I Prefer Paris

My Week in Paris

I was surfing the net a few weeks ago and stumbled upon an intriguing website, www.myweekin.net. It’s a new site that lets you create your own one, two, or three day customized online itinerary of Paris, using their list of suggested restaurants, shops, sights, and accommodations. What attracted me immediately was the whimsical illustration of a tall, chic woman with a smile on her face holding a bunch of shopping bags with designer labels. I could tell from that, the owner of the site had a sense of style and good taste.

I thought it would be a good idea to have my tours listed on the site and emailed the owner. Her name is Ali Wallace and she sent me a warm reply wanting to meet to discuss the possibility. Ali is from Australia and recently relocated to Tours, a small city in the French countryside about two hours from Paris, with her husband and family. We met at a café in the Marais and Ali was ever the stereotypical Australian, charming and delightful. She had a strong background in marketing and publicity, having her own boutique agency for over 20 years and her client list included IBM, Walt Disney, and Microsoft. I was impressed with the seven page customized presentation she prepared with Eye Prefer Paris on the cover, explaining her company and strategy for the site.

Ali had researched all of the top travel and hotel websites and found what was missing was a comprehensive website combining hotels, spas, restaurants, shops, and attractions. Her idea was to have a one stop-shopping site where you can store things in a “shopping basket” and printout your agenda for your trip. Her audience is sophisticated travelers who are who want to know about the latest and the greatest insider info. Right now the site is focusing on four cities/areas: Paris, London, Edinburgh, and the Loire Valley, with expansion to other places in the near future. Other features of the site include e-postcards created by artists and photographers especially for the site, online concierge, and editorial articles.

I wish Ali the best of luck and I think she will do very well with this smart concept.

www.myweekin.net

I am pleased as punch to announce the launch of Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour walking tours I will personally be leading. The Eye Prefer Paris Tour
includes many of the places I have written about such as small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes & food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks, and much more.

I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you my insiders Paris.

Check it out at www.eyepreferparistours.com

City of Love

There's no better way to say I love you then in Paris, the world’s most romantic city. Someone sent me this website the other day and I thought it was a unique service and a fabulous idea.

www.apoteosurprise.com arranges different romantic settings and events for you to express your love. Whether it’s a marriage proposal, an anniversary, celebrating your honeymoon, Valentines Day, or just a romantic way to say I love you, they have just the right way to show it in the city of love. The “surprises” include over 30 events such as saying I love you on a yacht, on the streets of Montmartre, in a hot air balloon, with a shower of fire works, and of course under the Eiffel tower. Some of the more bizarre “surprises” are the say I Love You at the Stade de France, in the company of detective Colombo, and in a doll museum.

My favorite is the Making a Stunt, where you are picked up in a 1983 Chevrolet Camaro and later on switch to Starsky & Hutch’s Ford Gran Torino, and then you go on the wild ride of your life with award winning movie stunt driver Romain Thiévin. But it doesn’t stop there: after your crazy ride with Romain, you switch to a BMW police car and embark on a hair raising police chase, where you chase the bad guys and at the end your loved will be shocked to see I love you is written in French on the roof of the car. I don’t know how romantic this is, but it sure sounds like fun.

Prices are not cheap: they start at 390 euros for the simple yacht event, and go up to 16,000 euros for an extravagant display of four planes performing a harmonious aerial ballet while you dine at a sumptuous chateau. But of course you can’t put a price on true love.

www.apoteosurprise.com

I am pleased as punch to announce the launch of Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour walking tours I will personally be leading. The Eye Prefer Paris Tour
includes many of the places I have written about such as small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes & food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks, and much more.

I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you my insiders Paris.

Check it out at www.eyepreferparistours.com

Paris Notes

I am thrilled to announce that I had my first article published in the November issue of Paris Notes. Paris Notes is one of the best and most literate Paris newsletters going. They have some top writers who write intelligent, sophisticated and informative articles about culture, history, food, sites, and shopping for a Francophile audience who knows Paris very well. Its paper edition has been around for over 15 years and its subscribers are a very passionate and loyal lot.

I had tea last week with editor & publisher Mark Eversman and he told me stories of subscribers saving every issue since day one and how some of them also put ring holes on the pages and literally visit every place that is written about in an issue.

My article is on the visits page and is about a wonderful organic cosmetic shop called Canzi, where the owner Stephan Mottay mixes his own cosmetics and skin care products. I wrote a brief post about Canzi last year, but this article is a thorough profile about the owner and the products. 

Paris Notes is published 10 times a year and you can subscribe on line for $39 a year or the paper edition is $44 a year. It is well worth it. Mark was kind enough to have me write more articles for next year, so I will keep you posted when they are published.

www.parisnotes.com

I am pleased as punch to announce the launch of Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour walking tours I will personally be leading. The Eye Prefer Paris Tour
includes many of the places I have written about such as small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes & food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks, and much more.

I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you my insiders Paris.

Check it out at www.eyepreferparistours.com

 

Life's Just a Bloggers Cocktail Party

Last night’s Paris bloggers party:
A smash hit, a great success, a meeting of the bloggers minds, a lovely, lively gathering, and great fun.

The party started at 8PM and the mood was festive, and sexy with low lighting (the first thing I did in my new apartment was install dimmers) and sultry music by divas Sade & Mary J. Blige. I served red wine and Cosmopolitans (very Carrie Bradshaw/Sex in the City circa 2001). I made a huge crudités platter, crostini with Brie and cucumber, and assorted puff pastry hot hors d’ouevres to absorb the booze. Dessert was my yummalicious coconut macaroons and David Lebovitz’s lay-down-and-die brownies.

Meg/LeBlageur & Cosmopolitan

By 9PM most of the 20 guests arrived and I even let a few non-bloggers in to spice up the mix a little. Petite Anglaise came with her own bottle of gin and 3 cans of tonic. She left me her unused lemon as a gift, which I will treasure forever. Amy and her friend Little Shiva were the literally the most colorful ones in the room: Amy with her red hair and orange top, and Little Shiva with her acid yellow going - to-red flaming locks coming half-way down her back. Laurie Pike arrived fashionably late with bottles of Champagne wearing a chic DVF like print wrap dress with red Converse sneakers. Many of the men were elegantly dressed in sport jackets and suits. Some of the bloggers couldn’t help themselves and crowded around Vincent’s Mac to login to various site/blogs. I hope no one was checking their stats or posting.

Amy/Advice Goddess & Elliott Hester

Catherine/Petite Anglaise

I worked the room effortlessly like a good Park Ave. socialite, making conversation with all my guests. Amy and my boy friend Vincent both said, “I’m the Pearl Mesta of Paris/the Paris bloggers.

12 bottles of wine, one bottle Champagne, and two pitchers of Cosmopolitans later, the party ended at 12:30AM.The last guests Petit Anglais, LeBlageur, and No Place like were still in a party mood and went off dancing on a disco bateau that was playing 80”s dance music.

I’ve been told I give great party and this was no exception.

Laurie Pike/The Paris Blog

The Guest List

Hillary Keegin & Aaron Ross -13
Terence Gelenter -Paris-Expat.com
Eric Tenin -Paris Daily Photo
Catherine- Petite Anglaise
Matthew Rose- Collage by Matthew Rose
Seth Weintraub- The Paris Times
Pascal Fonquernie-Paris Marais
Heidi Ellison- The Paris Update
Polly Lyman- Polly Vous Francais
Amy Alkon- Advice Goddess
Susie Hollands & Cesar- Ivy Paris
Elliott Hester- Postcards from Paris/LA Times
Little Shiva- www.littleshiva.com
Jennifer Chevais- No Place Like it
Le Meg- Leblageur
Laurie Pike- The Paris Blog
David Lebovitz- www.davidlebovitz.com
Sue Rinski- http://homepage.mac.com/suerynski
Greg Sutter- Elmore Leonard

Rue Rude

Lately, I’ve been bonding with my Paris bloggers community. So much so, that I am hosting a Paris bloggers cocktail party at my apartment this Friday with Laurie Pike, editor extraordinaire, of The Paris Blog.It will be interesting to meet the faces and bodies behind the voices of the other Paris blogs.

One of the other ways that I’ve been connecting with the Paris blogging community is doing an article exchange with some of them.
My first one is with one of my favorite blogs, Rue Rude, a witty and intelligent blog about everyday life in Paris, written by Sedulia Scott.  Even though our blogs are very different, I came up with a topic that would give us common ground: the experience of living in our neighborhoods.

Enjoy and please logon on to www.ruerude.com to read my article.

Class War in Paris

My Paris is very different from Richard’s. He lives in my favorite part of the city, the Marais, an area full of beautiful old stone buildings with interior courtyards and gardens. On the other side of Place de la Bastille were the hoi polloi of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, which is still an artisans’ area, so the fortress of the Bastille was built to protect the aristos of the Marais. Like so many tourists, I was disappointed when I came to Paris and discovered that the fortress was torn down long ago.

I live in the sixteenth arrondissement, which is a byword among French speakers worldwide for stuck-up, coincé, rich, boring, ladies in fur coats, and businessmen with skinny shoulders going to their glass offices in pinstriped suits and loden coats.