I Prefer Paris

Paris Pass

Dear Readers,
From time to time I will be doing product reviews of services and products that would be beneficial to a Paris visit.

Paris Pass is an all inclusive city pass that includes:
• A card to visit over 60 museums & monuments including the Louvre, Notre Dame tour, D’Orsay Museum, Arc de Triomphe, Versailles, Pompidou Center, and many more.
• Unlimited travel on metro and buses.
• Free cell phone for 5 days
• Discounts & freebies at Chez Clement restaurant, Galeries Lafayette, and Fragonard Perfume Museum
• Unlimited use on the Bateaux Parisiens River Cruise and Open Top Bus Tour

Passes come in 2 day-79 euros, 4 day- 119 euros, or 6 day – 149 euros –denominations.

I think this is a good value for the money especially for the 4 day and 6 day passes. If you are trying to cram a lot in a short period of time, the pass will save you time and possibly some money. Just to bypass the museum lines alone is worth the price. The metro and bus pass is a good feature and you will avoid the hassle of trying to speak French to an uncommunicative metro station attendant through a thick glass partition. An Open Bus tour is 25 euros for a day pass, which I recommend as a great way to see the city, is included, so this makes the pass even a better buy. There are special rates for teenagers and children. The only small drawback is the card is not good for the Eiffel Tower.

So, with all the money you save on your Paris Pass, you can take one of my Eye Prefer Paris Tours.

If you use any of the products/service I review, your feedback in the comments section would be greatly appreciated.

Click the icon below to order your Paris Pass.

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

 

Fireworks in Rogny les Sept Ecluses

My good friends Deborah & Olivier, who always rescue me by taking me to the countryside when I most need it, took me to Olivier’s parents house along with their son Dylan this weekend. Their sweet, quaint house is in Rogny les Sept Ecluses, a small village near the Loire valley about 2 hours and 30 minutes from Paris.

Since 1967, Rogny les Sept Ecluses has had a fireworks festival/competition annually on the last Saturday of July and attracts more than 20,000 people for this festive occasion. We arrived at about 12PM and already the town was preparing for the big night: outdoor food stands were firing up their barbeque grills with saucisson, frites, etc, live bands setting up their bandstands, the local police putting up bright tape barriers and closing the town to traffic, rows of grandstands and chairs lined up for spectators, and the local brass band, Les Fanfarrons, in straw hats and costume, belting out tunes.

Historical Rogny les Sept Ecluses, which means Rogny of the seven locks, is where some of the first canals in France were built. Commissioned by Henry IV in 1605, Hugues Cosnier built the canals until 1610 when the king died and construction began again in 1638 and completed in 1642. The old canal is no longer in use and was replaced by a more modern one in the 1800’s. In fact, Olivier’s grandfather was a lock operator who opened and closed the locks by hand, before automation came in the late 1900’s.

Old Canal

Michel and Micheline, Olivier’s parents, who couldn’t have been nicer or more generous, gave me a warm welcome and immediately treated me like one of the family. Their pride and joy, and it should be, is their flower and vegetable garden. Pots, plants, vines & bushes were bursting with Technicolor hydrangeas, geraniums, petunias, morning glories, and pansies. The cool, rainy summer had made the flowers that much more abundant.

I watched as they picked red & yellow tomatoes off the vine, green beans off the stalks, red lettuce from the ground, and fresh herbs. Micheline picked me an almost ripe green Reine Claude plum right off the tree. It was of course yum and plump.

It was a cool, gray overcast day and we enjoyed a lunch of the fresh picked garden delights plus roasted beets, carrots, and roasted peppers in the glass terrace. We finished the meal with some fantastic local Chevres and Micheline’s home baked sponge cake with about 20 flavors of ice cream to choose from.

The charming house located right in front of the canal, is an attached one-story brick cottage with a converted sleeping attic, dating from the 1830’s. It had the usual bric-a brac you would expect in a house like this. I particularly liked Micheline’s collection of old doll heads and Michel’s antique oil cans. The house next door is Michel’s parents house and they recently converted it to an equally as charming 3-bedroom cottage for rent. Please email me if you

No Good Store

No Good Store, an extension of the trendy No Good Window Gallery, is a minimalist fashion and art concept store in shades of gray. From steel to charcoal, the men’s & women’s army jackets, t-shirts, dresses, are embossed with war emblems of bullets & grenades and there’s even baby frocks in their signature gray.

A Kelly bag printed on cloth shoulder sac for only 24 euros, will finally get you that fashion Hermes icon you always wanted but could never afford.

There’s lots of consumer art to grab off the walls including a series of pistols in glass frames with big type expressions like “shopping is war” & “sex is war”, and individual boxed rubber stamps with words in French like filthy, despicable, and pitiful.

My favorite amusing objet was the namedropper tool kit: a little address book in a stainless credit card case with names and fake addresses of Paris celebs like Marc Jacobs, Vanessa Paradis, Kate Moss, Annette Messager and Vincent Cassel.

The tableaux of sexy babe 60’s mannequins is funny bordering on creepy.

If spiders don’t creep you out, buy the cheap & neat silver spider buttons.

No Good Store
53 Rue des Matyrs,75009
01 45 96 00 87
Metro: Notre Dame de Lorette, #12 line
www.nogoodpeople.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

 

Carnival in the Tuileries

Strolling through the Tuileries the other day to meet a friend for lunch, the jaded, sophisticated me was horrified by the tacky carnival and amusement park rides setup in the middle of one of the most beautiful parks in Paris. My friend called to say she was running late, so instead of dismissing the carnival, I decided to check it out.

As a kid, I spent my summers on the boardwalk at various New Jersey beach resorts. Walking through the noisy kid-filled aisles and hearing carnival barkers in French, I had a sudden flood of happy child memories come back to me.

I used to spend all of my hard earned allowance on games of chance like the floating plastic ducks, the shooting range with cartoon character targets, and the darts trying to break the balloons, all in the quest of winning another silly colored stuffed animal.

When I passed the food stands of cotton candy, jelly apples- they call them Pomme de amour/love apples here, custard & Italian ices, sausage & peppers, and churros (I used to have the Italian version called zeppoles), I remember my eyes always being bigger than my stomach (certainly not the case anymore) and sometimes getting a tummy ache afterwards.

And let’s not forget the rides: the fun house, bumper cars, the house of horrors, the giant Ferris wheel and the gravity defying ones that I couldn’t get enough of (now I would need an immediate visit to the chiropractor after going on one) that made me laugh and cry at the same time.


So if you want to skip some of those “important” museums & monuments and secretly indulge your inner child urges to go to the carnival, checkout the Tuileries. You may even run into me: I’ll be the one with the pink cotton candy all over my face.

Tuileries Carnival till August 26th.
Metro: Tuileries, # 1 line

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

 

Ten Insider Tips for Paris Metro and Buses

Ten Insider Tips for Paris Metro & Buses

1. Weekly passes go from Monday to Sunday.
2. Buy a weekly Carte d’Orange for zones 1-2 for 16.30 euros instead of Paris Visite Pass. You must have a passport size photo, so take the time to get one in the photo booth at most stations. Ask the window attendant for Carte Orange and they will give you a plastic case for card & photo.
3. Click this link for itinerary locator for fastest route on the metro & bus.
4. If spending a few days here, buy a carnet/ten pack of tickets for 11.10 euros, good on metro and buses. They don’t expire, so you can always use them.
5. . Children under 3 ride free. Children 3-11 ride at reduced fares with single fares or carnet/10 packs.
6. The new white single ticket for 1.50 euro is good for unlimited use for 90 minutes on the metro and buses.
7. The metro runs from 5:30AM till 12:40AM, Sunday to Friday,
Saturdays from 5:30AM till 1:40AM. Some buses run all night.Click here to check bus schedules.
8. Always keep your single metro ticket until you exit the station. If you get caught without your ticket they will fine you 35 euros.
9.The automated machines do not accept U.S. credit cards., and accept only coins. The service windows accept regular credit cards.
10. You can use Zone 1-2 tickets on RER stops within city limits.

Officiall RATP site for all metro & bus information: http://www.ratp.info/index.php

Metro Station of the Month: Assemblée Nationale

The Assemblée Nationale metro station platform looks like a large-scale painting from a modern gallery or museum. It’s walls with odd free form shapes in red, white, and blue and the yellow bucket seats in front of them, are an eye-pleasing exercise in primary colors.

The contrast of the rich iron work in classic green in the entrance against the playful modern platform walls make for a most unusual metro station. I noticed another unusual detail in that the tiles on the walls going down the stairs have designs etched on them rather than the usual carved tiles.

Assemblée Nationale,known originally as the Palais Bourbon, is the French lower House of Parliament with 577 members known as deputes. Duchesse de Bourbon, daughter of Louis XIV commissioned the building, and was built between 1722 and 1728.The grand Roman portico was added in 1906.

Area Attractions
Assemblée Nationale
D’Orsay Museum

Assemblée Nationale
Metro line 12
Mairie D’Issy- Porte de la Chapelle

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 Half –Price Ticket Booth

Want to see “ The Vagina Monlogues” in French or a classic Moliere comedy at Comedie Francaise for half-price?

Take a shot at it and visit either of the 2 half-price ticket booths.

15 place de la Madeleine- Metro: Madeleine
Esplanade de la Tour Montparnasse- Metro: Montparnasse

12.30pm to 8pm Tuesday to Saturday and 12.30pm to 4pm on Sunday

Tickets are half-price for same day only performances
3 euro service fee on all tickets

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

 

Libertijn, The Dutch Love Boat

As I mentioned in my Fireman’s Ball post, I met an interesting guy named Don Galles, who invited me to visit his barge turned houseboat.
Never one to turn down an opportunity for a possible blog article, I arranged to meet him at the boat on Sunday afternoon with my friend Rosemary. We arrived at about 5PM straight from our Velib fiasco, at the Arsenal boat lock located by the Bastille.

It was hot and sunny and the Libertijn, a Dutch cargo barge built in 1910, glistened in the bright daylight.
Don and his girlfriend Emma graciously welcomed us on board and we joined 2 other couples, who had their boats docked in the same basin. We had the unexpected pleasure of arriving just in time for late lunch/early dinner. Don made delicious Moroccan merguez sausages and followed it up with authentic chicken fajitas with all the trimmings. As I enjoyed the good food and wine, the lovely company, and just being on this amazing boat, I said, this is the life for me.

The outdoor area on top was decorated with typically French red geranium boxes, a long wood plank dining table with comfy chairs, and a flagpole proudly displaying the French flag.

Captain Don

Don and Emma and the 2 other couples shared stories about barge life and the closely-knit barge community. I learned interestingly enough, the boating community in France outside of Paris were mostly Americans and/or English speaking, where as Paris was mostly French/French speaking. They spun funny and sometimes perilous tales of sailing the barges to remote towns in France that most people never heard of. It all sounded so romantic and intriguing and made me immediately want to do a barge cruise.

Vigie, their sweet Basset hound and the boat’s mascot, parked herself on a lounge chair and snoozed like a lazy dog almost the whole time.

Vigie, You Lazy Dog!
Emma took me on a tour of the ships interior and I was knocked out by the beautiful job they had done. They meticulously restored the master bedroom with classic, handsome wood paneling and luxurious brown marble bathtub. Kitchen aficionados would love the gorgeous kitchen of an oval island with a black granite countertop, state of the art appliances including 6 stovetop burners, colorful yellow and hot pink cabinets with etched patterned glass, and even an icemaker, which Emma proudly said was her most necessary appliance. The sunken living room with bright primary colored leather sofas had a serious sound system and an electric powered, huge drop down screen to view movies and television.

Chef Don

We finished the meal with grilled pineapple with a hint of chili peppers topped with vanilla ice cream.

My hats off to Emma & Don for this wonderful, unexpected treat and an experience I won’t forget.

For a full history of the barge, and the renovation process
Click on to www.lady-bea.com

Dog lovers will be happy to know that Vigie, the boat’s hound, has her own web page- http://lady-bea.com/PublicWeb/Vigie.htm

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

 

My Velib Experience

My Velib Experience

Sunday, July 15 was the official launch of Velib, the new bicycle rental service. Velib, which means free bike, has over 750 automated bike stations with over 10,000 bikes all around Paris. Every few blocks or so there is a station with about 20 shiny new bikes in a row practically saying “Rent Me”.

Always being first to try new things, a friend and I decided to check it out. It was hot and sunny, a perfect day for a bike ride after the rainy cold weather we had the last few weeks. We chose the station on Vielle du Temple in the Marais. There was a bit of a line and the process was slow as people were trying to figure out the system. When it was our turn, we found out that the machine was complicated and not user friendly. After about 15 minutes of fumbling with our credit card and entering pass codes, etc, we received our bicycles.

The bicycles are very well designed and are a creamy, shiny dark taupe with the colorful Velib logo on the side. They are sturdy but heavy and have useful features like a bell, a front basket, and 3 gears. The ride was smooth and solid.

After about an hour, realizing we were not exactly Tour de France material, we decided it was too hot to continue riding, and wanted to return our bikes. This is where the fun/nightmare began. We were near the Bastille and the first two stations were full, as there were no slots to put the bikes in and the third one was not in operation yet. We finally found one with empty slots, but the hole where you were supposed to lock in the bikes was blocked. At this point I was practically screaming that this was too much work and that they could keep my 150 Euro deposit and I’ll just keep the God Damn bike. Two nice guys in back of us told us there was another stand around the corner. After 35 minutes of frustration, we were able to successfully return them.

Overheated, aggravated and exhausted we decided Velib was not for us.

I’m not trying to discourage anyone and it’s probably much easier once you know how. Try it and let me know your experience.

Velib
For more info click here

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 including 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

 

Bastille Day 2007 Awards

My friend Meredith Mullins, the wonderful Paris photographer who's book " In a Paris Moment" I wrote about in April, sent me some amusing Bastille Day photos, naming them The Bastille Day Awards. Enjoy and I look forward to your comments.

Most Colorful Flyover

Most Ingenious Tourist

Most Regal Soldier

Quickest to Take a Champagne Break

Best Hats

Nicest Smile

Best Shirts That Could Also Be Worn By Your Sister

Nicest Guy

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