Eye Prefer Paris is an ex-New Yorker's insider's guide to Paris. Richard Nahem writes his blog from his fabulous 18th century apartment in the fashionable Marais district of Paris
In the last month, over 10 clients have been 20-40 minutes late for their tours. All of them were stuck in traffic in either Ubers or taxis. The traffic is at its worst right now, as there is construction on many streets in Paris because of the upcoming Olympics in July and August of 2024. Not only are many of the main streets and boulevards under construction, but small side streets in the Marais and all over the city are being dug up. I was with clients last week in a van, and the traffic was so backed up on Place de la Concorde, we ditched the van and walked the rest of the way.
The metro is reliable, fast, easy, and mostly safe. I live next to the St Paul metro, and it never takes me more than 30 minutes to get to most places in the city. On most metro lines, the trains come every three to five minutes. It’s also easy to follow, and you can download the Bonjour RATP app on your phone, which you can also buy tickets on.
Two metro precautions.
Beware of pickpockets. Keep your wallet, phone, and other valuables in a safe place. Don’t put your phone in your back pocket and don’t put anything valuable in your backpack. Also keep your purse or handbag zippered up and closed.
Beware of the fast-closing doors. Once you hear the beep sound, board ASAP, as the doors close immediately. May of the metro lines have the double doors, so be extra careful you get in the car before they close. If you miss the train, no worries, another one will come in a few minutes.
DO NOT THROW AWAY YOUR METRO TICKET UNTIL YOU ARE UPSTAIRS AND HAVE LEFT THE STATION. There may be ticket agents inside the halls of the metro, checking tickets. If you do not have your ticket, or have damaged it, you will be fined 50€, to be paid on the spot with cash or credit card.
If you can’t take the metro, it’s much better to take a taxi instead of an Uber because there are special lanes for buses and taxis which Uber’s can’t use. Download the G-7 taxi app which works just like Uber, but you get a taxi instead. If you are more than four people, you can order a van.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted Paris travel tips but there’s two new ones I need to share.
Taking Money from ATM Machines I I The best way to exchange USD to euros, is to use ATM machines, which give you the best exchange rates. However, the French banks are pulling a bit of a scam, which I have warned my tour clients about when they went to retrieve money from an ATM. After you insert your ATM card and punch in the amount you want, they ask you if you accept their conversion rate, which is always higher than the real exchange rate. The other day, I went to the BNP Paribas machine by my house, and used my US bank card. I asked for 120€ and it asked on the screen if I accept their conversion rate plus a “markup” (whatever the hell that is) of 5.60€, a total of $127.50. I declined the conversion, and my bank gave me a rate of $121, a savings of $6.50. Imagine how that would add up if you took out 500€. To summarize, ALWAYS decline the bank’s conversion rate.
Take Taxis Instead of Ubers
Many of my clients and myself have become frustrated with Uber. They tend to cancel rides more than once after already waiting 7 to 15 minutes. Also, there are special taxi and bus lanes that easily bypass the traffic from the regular car lanes, plus only taxis and buses are allowed on rue de Rivoli, the main artery of the Right Bank. Ubers are not allowed to use the taxi/bus lanes, therefore your ride can take much longer. The best thing to do is to download the G-7 taxi app, which works the same way as Uber. You just type in the address you are going to, and a few seconds later you ride is confirmed with the price and how long it will take. If you don’t want to download the G-7 app, and want to hail a taxi on the street, just look for the green or white light on top, which means the taxi is available. You don’t have to go to a taxi stand to get a taxi, you can just flag them down the on street.
Taxes for Expats is a great organization that files taxes for U. S. citizens living and working abroad. I’ve been filing my taxes with Taxes for Expats for six years now, and the service has always been excellent. Their staff is very attentive and efficient, and they always answer my emails within 24 hours. Their online filing system is well organized, and fairly simple to fill in.
Taxes for Expats also features up to date articles about the latest news in tax reforms and policies. Recent articles are COVID-19 & Federal Tax Stimulus Update (how even American expats can get a refund check now) and a Tax Guide for 2020.
Besides filing taxes, Taxes for Ex-Pats also offers alternative services including non-resident tax returns, foreign bank reporting, tax planning, and IRS representation.
You can schedule a 30-minute free, phone consultation on Taxes for Expats.
Prices start at $350 for their core tax return plan.
If you do sign up with Taxes for Ex-Pats, please mention Eye Prefer Paris.
About 10 years ago I launched Eye Prefer New York Tours with a friend of mine who was going to partner with me to do the same types of tours in New York that I do in Paris. Things did not workout with my friend and I couldn’t find someone else who had the passion and commitment to run the tours. I eventually dissolved the tours and took down the website but in the back of my mind I thought it would have been a great opportunity for the right person.
Fast forward to August of this year, when a friend of mine introduced me to Joseph Cohen, who was launching a New York City tour company doing private tours. Joseph is a native New Yorker like me, and we hit it off immediately. He seemed to have all the essential qualities to be a great tour guide- warm, passionate, friendly, fun, outgoing and most of all he has a true love of New York and the desire to share his great city with others.
To give you a little bit of background about Joseph, he’s an award-winning copywriter and has written five books.
Joseph’s company Extraordinary New York Tourswas launched in late August and his debut tours include Greenwich Village, the Lower East Side, Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge’s Early Morning Magic, and Gilded-Age Mansions and High-Class Gossip (I for sure will do this one next time I go to New York).
The tours are three-hours and the basic tours are priced @ $275 for up to three people.
Much like Eye Prefer Paris Tours, Joseph will show you a New York City you probably haven’t seen before.
I wish Joseph the best of luck and if you plan to go to New York City, please book one of his tours.
Checkout his quirky mascot on his website- a New York City pigeon wearing a yellow diamond necklace. Only in New York would this be possible!
In my latest A Bite of Paris video, I've taken a break from food tasting to visit my friend Jessica at La Vaissellerie, my favorite tabletop, dish ware, and kitchen shop, located in the Marais.
Please remember to hit the LIKE button if you like it and SUBSCRIBE button to subscribe to my channel.
Come experience Eye Prefer Paris live with Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour 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.
In 2014 two ex-pats living in Paris, Lisa Anselmo and Lisa Taylor Huff started the No Love Locks websiteand public campaign. The goal of the site was to educate and raise the awareness of the harmful effects the love locks had on the city bridges. Ultimately the goal was to get rid of the locks and restore Paris to its original beauty. The campaign went viral around the world and soon after Lisa and Lisa had an appointment with the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, to implement a plan to eradicate the locks, as they were also harming the structure of the bridges. This resulted in the removal of thousands of locks from the Pont des Arts and other bridges in Paris.
Lisa Anselmo recently hatched another Paris preservation project, Save the Paris Cafe, a commitment to keep the cafes of Paris alive and well. At one time the thriving café culture of Paris had over 45,000 establishments, which alarmingly dwindled to less than 7,000 in past years and many are closing every month. In an effort to save this most basic element of French culture, Save the Paris Café, is dedicated to preserving and nurturing the remaining cafes by going as far as petitioning UNSESCO to give cafes and bistros World Heritage status.
The site has enlisted local celebrities, writers, and bloggers to contribute stories and information they feel is crucial in saving the tradition of cafes.
Their goals include
• To highlight what is vitally important about cafés and bistros, and why we need to protect them
• Not just for the lifestyle/culture, but for the larger issue of protecting small businesses, and the local residential life in cities and small towns
• To start a conversation about the local café
• Feature and promote favorite cafes around Paris and in France
• To create outreach for café owners
• A platform/forum for owners to share with each other
• A source of advice/education on how to improve their business (e.g., proper cleaning of coffee machines; benefits of serving fresh vs. flash-frozen food)
• To liaise with government regarding legislation that can help café owners survive and thrive in today’s economy
I am so impressed with their commitment, I asked Lisa if I could be a contributing author and photographer. I was thrilled when she said yes, and I will post photos and a monthly story on their website.
Please join me in helping preserve the Paris cafes by supporting and reading through the site.
Inspired by Save the Paris Cafes, I took the above photo at Le Grillon 19 Rue Falguière, 75015, a typical neighborhood café.
Price Reduction: August in Paris- My Marais Apartment for Rent August 16 to August 28
I am renting my Marais loft from August 16 to August 29 (Dates are flexible). Contrary to popular myth that Paris is closed in August, most shops, restaurants, and attractions are open in Paris, especially in the Marais. The weather is usually beautiful, temperatures in the high 70s to low 80s Fahrenheit during the day, dropping into the mid 60s at night. In case in gets warmer, I have an air conditioner in the bedroom and a large fan in the living area.
Minimum rental period is 7 days/one week, price 1400€ for 7 days/one week, 1800€ for 10 days
Conveniently located by the Saint Paul metro, in the heart of the Marais, the apartment is a spacious one-bedroom 750 sq. ft. loftwith 12 ft. ceilings, decorated in chic Mid-Century Modern furniture and sleeps two people in a Queen size bed. Amenities include washer/dryer, 16" flat screen TV, dishwasher, internet connection/Wifi and free long distance calls to the U.S. The apartment is located on the second floor with a large elevator
If you love salted butter caramels, please watch my newest A Bite of Parisvideo about Henri Le Roux, the man who actually invented the salted butter caramel.
National lotteries play an important part in many cultures today but they have a long history and, in France, it is certainly an interesting one. There was once an atypical lottery – a baby lottery that sought to raise money for a hospital by finding homes for ‘live’ and ‘adorable’ babies – but that is one for another day! Here, we’ll be looking into the twists and turns that brought the lottery in France to where it is today.
This account begins with the so-called “Blanque”, established in 1539 and intended to raise funds for the Paris government – something you’ll see became a running theme as time went on. But bans on gambling in 1254, 1319, 1369, 1560 and 1577 suffocate the Blanque, indicating that the lottery was not welcome in France – although, there are suggestions that private lotteries and tombolas were taking place in the 15th century and the continuous run of State bans could be interpreted as showing that lotteries were still taking place illicitly.
Source: Pixabay.
Yet, it was in the 1700s the intrigue really begins to unfold. The municipality of Paris introduced the Hôtel de Ville Loterie. It was actually an attempt to recover debts that the French government had accrued over time – not so distant in purpose, then, from the Blanque. It took place monthly and only bondholders were allowed to participate – to try to recover some of the money they were owed. One of the bondholders was none other than writer and philosopher Voltaire who, in 1729, took full advantage of a loop-hole in the system: it was paying out more than the total sum of tickets. In a form of a syndicate, he and several others managed to make a fortune from the broken system.
A later version of the lottery in France was brought in on 22 July 1933. The had the honorable intention of helping those injured in the war, war veterans and victims of agricultural disasters. From 1934, there was also the possibility of buying a fifth or a tenth of a ticket, opening the system up to a wider range of people.
During the Second World War, the Loterie Nationale continued to be drawn in Paris’ Salle Pleyel, in spite of paper shortages, delayed trains, complications with the post and all sorts of disturbances. In fact, after the war, it became a weekly occurrence, with special editions for Valentine’s Day, Mothers’ Day and Friday 13th. It survived until the launch of the modern Loto in 1974 and today you can play French Lotto online. Taking place three times a week, it’s a draw that retains the excitement of its centuries-long history.
But there is a further twist in the history of the French lottery, with the French government deciding this year to make Français des Jeux public by selling off 50% of its ownership. Inspired by the British National Lottery’s heritage fund, the intention of the new prize draw is to raise funds that will go towards saving France’s heritage sites, which are falling into disrepair. Perhaps unwittingly, it is resurrecting history to do so.
I’m sure many of you have experienced this scenario; you plan your trip to Paris and when you go to buy your Eiffel Tower tickets on the official website, they are already sold out for months ahead of time. Frustrated and pissed off, you go to an ancillary site which charges 50 to 100% more for tickets than the official site.
Here’s some good news!
It was just announced that the official Eiffel Tower website www.toureiffel.paris is dramatically increasing the proportion of available tickets. That means instead of paying up to 100% more a ticket from other websites that resell the tickets, you can buy your tickets on the site up to two months in advance and even up to three hours the same day of your visit, when available.
Now you have faster access to the Tower by curbing waiting time at ticket offices thanks to time-stamped tickets.
Come experience Eye Prefer Paris live with Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour 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.
Tours start at 225 euros for up to 3 people, and 75 euros for each additional person. I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you, my insiders, Paris.
I’m taking a blogging break this week, so enjoy my summer reruns.
I have a gripe about bathrooms in cafes and restaurants of Paris.
One of the big differences between Europe and the U.S. is how they treat electricity use. In Europe electricity is used more preciously and efficiently than the U.S. In France, one of the biggest differences is in almost all commercial and apartment buildings, the lights in hallways, vestibules and stairways work on a motion censor or a manual switch on a timer. Now this is a great way to save energy and clearly the U.S. could learn from this system and save whopping amounts of energy instead of having lights on 24/7.
Now there is a drawback to this system. If say you are walking down five flights of winding, narrow, uneven steps in a Paris apartment building after attending a dinner party where copious amounts of irresistible wine was consumed, invariably the lights go out while you are in between floors, throwing you into complete blackness like a cheap horror movie from the 1960s. Mind you the nearest light switch is eons away on the next floor and your are desperately groping the walls in the dark, trying to hold on so you won’t roll down five flights of stairs, looking like a crumpled mess with blood drooling out of the side of your mouth on the bottom of the stairway, again like a cheap 1960s horror movie.
The lighting system is the same for most bathrooms in cafes and restaurants throughout France. So you go to your favorite bistro and have a few glasses of wine or Champagne, you become a little giddy, a little silly, a little loose but all that drinking makes you have to go. You ask “Où sont les toilettes ?" (Where’s the toilet) in your best half French accent with a bit of a slur and the waiter tells you it’s downstairs or upstairs.
Again, you risk your life climbing up or down impossibly designed stairway so you can go do your necessary business. Since toilets are in compartments of their own, the area can be minuscule, with barely enough room to sit. In your half drunk stage you have a difficult time figuring out the physical maneuver in how to get your pants down or your dress up without hurting yourself or being a contortionist. You finally figure it out the hard way so you now have managed to sit down and are ready to go. It’s just about to happen when voila! The light goes out and you are pitched into blackness again. So now you are desperately groping in the dark like a cheap 1960s horror movie (didn’t I already say that twice?) for the light switch but you realize you forgot where it is. Is it inside or outside? So not only are you panicking about where the hell the light switch is but you are now afraid that your business might have landed someplace it wasn’t supposed to. Now I have a little secret that will save you in this embarrassing situation, which I discovered by accident. So I was in the same predicament a while back and I moved forward to get up on my feet and the lights went back on. My forward movement alerted the motion censor. Problem almost solved. Now I have to keep rocking back and forth much like a prayer movement in certain religions to keep the lights on; not the most comfortable position to be in. You finally finish what you have to do, struggle to get your clothes back on and mount the stairs again. Now your exhausted and feel the need to the visit the chiropractor because all of the physical maneuvers have made you pull a muscle.
So now I have three requests I want to put out to all owners of restaurants and cafes in Paris.
1. Can you please extend the timer for the lights in your toilet spaces for more than 30 seconds, perhaps three to five minutes? I know this could cost you more money for the electricity and it doesn’t help the environment, but it would sure make things go much smoother, saving your customers from possibly being in an uncompromising position. You can even add another 10 centimes to my bill and I promise to do something extra to reduce my carbon footprint to make up for the excessive electricity use. 2. Can you please put the light switch inside the toilet room, preferably with a backlit or fluorescent colored switch, so in case my business takes a little longer than expected, I know how to switch the light on? 3. Can you please extend the size of your toilet room just by a few centimeters? I am not your average skinny, compact Parisian and actually weigh over 120 lbs., plus the last time I visited your establishment I twisted my lower back trying to get out of the toilet area, resulting in two trips to the osteopath which cost me 180€.
Oh, and I have one other request I forgot to mention: Can you please install a paper towel dispenser instead of those hellish state of the art dryers that make you feel like hands are going to be ripped out of their sockets with blood spraying out of them, like a cheap horror movie from the 1960s?
LINKS EYE PREFER
A Safe Haven for Giacometti’s Restored Studio -New York Times
Come experience Eye Prefer Paris live with Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour 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.
Tours start at 225 euros for up to 3 people, and 75 euros for each additional person. I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you, my insiders, Paris.
I have a gripe about bathrooms in cafes and restaurants of Paris.
One of the big differences between Europe and the U.S. is how they treat electricity use. In Europe electricity is used more preciously and efficiently than the U.S. In France, one of the biggest differences is in almost all commercial and apartment buildings, the lights in hallways, vestibules and stairways work on a motion censor or a manual switch on a timer. Now this is a great way to save energy and clearly the U.S. could learn from this system and save whopping amounts of energy instead of having lights on 24/7.
Now there is a drawback to this system. If say you are walking down five flights of winding, narrow, uneven steps in a Paris apartment building after attending a dinner party where copious amounts of irresistible wine was consumed, invariably the lights go out while you are in between floors, throwing you into complete blackness like a cheap horror movie from the 1960s. Mind you the nearest light switch is eons away on the next floor and your are desperately groping the walls in the dark, trying to hold on so you won’t roll down five flights of stairs, looking like a crumpled mess with blood drooling out of the side of your mouth on the bottom of the stairway, again like a cheap 1960s horror movie.
The lighting system is the same for most bathrooms in cafes and restaurants throughout France. So you go to your favorite bistro and have a few glasses of wine or Champagne, you become a little giddy, a little silly, a little loose but all that drinking makes you have to go. You ask “Où sont les toilettes ?" (Where’s the toilet) in your best half French accent with a bit of a slur and the waiter tells you it’s downstairs or upstairs.
Again, you risk your life climbing up or down impossibly designed stairway so you can go do your necessary business. Since toilets are in compartments of their own, the area can be minuscule, with barely enough room to sit. In your half drunk stage you have a difficult time figuring out the physical maneuver in how to get your pants down or your dress up without hurting yourself or being a contortionist. You finally figure it out the hard way so you now have managed to sit down and are ready to go. It’s just about to happen when voila! The light goes out and you are pitched into blackness again. So now you are desperately groping in the dark like a cheap 1960s horror movie (didn’t I already say that twice?) for the light switch but you realize you forgot where it is. Is it inside or outside? So not only are you panicking about where the hell the light switch is but you are now afraid that your business might have landed someplace it wasn’t supposed to. Now I have a little secret that will save you in this embarrassing situation, which I discovered by accident. So I was in the same predicament a while back and I moved forward to get up on my feet and the lights went back on. My forward movement alerted the motion censor. Problem almost solved. Now I have to keep rocking back and forth much like a prayer movement in certain religions to keep the lights on; not the most comfortable position to be in. You finally finish what you have to do, struggle to get your clothes back on and mount the stairs again. Now your exhausted and feel the need to the visit the chiropractor because all of the physical maneuvers have made you pull a muscle.
So now I have three requests I want to put out to all owners of restaurants and cafes in Paris.
1. Can you please extend the timer for the lights in your toilet spaces for more than 30 seconds, perhaps three to five minutes? I know this could cost you more money for the electricity and it doesn’t help the environment, but it would sure make things go much smoother, saving your customers from possibly being in an uncompromising position. You can even add another 10 centimes to my bill and I promise to do something extra to reduce my carbon footprint to make up for the excessive electricity use. 2. Can you please put the light switch inside the toilet room, preferably with a backlit or fluorescent colored switch, so in case my business takes a little longer than expected, I know how to switch the light on? 3. Can you please extend the size of your toilet room just by a few centimeters? I am not your average skinny, compact Parisian and actually weigh over 120 lbs., plus the last time I visited your establishment I twisted my lower back trying to get out of the toilet area, resulting in two trips to the osteopath which cost me 180€.
Oh, and I have one other request I forgot to mention: Can you please install a paper towel dispenser instead of those hellish state of the art dryers that make you feel like hands are going to be ripped out of their sockets with blood spraying out of them, like a cheap horror movie from the 1960s?
Come experience Eye Prefer Paris live with Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour 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.
Tours start at 225 euros for up to 3 people, and 75 euros for each additional person. I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you my insiders Paris.
Due to record rainfall in past weeks in parts of France and around Paris, the Seine rose over 6 metres (almost 20 feet) since last Wednesday, the highest levels in over 30 years. The mass flooding has wreaked havoc in the city: Barges and houseboats on the Seine are flooded, the highway running along the river on the Right Bank is under water and the water is so high that all river cruises have been cancelled until further notice because the boats can’t fit under the bridges. The Louvre has been closed since Friday and the staff is feverishly working 24/7 to move 100,000 works of art located in the lower levels of the museum to higher floors for fear of water damage. The d’Orsay has also closed for the same reasons.
The good news is yesterday the water levels of the Seine receded slightly but the bad news is we expect more rainfall this coming week. Fears are rising that with the additional rainfall, the effect will be as damaging as the great flood of 1910, when the Seine rose eight metres.
Saturday afternoon I walked to the nearest Seine bridge from my apartment, Pont Marie. Pont Marie is not a busy bridge pedestrian wise but on Saturday afternoon it was packed with tourists and locals checking out the swollen river. I always find it interesting that people are fascinated with disaster, although I guilty of the same fascination. I went to two other bridges in the area taking photos. In some ways the tree tops struggling to stay afloat reminded me of classic 18th century landscape paintings of the French countryside by the likes of Watteau. It was eerie to see street lamps well as the stairways going down the Seine half submerged in water. Speaking of eerie, as I walked along the Quai de Bethune I noticed a green metal plaque notating the flood from 1910.
I wait with unease over the next few days to see what will happen but hoping the worst is over.
Thanks to everyone who sent emails and Facebook posts concerning the floods and my well being.
Eye Prefer Paris Postcards
I am thrilled to announce the launch of Eye Prefer Paris Postcards, a 3, 6 or 12-month subscription service where the subscriber receives three physical postcards of my iconic Paris photos every month. Each month will have a specific theme, from architectural street scenes to romantic outdoor cafes to beautiful gardens to unique shots of iconic monuments. Each mailing will include two postcards in color and one in black & white or sepia, beautifully packaged in a special French Blue postcard holder with a custom designed seal.
Each 6” X 4.25” traditional size postcard is printed on thick matte coated card stock, similar to traditional vintage postcard stock that enhances the vibrancy of every image.
Only $30 for a 3-month subscription plus shipping or
Only $60 for a 6 month subscription (plus shipping)or
$110 for a 12-month subscription (plus shipping)
Click hereto order a 12-month subscription from my Etsy store
Click here to order a 6-month subscription from my Etsy store
Click here to order a 3-month subscription from my Etsy store
Come experience Eye Prefer Paris live with Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour 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.
Tours start at 225 euros for up to 3 people, and 75 euros for each additional person. I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you my insiders Paris.
Click here to watch a video of our famous Marais tour
New! Eye Prefer Paris Cooking Classes I am happy to announce the launch of Eye Prefer Paris Cooking Classes. Come take an ethnic culinary journey with me and chef and caterer Charlotte Puckette, co-author of the bestseller The Ethnic Paris Cookbook (with Olivia Kiang-Snaije). First we will shop at a Paris green-market for the freshest ingredients and then return to Charlotte's professional kitchen near the Eiffel Tower to cook a three-course lunch. After, we will indulge in the delicious feast we prepared along with hand-selected wines.
Cost: 195 euros per person (about $210) Time: 9:30AM- 2PM (approximately 4 1/2 hours) Location: We will meet by a metro station close to the market Class days: Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday,Friday, Saturday, and Sunday Minimum of 2 students, maximum 6 students.
Click here to sign up for the next class or for more info.
Come experience Eye Prefer Paris live with 
