obvs) and access to the nearby Chateau de Vincennes. I don’t, though, consider them must-visits like the Jardin des plantes, or, if it’s convenient, the Parc Monceau.

6. Speaking of! The Parc Monceau is like if the Upper East Side (Paris equivalent: the 8th arrondissement) had its own swath of Central Park to itself. It’s extremely manicured but/and lovely, and abuts the Musée Cernuschi and the Musée Nissim de Camondo.

7. The Jardin du Luxembourg is a friendlier, bigger park, with a famous basin (perfect for little sailboats), statues and flowers, pony rides, snack kiosks, and tennis courts. There’s a higher percentage of tourists here than at the other parks on this list, but its charms are undeniable.

8. The Parc des Buttes-Chaumont is just lovely. Way up in the 19th, it’s both quite far north and on a hilly elevation, which means if you climb up to the Temple de la Sibylle, you’ll get terrific views of Montmartre. There’s also a suspension bridge above an artificial lake designed by Gustave Eiffel of Eiffel Tower fame, plus an excellent outdoor bar at Rosa Bonheur.

9. The Coulée Verte (a.k.a the Promenade Plantée) might be the top cool-tourist attraction on this part of the list. If you’ve been to the Highline in Manhattan, you get the idea (the Highline, in fact, was modeled on the Coulée Verte): a narrow, verdant pathway above the city. The truly ambitious can walk all the way from Bastille to Vincennes, though the best parts are closer-in to Bastille.

10. Obviously you can’t miss the Tuileries, once the private garden of Catherine de Medici. Head there after the Louvre, when you’re in need of a long sit-down. I prefer it in the spring and summer (I prefer everything in the spring and summer), but it feels the most itself in the fall.

11. Beyond the Palais Royal’s Insta-omnipresent black-and-white columns — more officially a public art installation by Daniel Buren called Les Deux Plateaux — is the former palace’s garden, which is beautiful, not least for its extremely French vision of highly manicured lime and red chestnut trees.

12. I’m not sure you’d want to dip out of central Paris to visit the Parc André Citroen, but if you’re near the 15th, it’s well worth stopping by — weirdly modern park, not least because it’s built on the grounds of a former Citroen automobile manufacturing plant.

13. Just across the Paris line in Boulogne-Billancourt, you’ll find the Jardin Albert Kahn, with a Japanese-style garden that was apparently meticulously constructed after M. Kahn’s revelatory trip there.

14. Possibly saving the best, or at least the most under-the-radar for tourists, is the Roseraie du Val-du-Marne, a spectacular rose garden that’s only worth seeing in bloom (obviously) — but for those few weeks is an utterly spectacularly, rose-filled sight. Here’s my trip report.

What to do in Paris: Shopping

1. If I had to choose one store to shop at for the rest of my time in Paris, it would be Le Bon Marché: prohibitively expensive, yes, but with neat, smart buys that won’t break the bank, plus excellent installations from leading contemporary artists. The grocery hall — it’s too elegant to call it a mere “grocery store” — is a delight. Best of all are the seasonal pop-up shops, bringing in all sorts of unexpected treasures — often quite cheap — from here and there. (One of the rare disappointments: a collection of J. Crew from an L.A.-themed pop-up. What??)

2. Of course, that being said, LBM is way across town, so my actual, rather than ideal, one-stop-shop is BHV, the gargantuan, definitely cheaper department store in the figurative shadow of city hall (the titular hôtel de ville, BHV officially being the Bazar du Hôtel de Ville). There’s always something new to see here — the Diptyque concession, a plant boutique that took over when Anthropologie moved into its own digs down the street. I mostly go directly to the third floor, for books and art supplies, though I once exited the basement hardware shop with a giant ladder that I consider, to this day, the best purchase I’ve ever made in France.

3. Empreintes is like if Macy’s were Macy’s but it only sold extremely fancy handmade goods from the best of France’s artisans (specifically, those represented by Ateliers d’Art de France).

4. Similarly, Merci is a multi-level concept shop in the Upper Marais, only instead of $100 sandstone vases (like Empreintes) it stocks the hippest-of-the-hip brands in clothing, accessories, and homewares. The women’s clothing is back to the right, but my favorite part is the giant space you walk into from the street, which is where their thematic pop-up collections are shown.

5. I don’t care if it’s a cliché at this point, I just love Sézane.

6. Similarly, Lou Yetu is selling a very specific take on the Paris-girl vibe, but I love it, so I don’t care if it’s the France-jewelry version of pumpkin spice latte. I usually go to the seasonal location in the Marais, but the flagship near Opéra is gorgeous, in that soft-pink velvet and brass way.

7. Controversial opinion: Shakespeare & Co. is for tourists. After a while, you graduate to the half-anglo, demi-français Galignani on rue de Rivoli, which is just a beautiful bookstore with a smartly curated gallery of international fiction, in English, in the back. A very friendly staff, and — bonus — no lines out the door.

8. Aroma Zone. This is so embarrassing but I legit love this store — selling essential oils, carrier oils, creams, and other materiel for making your own soaps and cosmetics — and it is packed with Parisians. The French :: tourist ratio is higher here than anywhere else I’ve been outside of, like, a medical office.

9. I hate to put two bookstores on this list, but 0fr is a national treasure: part fancy magazine shop, part art-book store, part gallery. Uh, while you’re here, stop by Yvan Lambert, about five minutes away, for even more art books and gallery shows.

10. Papier Tigre has extremely cute paper goods.

What to do in Paris: Events

1. I know I just said that Galignani is a better bookstore than Shakespeare & Co., and I stand by that, but if you’re wondering where the anglophone literati are at, check to see if S&Co. has an author event coming up.

2. Parisians love their movies. If you’re going to be here for any length of time, I heartily recommend the UGC pass — there’s nothing better than sitting in the UGC at Les Halles and just going from salle to salle to salle. It’s mostly big-box stuff, but they get plenty of weird, tiny movies here, too.

3. If you’re looking for a higher class of cinema, try one of the myriad independent cinémas. Le Champo offers a 10 movies for €50 pass.

4. I don’t, like, immediately connect to the Moulin Rouge vibe, but I swear, everyone I know who’s been has loved it.

5. Meetup is a really great way to meet a bunch of people as quickly as possible. Events are always of varied quality, but if you want to get out and see the countryside but don’t want to do it alone, the Power Hiking Paris group does proper workouts of 10 miles and up.

6. So you wanted to make real-deal poets in Paris? (Mostly anglophone poets?) Paris Lit Up hosts weekly open mics at Culture Rapide — stick around after for drinks afterward.

7. La Bellevilloise has an extremely eclectic roster of jazz, world music, brunch, films — basically everything — in a fun and open-late neighborhood. Some events are in English, some are in music, if you know what I mean.

7 Basically Perfect Audible Books for 2021 and Beyond

Published by Diana

These are my picks best Audible books (for 2021).

If you pick the right one, there’s something incredibly special about the right audiobook — I don’t think books are generally improved by their film adaptations, but I do think some are even better in their audiobook format. To the Lighthouse is one of the 20th century’s perfect books — but the way Nicole Kidman reads those dense, twisty sentences helps crack it open in a way that’s impossible on the page.

I have 70 books in my Audible library, and most I didn’t finish. Some were boring. With others — like with The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and two Neil Gaiman books — I ended up buying the print version because I couldn’t follow the plot. These, though, are all wonderful, and if you’re looking for something to listen to next, look here first.

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

I can’t even say what an incredible experience listening to this book was. I’ve read lots of books by TV comedians and those were fine and entertaining but this is real-deal art. I loved this book so much that I bought the hardcover for my mom for Christmas, even though there’s nothing that can replicate the experience of Noah reading it himself. Part of Noah’s story is crossing between cultures — his Swiss dad and Xhosa mom, just for starters — so hearing his expert accents and intonations just adds another layer of interest.

The George Smiley Radio Dramas by the BBC

I spent much of 2020 reading John Le Carré’s spy novels, and they are amazing and gorgeously written in a way that still isn’t celebrated enough. They are, though, intricately plotted, in the way that I can say that I love Tinker Tailor without understanding exactly what/anything that happened. These radio dramas — focused on those featuring George Smiley, spy extraordinaire but also not — are amazing because they’re pared down just enough to be clear while still honoring Le Carré’s intentions (unlike some of the film adaptations of his books, with all that creative meddling from the directors). (Of course the best practice is to read the books as well.) With: Brian Cox from Succession as an excellent Alec Leamas (in The Spy Who Came in From the Cold)!

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

This is one of my favorite books and this is true despite the fact that some of the sentences are very, very long. Of course they are beautiful and intricate and they always make sense — but they are still extremely long. This shouldn’t be a big thing but I actually found this easier to parse thanks to Nicole Kidman, who reads beautifully, like an actual queen, and who did an amazing job metering out all those extremely intricate rhythms.

If It Bleeds by Stephen King

I loved this collection of short stories so much that I tried to record the recording of the audio for my friends (I know this is a terrible idea/illegal) — but the stories, and in particular “The Life of Chuck.” I know “If It Bleeds” is the best-known one — and deservedly so, since it’s the sequel to The Outsider — but “The Life of Chuck” is just an incredibly special, sensitive story. I didn’t know anything about it going in and I’m not going to spoil it here. One of the best things about listening to this versus reading it was that I didn’t know how long it was — and since it’s told in a number of different sections, I was surprised more than once that there was more story to go. Listening to Part I during pandemic-times was almost too close to home.

Midnight Sun by James Dommek Jr.

If you like Dateline (seriously who doesn’t like Dateline), you will enjoy this true-crime story by James Dommek, Jr., an Alaska Native writer and musician. He had a passing connection to an Alaskan actor, Teddy Kyle Smith, who fled into the wilderness after a violent incident, and Dommek uses that connection to help bring context to a truly bizarre story of thwarted ambition. In addition to being a fascinating portrait (of a person conspicuous by his absence), it is a stellar example of writing about place.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Of the three ways to engage with The Handmaid’s Tale — Hulu, the original, or this — the Audible version, read by Claire Danes(!), is a very solid second (to reading the book). There’s another version of this, with Danes narrating alongside a full cast, that might very well belong on a list of the best Audible books of 2021 (or indeed 2022), but I haven’t heard it yet, and I think it’ll be hard to beat this, and the suffocating sense of being stuck in Offred’s head/life.

These are my best Audible books of 2021. For the last few years, my main reading project is to read a book from every country in the world. For more on that, see here.

The 7 Best 2021 Wall Art Calendars on Etsy

Published by Diana

There may be 20,000+ search results — but I’m pretty confident that among these six picks is the single best wall art calendar on Etsy.

I turned to Etsy when my usual calendar-providing suspects — Paper Source, Rifle Paper — came up empty. Some requirements for my new calendar: I wanted a wall calendar, not a desk calendar, and ideally, I wanted something bound (either with, like, staples or ring-binding) — not the sort of thing where you have to use a fancy binder clip to put it on your wall. I also avoided printable calendars (I make one(!!) but just didn’t want anything DIY for this), and I skipped single-page, full-year-on-one-sheet calendars,

I didn’t go through all 22,000 results(!!!!!) in my search for the best wall art calendar on Etsy, but I did find a half-dozen I loved. These obviously reflect my general interests — National Parks, trees, travel, etc. — but you can find literally anything you want, including: a virus calendar, a pastry calendar, a “2021 Nude Art Calendar.”

1. Architecture Calendar

BUY IT HERE: Architecture calendar, $39

I know I literally just said I didn’t want a calendar held together with a binder clip — I guess at least this calendar of architectural illustrations comes with one.

2. Hand-Sewn Calendar

BUY IT HERE: Hand-sewn calendar, $65

This is about four times as much as I wanted to spend, but this might be the very best wall art calendar on Etsy (all of it). Each art print is double-perforated and can be detached, from the calendar itself and from the monthly grid, to be saved and shown off separately. The same designer makes a moon phases calendar, too.

3. Watercolor Botanical Calendar

BUY IT HERE: Watercolor botanical calendar, $29.50

Another binder-clip situation (argh), but I love the way that the illustrations are shown at maximal size, and how the color palette gets cooler and warmer with the seasons.

4. Botanical Illustrations Calendar

BUY IT HERE: Botanical illustrations calendar, $23.50

I love that the monthly grid is hand-drawn, just like the botanical illustrations. The same designer makes a terrazzo-pattern calendar, if that’s your thing.

5. National Park Calendar

BUY IT HERE: National Park calendar, $32

There are a zillion National Park-themed wall art calendars on Etsy, but this is one of the ones I like the best, thanks to all its rich, saturated colors.

6. Field & Forest Calendar

BUY IT HERE: Field & Forest calendar, $30

I love the color palette for this “Field & Forest” calendar, like the icy blue of January and the pretty pink of April.

7. Streetscapes Calendar

BUY IT HERE: Streetscapes calendar, $32

A lovely gift for a travel, this calendar has gouache illustrations of streetscapes from the Jordaan in Amsterdam to New York’s SoHo (and London, San Francisco, and more.)

P.S.: See my other Etsy picks — including the best French gifts and the best French jewelry — here.

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

These are so extremely élégante that I included them in our list of the 12 best French-made presents from allll of Etsy. Fact: I didn’t look through all 300 pages of search results, but these earn my vote for the very best minimalist earrings on Etsy (all of it!!). Those are also Seines at the very top, in a slightly different color.

3. Tukituki Earrings

BUY IT HERE: “Tukituki” earrings, $147

This is the most expensive piece on this list and I’m not totally sure that I like these $100 more than the Seines, above — but I *do* love that deep-green color of porcelain.

4. Dyle Earrings

BUY IT HERE: “Dyle” earrings, $97

If you’re not into the whole geometric trend, you can skip these, but I love it.

5. Mira Earrings

BUY IT HERE: “Mira” earrings, $53

Another super simple, super clean option.

6. Bodva Earrings

BUY IT HERE: “Bodva” earrings, $53

You could wear these earrings with literally anything Everlane has ever made.

7. Kivu Earrings

BUY IT HERE: “Kivu” earrings, $75

These are the right earrings for when you get invited to a gallery opening and want to wear earrings that are cool but not, like, overly cool.

An Honest Yabla Review (2021)

Published by Diana

My Yabla review: I love Yabla.

I’ve used Yabla for three years, after I discovered it while looking for a way to practice my oral comprehension of French. I can read reasonably well, and speak at least competently enough to express my less-complicated thoughts, but I am hopeless at understanding people when they speak French. Enter, Yabla. (Note: This Yabla review focuses on Yabla French, though I imagine it’s more or less the same for each of the languages Yabla offers.)

So What Is Yabla?

Yabla is a language-learning system that uses a selection of game-like programs to increase oral comprehension, vocabulary, and written ability. My favorite — the one I use 99.9% of the time — is Scribe.

The concept is simple: Every week, Yabla publishes a bunch of new videos — a mix of news reports, music videos, cartoon segments, and original material made by Yabla itself. (The original material is excellent — especially the videos by Lionel (Lionel the First, though Lionel the Second is also great, something other Yabla French users will understand) and by Daniel Benchimol, who does great video tours around Paris and France).

Each clip is divided into short sections, and you type out what you hear, like in Wheel of Fortune. See those blank spaces up there? That’s where you type in the words you hear the speaker saying.

It’s that easy — except often it’s not, because maybe you don’t know your “dis donc” from “dit, donc.” The better you do on your first try, the more stars you get. The more stars you get, the higher you appear on the leaderboard — so you’re rewarded both for accuracy and volume.

How Does Yabla Work?

Scribe is just one of Yabla’s core programs.

There’s also Multiple Choice (seen above), where you select a missing word from a sentence from a row of possibilities, and Fill in the Blank, where you type in the missing word instead of a multiple choice scenario. (Fill in the Blank can actually be a little more difficult than Scribe, because with Scribe you know, Hangman-style, how many letters there are in each word, while you don’t in Fill in the Blank — so you have to think a little harder about whether you’re hearing “viennent” or “vienne.”)

Finally we have Vocabulary Review (above), which quizzes you on possibly new-to-you words in increasingly more difficult ways: first you match French to English, then English to French, then write the word in French given the English definition. A new Comprehension section is your basic “did you understand anything that you just heard.”

Obviously, the best way to go about this would be to spend a bit of time with extra video, going through all the games one by one, but I usually just do Scribe.

Who’s Yabla For?

One of the things I like best about Yabla is that it’s not for beginners. It organizes its videos from beginner level to advanced, and there are plenty at the beginner level — but more are available for intermediates and advanced. I honestly don’t know how you’d start with no experience. Yabla can’t teach the foundations of the language — how French adjectives agree with their nouns, or when to use subjunctive verbs and when to use conditional.

In my experience, Yabla is best used in conjunction with a class or one-on-one tutor (I have the latter, on Verbling).

Yabla Vs Duolingo

I personally don’t love Duolingo, though I finished it in French, as I reviewed what I’d learned in high school and college. They really don’t compare at all: Duolingo’s for beginners, and Yabla’s not. If I were starting from scratch and only wanted to use online tools, it’d be possible to start with Duolingo and then move to beginner-level Yabla videos. But I feel like you’d still need a tutor to explain the foundations of the language, which Duolingo doesn’t do.

Yabla Vs FluentU

I’ve only spent the two-week trial on FluentU. I prefer Yabla, which is much less expensive because you’re only subscribing to one language, whereas with FluentU you get access to everything they offer. If you’re learning multiple languages, maybe that would make FluentU worth it?

FluentU offers more languages than Yabla: FluentU has Chinese, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, English, Italian, Arabic, Russian, Korean, and Portuguese, while Yabla only has six: English, Spanish, Italian, French, German, and Chinese. But Yabla does have deeper video libraries for the languages it does have, and I didn’t see any original material on FluentU.

There are some things I prefer about FluentU, including its more modern interface, and small things like a running total of the days you’ve used it, right on your main dashboard. But I don’t like any of that enough to consider switching. Even if they were the same price, I’d go with Yabla, but given that FluentU is nearly three times as much(!), it’s an easy choice.

In Conclusion: My Yabla Review

My Yabla review is that Yabla is the best. On its own, it won’t teach anybody French. But as part of a well-rounded language program, it’s invaluable.

It’s $12.95 per month, with a 15-day free trial, or $54.95 for six months or $99.95 for a year. (Obviously I pay monthly because I like wasting money.)

p.s. these are my other favorite online language-learning tools — some free, some paid.

12 Excellent French Makers on Etsy

Published by Diana

Looking for the best French gifts on Etsy? Voilà.

While I’ve been an Etsy shopkeeper for forever, I’ve only recently become more of an Etsy shopper, and I’ve bought more excellent stuff on Etsy this year than anywhere else. (Like: vintage maps of Europe, an Animal Crossing-themed print for a friend, and a vinyl Bruce Springsteen sticker, because for 2021 I decided to be the sort of person who cares a lot about stickers.)

A couple quick things, as we begin our search for the best French gifts on Etsy (noting: no vintage, no clothing, as those are separate searches!!). As someone who ships from France to the U.S. literally all the time, it’s actually very straightforward and fast: Look for shipment via service called Colissimo, which is the national post carrier’s shipping plan. From Paris to the U.S. it can take as few as four days, though usually it’s closer to seven. And there shouldn’t be customs charges for any of these products (as they’re under the price that would incur them.) Keep an eye on shipping timeframes, and note that the prices shown here can fluctuate with the exchange rate, as the shopkeepers listed them in euros and I’ve provided them in U.S. dollars.

There are Etsy shoppers all over the world, and with a lot (a LOT) of looking around, you can find work that’s unique to a different place — like France. Here, you’ll find some excellent, truly French gifts on Etsy — all from independent makers, from across the country.

Affiliate links below.

1. Extremely Gorgeous Indie Jewelry From Paris

BUY IT HERE: “Seine” earrings from Goutte de Terre in Paris, $50

I find these earrings just extremely and stylish — they’re porcelain hand-painted with gold, with sterling silver backs. I love his entire collection, designed in Paris and made by hand in Oaxaca. I know this image isn’t like DRAMA but I think it falls in line with prevailing ideas about jewelry, where simpler is chicer.

2. Graphic Wall Planners and Desk Calendars

BUY IT HERE: “Sakura” weekly planner from Yipikai Papeterie, $13

I love these super-graphic, super-Memphis-y calendars and planners. They remind me a little of Papier Tigre but not too much, if you know what I mean. The desk planners are available in English and French; this one has both.

3. Extremely Special Stuffed Marine Animals

BUY IT HERE: Stuffed whale from Big Stuffed in Paris, $170

Obviously I think this is adorable, even if when I first saw it I was like, $170 for a stuffed whale seems like kind of a lot???? But then I saw that more people have this “in their cart” than anything else, so — “¯\_(ツ)_/¯“?

4. Designer Map of Marseille (and Other Cities)

BUY IT HERE: Marseille neighborhoods map from Bnito Shop, $18

Lord knows there are plenty of fancy Paris maps on Etsy, but Benoit Cesari seemingly spends just as much if not more time on the country’s other destinations — including Lyon, Montpellier, and Avignon — as well as more thematic offerings, like wine and regional cuisine maps of France.

5. Ridiculous But Lovely Origami Animals

BUY IT HERE: Penguin origami from Florigami, $120

I don’t know how to defend the ridiculousness of these $120 origami animals, but I also love them. This is the paradox of French handmade goods: They are often absurdly expensive, and they’re rarely like a showstopper piece, but they can be these tiny, lovely things that you can’t stop looking at. That is how I feel about those penguins, anyway. (They also have wolves, dragons, unicorns, and more, plus the deer shown at top; here’s their Instagram, which is extremely cute.

6. Cat Teepee

BUY IT HERE: Cat teepee from Hip Tepee Hooray, $76

Sometimes giving to yourself means … giving to your cat, specifically a teepee with a pompom door opening and double-sided pillow, with faux-sheepskin to keep them warm in winter? And this is just slightly unbelievable but you can accessorize your cat teepee with a matching banner with their hand-embroidered name. C’est incroyable!

7. Cool French Enamel Pins

BUY IT HERE: Garde la pêche pin, $13

“Garde la pêche” translates to “stay strong” more or less (here’s a long discussion about that), and having it in French pin form I think is quite cool. They’re all sort of just like ever-so-slightly risqué, like “Morue Forever” (“morue” (lol) often means “cod” but can also mean “woman held by others as retaining a vulgar and discourteous disposition.”) You can decide which pin is most appropriate to your personal vibe.

8. Périgord Walnut Cutting Boards

BUY IT HERE: Périgord walnut cutting board from Atelier Paul Riaucoux, $95

Part of me says $90 is too much to spend on a cutting board, but the more financially astute part of me says this is less than I am going to have to pay my landlord when he realizes I’ve been using his countertops as a place to smash blueberries. (We have a complicated relationship.) I don’t personally need a fancy cutting board (see above), but I know a lot of people who’d be delighted to get this.

9. 1930s Colorimetry Chart

BUY IT HERE: 1930s colorimetry charts from So French Vintage, $31

As someone who loves color, I love these vintage colorimetry charts from the 1930s, and I have a similar one. You can get them cheaper in France (about €10, rather than $30), from the bouquinistes along the Seine … until you factor in the airfare. These prints are usually pages from a book or manual, so expect to frame it once it’s home.

10. Printable Boeuf Bourguignon Recipe

BUY IT HERE: Downloadable boeuf bourguignon recipe, $4

I just find this a super-charming and not super-high-cost addition to a holiday card: a recipe (printed in both English and French), for this classic, hearty, very holiday-seasonal meal. She also offers recipes for French onion soup, pot au feu, coq au vin, and more. Sometimes the best French gifts on Etsy only require downloading and printing, versus shipping, and that seems like a bonus.

11. European Soccer Poster Feat. Zinedine Zidane

BUY IT HERE: Zinedane Zidane’s uniforms poster, $38+ (depending on size/customization)

Soccer — er, “football” — isn’t my thing, but if I knew someone who liked the European version, I might very well consider this poster showing off all of French soccer icon Zinedine Zidane’s uniforms.

12. Règles de la Maison Print

BUY IT HERE: Rules of the House from La Poupette Pailette, $15.85+ (depending on size/customization)

I think this “House Rules” print is extremely cute, even if the directive to “être heureux chaque jour” sounds a little stressy. But how adorable for a home with a little language-learner??

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.

We publish two great newsletters: Sign up for a weekly dispatch about travel and Paris — or for our new weekly email about shopping (mostly French brands but a mix of everything!)

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 right next to a Christmas tree.

Best Extremely Well Set Up Bar System
Confinement is definitely not a problem when you have everything you need without going downstairs.

Best Classic, and Utterly Humungous, Kitchen (@abkasha)
So this is what a kitchen looks like without cabinets!

Best Kitchen With an Utterly Kanye-Level Amount of Marble (@stephenjulliard)
Here’s a look at another extremely marble-centric Paris kitchen, also designed by Studio Charlotte Macaux Perelman. What I love most is the comment that reads “So restrained!” and it’s like, Yes??? But also — definitely not??

Best Example of That Thing Where You Put All Your Magazines Below a Window

Best Zillion-Dollar Sofa Under a Zillion-Dollar Chandelier (@mr_briq_paris)
That is not a sofa suitable for snacking.

Best Totally Unnecessary Ceiling Ornamention (@suzannetuckerhome)
This is basically the opposite of a cozy cat corner (obvs), but if you’re going all in, might as well get some exquisite, calligraphic details on the ceilings.

Most Completely Excessive Garden Right in the Middle of the Fifth (@proprietesparisiennessir)
All the best Paris apartments are tucked away behind walls, which is why the for-sale listings are so permanently revelatory.

Best Floors That I Would Just Sit Around and Stare at All Day
They might look a little extra IRL, but from a distance I love the extremely wild approach to parquet flooring. Also note that wonderful, circular rattan chair in the background.

Best Vibe for When Netflix Just Gave You Like $400,000,000 or Something (@deluxe.confidential)
The newly rich gotta live somewhere, right?? Might as well cash out on all those moldings?

Best Entire Wall of Books (@design_east_)
Also, those parquet floors! Get another look at the shelving, designed by architect Benoit Dupuis for his own apartment, here.

Best Staircase (@nicolas4matheus)
Also: best blue paint, and best semi-metallic storage unit. The way those two blues come together reminds me about the color difference when you see two different seas meet.

Best Round Walls (@emilytaubert)
Nothing says luxury like walls that are round when they could have been straight (not kidding!!). Also: bonus points for those herringbone-style floors (fast fact, that pattern is called point de Hongrie here).

Best Pink Fireplace of All the Paris Apartment Interiors in Paris (@marieclairemaison)
Now that looks expensive.

Most Ridiculous Use of Curtains (@paris.by.design)
That is just not a realistic way of living but also very beautiful.

All-Time Best View (@bossardarchitecture)
Tough to beat those windows, even if the interiors are actually a little meh.

Best Second House in the Country (@parisouestsothebys)
Guaranteed: There is a horse immediately to the left.

Best Fantasy Space Mixing an 18th-Century Mansion With Some Very Futuristic Seating Units (@theglitteringunknown)
This isn’t quite a Paris apartment, but an exhibition space for Maison et Objet, the big Paris design show, at the Hotel de Soubise, which is better known as the site of the Museum of the National Archives, as designed by Pierre Gonalans. (Here’s another look — it’s beautiful!)

Best Home Office (@icondesignit)
Speaking of, from Pierre Gonalans’ home in Meaux: “a big Anglo-Norman house full of contemporaneity. Louis XIII furniture and Chinese antiques.” Even if these interiors are not strictly Paris apartment interiors (Meaux is about 40 minutes outside of the city) … wowzers.

Looking for more? Here’s a previous edition, with more rich people making their houses look extremely fancy for the photos.

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 in, he said. There were none. He fixed my lamp with a screwdriver and electrical tape, which I thought was admirably handy. He had a terrace with a small jungle of plants on it and a vintage globe, and we played that game you play with old maps, where you try to guess what year it was made based on whether it has Russia or the Soviet Union, South West Africa or Namibia, Suriname or Dutch Guyana. I won. (If nothing else, I always win this game.) We sat on the terrace. I was going back to America soon, I said, so would he watch my plants for me while I was gone? He would. I delivered them.

When I picked them up a month later, he mentioned that he had a baby. A what?

“Le petit Joseph,” he said.

That was weird, I thought, but people have babies all the time(!). I had actually never met anyone who had a baby while simultaneously not acting very much like a new dad. I had seen his apartment — there wasn’t a baby in it. Where was all of this happening? How did these people live their lives?

This went on or a period of months: I went to his apartment with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream ($9), which we planned to eat on his terrace. (That terrace!)

As we discussed our plans for the summer, he mentioned another baby.

“Are you making this up,” I said.

“Le petit Mathieu,” he said.

What can I say? I feel like sometimes the thing about living cross-culturally is that your brain just wants to fit people into familiar boxes: I’ve had plenty of friends who were new dads, and it would have been impossible to imagine them staying out until 2 or 3 a.m. every morning, to spend all these hours chatting with me in a terrace evidently far from wherever the baby might live. And I assumed that because I had not seen that phenomenon before it could not exist. But of course: There are (obviously) (obviously!) fathers whose partners (let’s call his Camille) have recently done them the huge and impossible-to-return favor of bearing them children, and those fathers will spend significant amounts of time away from them, on their own frivolities.

I hope his Camille had a series of lovers, or a gigantic garden all to herself, or whatever frivolity she wanted for herself.

As for me: I think this, better than any other relationship I have had in France (including much more serious/intimate ones), is my metaphor: The French say that Americans are not realistic in our ideas about love, in the idea that one person can be “our everything.” But I think they are too cynical. I know more divorced Americans than French ones, but I also know more happy American couples than I do French. And if that aligns to ideas about how American culture is binary — good! evil! wrong! right! happily married! miserably married! — and French cultured is constructed on an endless succession of nuances (there is no good or evil, only variations….), I am … not surprised.

As for Francois: I picked up my ice cream, and instead of going to a reading by the American author Ruta Sepetys, immediately went home, and never spoke to him again.

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 all things, the French Consulate’s website. They offered a paid ($130) test with results in 48 hours.

Step #2: The covid test
I went to Excell Clinical Laboratory in Edison, and 10/10 would recommend. I arrived at 9:30 (they open at 9), was told there were four people in front of me, went out and sat in my car for a half-hour, and came back. About half the people in the office (“¯\_(ツ)_/¯“) were wearing masks, which I wasn’t excited about, but I also didn’t interact with them.

The test itself was no big deal: I was prepared to be uncomfortable, but it was really just like a gentle swab — so gentle that I said, “Are you sure that’s enough? I don’t mind if you need to go higher?”

(Apparently that’s not necessary! Who knew!)

I received my results exactly 47 hours later, the morning of my flight.

Step #3: How to get to the airport
This might sound like no big deal, but I was perplexed. Car service? Train? Parking spot near the airport? I was literally so confused that I polled my friends on Facebook, and let me just say that the results were all over the place, with car service edging out the parking spot, and both of those options well ahead of the train.

Ultimately I felt like I wanted the control of driving myself, without having to worry that my driver’s a Trump-voting anti-masker wearing his on his chin for the hourlong drive. I found a monthly spot at a hotel near the airport on Spothero.

I took an Uber from the hotel parking lot to the airport, and TBH it made me happy that I hadn’t taken a car service to the airport.

Step 4: Document check
Since I couldn’t check in for my flight online, I had to check in at a kiosk — a process interrupted halfway through for a physical document inspection (residency card, covid test). My residency card had “expired” officially in April, but was automatically extended six months. The United rep told me she had to take it out to get checked.

“If there are any problems I am 100% sure that it is valid so please involve me in that conversation,” I said, like a Karen.

I spent the next five minutes, while she was gone, trying to pull up the documentation of the extension on my laptop, since my phone was dead, but when she came back she said I was OK to go.

Step 5: Baggage drop
I only mention this because I’ve never seen such a stressed-out crowd — everyone was in a bad mood, and the woman at the baggage drop desk was yelling at everyone, but I got it, because everyone was acting like we’d never seen a boarding pass before. It was rough.

I’ll also take a moment to mention the dude who asked the guy in front of him to let him cut in line because his flight was coming up. (Their flights left at the same time.) Then I see him eyeing me, like he is definitely about to ask me the same question, and I say, “My flight leaves 15 minutes before yours.”

“Did I ask you? Did I ask you?”

(I hate this guy.)

Then he spots a pack of men between us and is about to ask them, and the main guy over there is like, “Don’t even ask me, we’re on the same flight, what’s wrong with you?” and the first guy is like, “Did I ask you? Did I even ask you?”

Ugh.

Step 6: Document check #2
Newark was basically empty. I’ve never seen anything like it — not even those very early morning flights. It was eerie and depressing — I can’t imagine what it was like in May.

Before boarding the flight, we stood in a separate line for another document check, and I showed my covid negative test for the second time. The girl in front of me was denied boarding — apparently she’d flown to Newark from San Francisco, and to make the timing work had gotten her covid test a day too early, putting her outside the 72-hour window. She was French, crying, and far from home (France or San Francisco). I don’t know what happened next but I felt for her. I thought they’d be more lenient with the Frenchies but I guess not.

Step 7: The flight
In my economy window seat, I had two rows ahead and three in back of me that were completely empty, plus that middle tier of three columns of seats — also empty. I couldn’t remember if they’re serving food on flights but they did on ours (it wasn’t bad, actually).

The flight attendants were nice in that normal flight attendant way and I just wonder now how many of them were furloughed last week.

Step 7A: Document check
I forgot this one so I’m adding it here! My covid paperwork was checked a third time, when a French official asked to see my results and then asked me when it had been taken(??? it’s on there???). I was really glad, btw, that I’d printed this out, since I didn’t have to worry about my phone dying (maybe other people are better at keeping their phones charged).

Step 8: Arriving to France
When we got to immigration, non-EU travelers went to one window, while the French/EUs went to another. There were about four(!) people on our side. Nobody chatted, but the guy in front of me entered as a student.

Step 9: Getting to Paris
I had already decided to take a cab from CDG to my apartment (somehow this was a less fraught decision than the one about going to Newark — I guess because I didn’t have many choices.) A friend told me to insist on a cab with plastic protection between the driver and the passenger — which I would have done, but totally forgot to do. I did remember to double-check with the driver that he wouldn’t mind if I opened the window, so I basically hung my head out into the rain for the entire 90-minute drive to Paris, like a dog, but at least a dog with fresh air.

I’m sure I’ll be less stressed about it when I make the same trip in reverse in late November — I don’t even think I need a covid test, though I should definitely be required to get one by my stupid government.

I wouldn’t have traveled if I hadn’t had to, and I’ve been dismayed at Parisian attitudes toward masking and social distancing. But it wasn’t impossible, and I generally felt safe(ish). In sum: what it’s like to travel to Paris right now is … pretty meh. I would have been happy to avoid it.

Here’s hoping for better in the months to come.

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.

We publish two great newsletters: Sign up for a weekly dispatch about travel and Paris — or for our new weekly email about shopping (mostly French brands but a mix of everything!)

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 really asking yourself “How can I decorate my home like a Parisian?” — the answer may very well be to just move to Paris. (And oh, hey, here’s a post that explains how to do exactly that.) But if you’re looking for a couple grace notes, here and there, these below will get the job done.

1. White walls
Like everyone else, Parisian apartments are hugely impacted by their environments — which means that sunlight is always at a premium. (We’re so far north that we’re equivalent with Nova Scotia, not New York.) During the winter, the sun doesn’t rise until after 9 a.m. — and from November through March, gray skies are the norm. That means a preference for light-reflecting white walls, just like you’ll see in Scandinavia. Seen above: An apartment in the Marais

2. Hardwood floors
I don’t think I’ve ever been in a French apartment without hardwood floors — the older the better. There’s nothing — nothing! — more beautiful in the world of Parisian interiors than wood parquet floors. These can be hard to replicate on anything like a budget, but there are DIYs all over the internet. Seen here: an apartment in the 16th

3. Moldings
Castle-chic! Nothing says “royal interiors” (uh this may or may not be your intended look???) like moldings — even better if they’re all in a single color. I always thought moldings were something you either had or didn’t have — a “bones of the space” kind of thing — but turns out you can get them at Home Depot. Who knew?? Pas moi. Here’s more info on the different types from Bob Vila.

4. Grand mirror
So — here’s an example of some flashier moldings, but that’s actually not why we’re looking at this image. Forget the moldings (I love them but forget them) — we’re looking at that huge antique mirror. If you don’t feel like heading to Paris for a full range of options at the Clignancourt flea markets, a platform like 1st Dibs offers plenty — like those seen here. (I searched for French antique mirrors from through the 19th century.)

5. French vintage botanicals
Authentic French vintage botanicals are both easy to find and relatively inexpensive — a small one like the one pictured can cost under $10. If you’re looking for something bigger, French botanical posters are a lovely option as well . The best selection is on Etsy.

6. Vintage portraits
Nothing classes up a joint faster than a vintage portrait — it’s basically the royal treatment. And even if the artist is unknown (or the painting unsigned) rather than, say, Goya painting the Spanish royal family, original art is a fantastic way to add character to a space. (And a Parisian vibe to any apartment.) I love the selection at Selency, though the sellers in France aren’t always (or usually) willing to ship to the U.S. — otherwise, Etsy has a great range, though it’s often much more expensive than Selency.

7. Rattan
Here, it cross-pollinates with the whole Jungalow look, but in France, rattan from the ’70s — a.k.a. rotin — was commonly used for chairs, mirrors, shelving, and more. For mirrors, the new ones can be a little cheesy; be sure you get a vintage one, but equally be sure that all the bits aren’t damaged. On Etsy, it can help to search for the French keywords (“miroir rotin”) as they often will ship to the U.S. and the prices are often equivalent to those in the U.S., even with shipping included. I also love rattan in vintage bookshelves and planters — and for those asking “How can I decorate my home like a Parisian specifically in the 1970s?”, here’s your shortcut.