I Prefer Paris

Photo Tour of Palais Royal, La Bourse, Passage Vivienne, and 75002

It’s been a long time since I’ve given a photo op tour and the other day I had a super nice family from the Westchester area of New York, a mother and father, and their children, ages 11 and 15. They were all keen on photography and had various cameras, from a heavy-duty Nikon with a super telephoto lens to an I-Phone.

It was a flawless sunny day with the crispest of blue skies. I picked them up at their hotel near the Tuileries and walked them over to the Palais Royal. In between, I took photos of the family in fun poses. After the Palais Royal, we meandered through the Galerie Vivienne, then on to rue Vivienne heading north and we photographed all around the streets near the Bourse in the second arrondissement. I was not familiar with that part of Paris, so it was a wonderful adventure for all of us, discovering new streets with marvelous architecture and cool architectural details. There was a most unusual Art Deco building with cantilevered terraces and while we were snapping photos, the gardien shared details about the building which was constructed in 1934 and was recently declared an historical landmark by the city. We ended at the Passage Panorama, another richly rewarding site for photographs.

I am posting some of my shots from the tour today, and in a few weeks, I will post the rest of the photos along with the photos the family took.

On another note, Vincent and I moved today. August 15, 2005 to Paris, and it's now been an incredible 18 years we are living here. 

Come experience Eye Prefer Paris live with Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3 walking tours I personally lead. Eye Prefer Paris Tours include many of the places I have written about such as small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes, food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks and gardens and much more.  In addition to my specialty Marais Tour, I also lead tours of Montmartre, St. Germain, Latin Quarter, in addition to Shopping Tours, Gay Tours, Girlfriend Tours, Food Tours, Flea Market Tours, Paris Highlights Tours, and Chocolate & Pastry tours.

https://eyepreferparistours.com/

Jam Capsule Immersive Experience: Maria by Callas and Legacy

I received a press release a few weeks ago about a series of new immersive experiences on a 360-degree screen. I have enjoyed similar shows at Atelier des Lumieres in the past years and I thought it would be fun to check this new one out. 

Jam Capsule offers a series of video and sound experiences representing various art forms from dance to music, from painting to cinema, from ecology to architecture. For the first show there are four presentations: "Legacy, The Courage of Truth" by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Japan, Another Look" by Pierre Goismier and GÉDÉON Programs, "Maria by Callas" by Tom Volf, and "Mystical Gardens, A Journey Through the Masterpieces of Flemish Painting to Music by Monteverdi, Mozart, Vivaldi, Verdi" by Tom Volf. Each presentation is shown on the hour, lasting approximately 50 minutes, with a ten-minute break in between, and the website lists the hourly schedule for each day.

I went on a Friday afternoon and saw the Callas and the Legacy shows back-to-back from 2pm to 4pm. Located at Porte de Versailles, a vast venue for trade shows, it's about a seven-minute walk from the metro station off line 12. Inside there was a 360-degree screen wrapped around a massive wall. 

Legacy starts off as a platform to show the wonders of the natural world with astounding aerial and most likely drone footage of mountains, seas, rivers, ice caps, deserts, canyons, and rock formations with dramatic music in the background. It slowly graduates to displaying different populations and peoples, and finally, it becomes a somewhat preachy saga, about how humans are destroying the earth with overpopulation, deforestation, pollution, plastic waste, and garbage with sobering facts and figures displayed on the floor every few minutes. Although I liked the first part of it, I thought the end part of it was a bit manipulative. 

Unlike the Atelier des Lumieres, where the images are shown on the ceiling and on the floor, the Jam Capsule experience didn’t feel as immersive, with images just shown on the walls. Also, the only place to sit for Jam Capsule was on the floor, which was very uncomfortable, plus it was difficult maneuvering around to see the different sides. 

After the Legacy presentation, I asked the staff if they could set up a chair for me so I could watch the next segment, and they were kind enough to bring a folding chair. 

"Maria by Callas" was pure joy from beginning to end. At the start there’s footage of Maria Callas, the legendary, 20^thcentury opera singer, glamorously dressed in a mink coat with a wide lapel and black hat, being mobbed by avid fans and paparazzi at the airport.  It’s followed by a series of clips from some of her most iconic opera performances from Madame Butterfly to Carmen, candid interviews, and newsreels. One clever segment was when the walls were covered with rows of images of television screens, as Callas is being interviewed by David Frost in the 1970s. "Maria by Callas" also poignantly unfolds her failed love affair with Ari Onassis, the love of her life, which led to bitter disappointment and irreparable heartache, when he left her to marry Jackie Kennedy (the details of the story have the perfect elements for an opera.) One point of fascination throughout the presentation was how impeccably dressed, coiffed and poised Callas was in every single clip, and the jaw dropping jewelry she wore. 

I will return to Jam Capsule soon to take in the other presentations.

https://jamcapsuleexperience.com/paris/en/

Come experience Eye Prefer Paris live with Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3 walking tours I personally lead. Eye Prefer Paris Tours include many of the places I have written about such as small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes, food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks and gardens and much more.  In addition to my specialty Marais Tour, I also lead tours of Montmartre, St. Germain, Latin Quarter, in addition to Shopping Tours, Gay Tours, Girlfriend Tours, Food Tours, Flea Market Tours, Paris Highlights Tours, and Chocolate & Pastry tours.

https://eyepreferparistours.com/

The Common Café at Hotel Rosalie

As I mentioned on Monday in the Parc de Choisy post (CLICK HERE to read if you missed it) that I was in the 13th arrondissement to check out a new hotel and outdoor terrace last weekend. 

I was intrigued when I read about a new garden terrace, The Common, near Place d'Italie, on Vogue.fr 

 

Always looking for new things to write about here, I decided to check it out last Sunday for lunch. Place d'Italie is a busy circle/hub with many metro lines, much like Columbus Circle in NYC. Getting off the metro Vincent and I had to make our way through about 6 intersections until we arrived at a quiet, dead-end street, Avenue de la Sœur Rosalie. I was curious about the odd name, and I did some research, and found out it was named after Sister Rosalie in 1868, a selfless nun who cared for the poor.

Walking through a narrow passageway, we arrived at what looked like a handsome, new building made of stone, with some neo-classical touches and Roman-like, stone female statues on the top floor. The Common was on the lower level of the hotel and the outside garden terrace was a delight, decorated in cheerful, navy and white, wide striped couches and chairs, slatted, aluminum dining chairs, metal tabletops in leaf green, white fringed, canvas parasols, and a beautifully planted garden with ferns, flowers, ivy, and moss. We arrived at about 1pm, thinking the place would be full for Sunday lunch, but it turned out we were the only ones there. It was probably a combination of the hotel only being three months old plus it was a day short of being August, when the Parisians take their vacances.  

The appealing menu had a choice of lunch/brunch specialties leaning on the vegetarian side (the ingredients are all organic) and included a quinoa bowl, red lentil dal, and Chakchouka baguette, a baguette with red pepper cream, zucchini, eggs, melted cheddar and coriander. We ordered the Veggie Open Sandwich, and the Colorful Salad to share, and savored the calmness of the garden while we waited for our food. A few moments later the dishes arrived, prettily presented on a royal blue, oval ceramic plate, and a clear glass bowl with scalloped edges. The sandwich had a mound of arugula sprinkled on top with thin slices of red peppers, eggplant, zucchini, and feta underneath and it was so good, I could have eaten a second one. The salad was equally good with greens, radishes, sweet, cherry tomatoes, and sweet potato rounds topped with grilled goat cheese, which was such a clever idea, that I will make them as an appetizer for my next dinner party. The food was excellent and super fresh, but our only complaint was the portions were too small, and we craved more. 

After our yummy meal we were so looking forward to dessert and were disappointed that they were already out of most of the desserts on the menu. (I never understand that irritating thing at French restaurants when they tell you they are already out of things, even though we were the only people in the restaurant). By default, we chose the silky, tofu chocolate mousse, expecting some chalky, tasteless concoction but we were pleasantly surprised by the silky, smooth texture and strong chocolate taste.

 

 

 

 

 

When we finished lunch, I requested a tour of the hotel and one of the staff members kindly showed me a compact room on the top floor which extended the garden motif of the hotel with cheerful, flower-patterned wallpaper and carpeting and stunning views of the rooftops and the city. 

On the fourth floor was a delightful roof garden, only available to the guests of the hotel, similar in design to the terrace at the restaurant.

The Common also has an indoor dining room and is open Monday to Friday from 7am to 3pm, and Friday and Saturday until 10pm, for breakfast, brunch, and lunch.

8 bis Avenue de la Sœur Rosalie, 75013

https://www.hotel-rosalie.com/en/

Come experience Eye Prefer Paris live with Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3 walking tours I personally lead. Eye Prefer Paris Tours include many of the places I have written about such as small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes, food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks and gardens and much more.  In addition to my specialty Marais Tour, I also lead tours of Montmartre, St. Germain, Latin Quarter, in addition to Shopping Tours, Gay Tours, Girlfriend Tours, Food Tours, Flea Market Tours, Paris Highlights Tours, and Chocolate & Pastry tours.

https://eyepreferparistours.com/

Parc de Choisy

I was in the 13^th arrondissement yesterday to check out a new hotel and outdoor restaurant terrace (more about that soon in another post) and Vincent mentioned a lovely park he discovered nearby last week.

Parc de Choisy is just off the Boulevard de Italie, close to the Tolbiac metro station on line 7. The rectangular shaped park area, measuring 10 acres, was the site of the former plant for the Ivry gas company, which was dismantled in 1935. Edward Crevel, who was the chief architect of Paris, designed the park in 1937 and he also designed the Art Deco style George Eastman Dental Institute that’s next to the park.

The garden still adheres to the formal French garden design with a perpendicular axis and a fountain down in the middle, trimmed rows of trees forming a canopy on each side, and colorful flower beds.

Also like a typical French park, there’s lots of activities including a children’s playground (I love the imaginative and playful structures in the children’s playgrounds across Paris), basketball courts, ping pong tables, an open-air theater, and even an outdoor workout facility with elliptical machine.

It was a perfect sunny summer day with temps in the low 80s, low humidity, and a cool breeze. It was nice to see Parisians taking advantage of the park by picnicking, resting on benches, working out, fiercely competing at table tennis, playing in the playgrounds, and relaxing in the cool shade underneath the trees.

128 Av. de Choisy, 75013

Come experience Eye Prefer Paris live with Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3 walking tours I personally lead. Eye Prefer Paris Tours include many of the places I have written about such as small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes, food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks and gardens and much more.  In addition to my specialty Marais Tour, I also lead tours of Montmartre, St. Germain, Latin Quarter, in addition to Shopping Tours, Gay Tours, Girlfriend Tours, Food Tours, Flea Market Tours, Paris Highlights Tours, and Chocolate & Pastry tours.

https://eyepreferparistours.com/

Door of the Month: July 2022

It’s been a while since I’ve posted my Parisian doors. I’ve been collecting a new series for a few months now, so enjoy!

CLICK HERE to view my past Door of the Month series.

You can also find doors on my Instagram https://www.instagram.com/parisian_doors/

Eye Prefer Paris Postcards with the Doors of Paris. 

I am excited to launch a new series of Eye Prefer Paris Postcards with the Doors of Paris. 

The limited-edition series of Eye Prefer Paris Door Collection Postcards are available three different ways.

18 cards: 3 Red Doors, 3 Blue Doors, 3 Green Doors, 3 Wood Doors, 3 Iron Doors, and 3 Door Knockers. 

Cost: $65- Free shipping 

9 postcards: 3 Red Doors, 3 Blue Doors, 3 Green Doors.

Cost: $35 plus $5 shipping 

9 postcards: 3 Wood Doors, 3 Iron Doors, and 3 Door Knockers

Cost: $35 plus $5 shipping 

Each postcard is printed on thick matte coated card stock, similar to traditional vintage postcard stock, that enhances the vibrancy of each image. Eye Prefer Paris Postcards come in classic postcard size (6”x 4.25”), perfect for collecting, framing, or sending to that special someone. 

Each order is specially hand wrapped with love from Paris and mailed in an elegant, French blue envelope. Postcards take about 4- 7 days to arrive in the U.S. 

Just in time for the holidays, the Eye Prefer Paris-Paris Door Collection make a perfect gift for your Francophile friends and family, and I can write a handwritten note for you and include it in the envelope. 

CLICK HERE to order 18 cards: 3 Red Doors, 3 Blue Doors, 3 Green Doors, 3 Wood Doors, 3 Iron Doors, and 3 Door Knockers. 

Cost: $65- Free shipping 

CLICK HERE to order 9 postcards: 3 Red Doors, 3 Blue Doors, 3 Green Doors.

Cost: $35 plus $5 shipping 

CLICK HERE to order 9 postcards: 3 Wood Doors, 3 Iron Doors, and 3 Door Knockers

Cost: $35 plus $5 shipping 

Green Doors

Blue Doors

Metal Doors