I Prefer Paris

My Private Eye: The Wonders of Bry-sur-Marne

The Wonders of Bry-sur-Marne by Laurel Zuckerman

If America still had small towns, they might resemble Bry-sur-Marne.

A shop-lined main street. Neighbors who stop to chat on their way to the biweekly farmer’s market. A mayor who is also a veterinarian. Bakeries, butcher shops, restaurants and, of course, a store that specializes in cheese.

It’s shield proclaims: Moult Vieil que Paris (Much older than Paris !)

And it’s true: 35,000 years of human presence at this bend in the river, now a modest town of 16,000 , dwarfed by its larger neighbors, Champigny and Noisy le Grand on the east bank, and Nogent and Le Perreux on the west.

After repeated wars and fire and floods, Bry’s survival seems assured. Yet even now, in this little paradise 12 miles from Paris, larger trends threaten to sweep it away.  Discounters and box stores pressure mom and pop operations; ubiquitous bank branches and real estate agencies gradually replace hardware, shoe and clothing stores.

I moved here from Paris 18 years ago, when Euro Disney set up offices in Bry while clearing Chessy’s beet fields to make way for Mickey , and I have not regretted it even for a second (except during transport strikes).

For Bry-sur-Marne has many wonders:

1 ) a 15,000 year old skeleton of what appears to be a cow;

2) the world’s only surviving diorama by the co-inventor of photography, Louis Daguerre

3) Tallyrand’s “chateau” (spectacularly burned by the invading Germans in 1871);

4) INA (The Institut National de l’Audiovisuel, where France’s tv and radio archives are stored);

5) Hervé Bazin, city councilor and author of the ur-Mommy Dearest novel, the terrifyingly great Vipère Au Poing.

6) and, of course, the Marne, with its tree-lined banks and miles of walking and bike paths.

 Guinguettes would form a seventh wonder, if they still existed in any number. Sadly these riverside restaurants and dancing emporiums have mostly gone bankrupt or been replaced by eateries serving  “cuisine française et asiatique”. The famous Chez Gegène still clings to life in Joinville le Pont, and offers a pleasant and unusual Sunday outing for couples who like to dress up to dance. But stylish gangsters and their girls, immortalized by the likes of Jean Gabon and Simone Signoret, must find somewhere else to plot their crimes.

For such a small town, Bry still has many decent, friendly restaurants.

My absolute favorites : the “Alexandrin” on Bry’s main street, with its tasty, honest bistro food (12 euros entrée-plat or plat-dessert); and the Dar Al Salaam, a terrific couscous restaurant not physically in Bry (it’s in Le Perreux), but one Bryards have been enjoying as their own for decades and whose food, service and decor are outstandingly agreeable or, if you prefer, agreeably outstanding.

The Marne is quiet and very pretty. Waterfowl, especially swans, abound. (I saw a dozen in one place yesterday.) Fisherman pitch their tents and fish all day. You can bike to the immense Parc de Noisiel and beyond in one direction; to Joinville, Vincennes and, (perhaps), Paris, in the other. Maybe someone fitter than me can tell me if and when they end?

In addition to the attractions already mentioned, for history buffs there is a museum, and for shoppers an Ikea.

 Bry-sur-Marne can be reached by RER A (towards Eurodisney) or the A4 highway.

Laurel Zuckerman is the author of Sorbonne Confidential, a no-taboo account of France's unique competition for selecting English teachers which continues to provoke laughter, outrage and serious debate, Her second novel, Professor Collie's Barbarian Dreams,  appeared in French in 2009. Laurel edits a newsletter for France-based writers at http://www.laurelzuckerman.com/paris-writer-news/. and  blogs about France at : http://laurelzuckerman.typepad.fr/laurel_zuckermans_weblog/ Originally from Arizona, she has lived in France for 25 years.

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, author of the bestseller The Ethnic Paris Cookbook. 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: 185 euros per person (about $240)
Time: 9:30AM- 2PM (approximately 4 1/2 hours)
Location: We will meet by a metro station close to the market
Class days: Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday
Minimum of 3 students, maximum 6 students.

Click here to sign up for the next class or for more info.

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 Private Eye: La Pagode

 An Incurable Romantic by Mary Duncan 

 Paris is the city for incurable romantics and I include myself in this category. From the Medici Fountain in Luxembourg Gardens to Abelard and Heloise in Pere Lachaise cemetery, Paris abounds with love stories, some happy and some tragic. What impresses me is Paris’s ability to transform these historical and romantic events into monuments, parks and places for us to enjoy.

 La Pagode, a movie theater located at 57 bis rue de Babylone, a quiet street in the Seventh Arrondisement, is within walking distance from my apartment. On warm afternoons, I stroll over there, past the seventeenth century buildings, usually with a New Yorker Magazine under my arm. I sit in the Japanese tea garden, order a café or glass of juice, and enjoy the tranquility offered by the towering bamboo and sheltering trees.

Beneath the tranquility lies a romantic and a rather tumultuous past.  In 1896, Monsieur Morin, a love struck husband, had the pagoda imported from Japan, piece by piece, stone by stone, for his new bride as a wedding gift.  Mr. Morin, an owner of the Le Bon Marche department store, already had a good eye for architecture. Le Bon Marche, designed by Gustav Eiffel, opened nearby on Rue de Sevres in 1852.

For several years Madame Morin entertained guests in the giant ballroom with its elaborate dome and ornate ceiling. Her guests were surrounded by tapestries, stained-glass windows, chandeliers, paintings and an abundance of gold gilt that created an oriental atmosphere. La Pagode was truly a magnificent monument designed to say, “I love you.”

Alas, the Morins were divorced. In the 1930’s La Pagode became a dance hall for parties and private events.  Eventually it was transformed into a movie theater.

And like many romantic liaisons, La Pagode has also had its difficulties. In the Seventies, when it was slated for demolition, a movie theater company saved it and later sold it to new owners.  In the Nineties, plans were made to convert it into a restaurant. The Ministry of Culture intervened and designated it as an historical building, with the understanding that it remain as a movie theater. The gardens were restored and the theater was modernized without destroying the beautiful oriental décor. Once again, Paris took a romantic story with a sad ending, and created a space for romance to continue and flourish.

Monsieur and Madame Morin are no longer there to greet guests, but Mais is.  Mais, a small, beautiful black cat appeared in the garden seven years ago. Abandoned and hungry, she was adopted by the staff and named Mais, the French word for cereal or corn, because they fed her corn flakes on that cold, frosty morning.

 

 

Now, you can visit the tea garden, drink coffee, eat pastries and pet Mais, who appreciates sharing your café crème. She fits well in the Oriental garden with its tall bamboo, stone walkways and secluded benches which shelter lovers from prying eyes.

While I was writing notes for this article, she wound herself between my legs and was appreciative of the milk that I poured on my plate. When there is a breeze, she entertains herself by chasing leaves or playing with small bamboo shoots. Watching her can be as amusing as some of the films.  

The movies, which vary in content and style, are not your latest thrillers. Instead,  comedies with Woody Allen or films directed by Ken Loach are displayed on posters in the lobby.  Tickets are 8.50 E.

Couples are seen sharing a coffee and unfortunately, talking or checking their emails on meddlesome mobile phones (my bias). Hopefully they’re viewing text messages from their lovers or setting up a rendezvous for an intimate evening or cinq a sept.

 I encourage you to stop by for coffee, a film or an opportunity to discreetly observe the couples sharing a few moments together. Better yet, bring your own lover, hold hands and enjoy the romantic ambiance created by Monsieur Morin for his young bride.

Mary Duncan, the founder and coordinator of the Paris Writers Group, is the author of Henry Miller is Under My Bed: People and Places on the Way to Paris. (Starhaven, 2008).  She has also been involved with organizing the Shakespeare and Company Literary Festival since it’s inception in 2003. 

 

 

 

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, author of the bestseller The Ethnic Paris Cookbook. 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: 185 euros per person (about $240)
Time: 9:30AM- 2PM (approximately 4 1/2 hours)
Location: We will meet by a metro station close to the market
Class days: Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday
Minimum of 3 students, maximum 6 students.

Click here to sign up for the next class or for more info.

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 Private Eye: Parc Montsouris

Parc Montsouris by Thirza Vallois
Photos Peter Olson

 I live, almost always have, on the Left Bank. Where else when you belong to the 60s generation? Our student lives were played out in the Latin Quarter and in pre-glitz Saint-Germain. Sometimes we merged night and morning at La Coupole in Montparnasse, or ventured across the river for an onion soup at old Les Halles. When we started having families,post 1968, many of us shifted our quarters to the 14th arrondissement,a leafy, more villagey neighbourhood just a bit further south, young enough owing to the presence of the Cité Universitaire.

The 14th  has none of the glamour and glitter of the city centre, but it has authenticity; and a provincial touch that is the mark of what is truly French. It has long been a draw to thinking and creative minds: Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, and also a good number of national icons whom foreigners are unlikely to have heard of - my favourite singer-songwriter, the modern-day troubadour Georges Brassens, or my neighbour Coluche, to name but two.

Like myself, Coluche lived overlooking Parc Montsouris, the jewel of the 14th. Unlike me, however, he owned a full two-storey house, an unassuming red-brick remnant from the neighbourhood's countrified past, thoroughly updated inside ( the neighbours say it had a jacuzzi or an indoor swimming-pool). But whereas Coluche lived on street level, I live perched high up as if in a tree-house, enjoying a stunning view of the gardens.

I remember Coluche queuing up at the boulangerie and greengrocer's like everyone else, always in his sartorial trademark - a pair of blue-and-white striped dungarees buckled over a potbelly and yellow T-shirt. His round, rimless glasses  and round, reddish face, his funny tufts of curly hair sticking out on either side of a shiny baldness, were no less familiar to the French than Charlot (Charlie Chaplin)'s moustache and bowler hat. 

When Coluche was killed in a motorcycle crash on 21 June 1986, the night France beat Brazil in the World Cup, his death somewhat overshadowed the euphoria of victory. Interminable files of mourners streamed to his house the following days, bringing the limelight to our hitherto little-known street. Loved for his irreverence towards the establishment, he had received substantial support (but also death threats) when he attempted to run for the presidential elections, in 1981. Even today Coluche is a living icon, still entertaining television viewers with his old films and sketches; but he is remembered perhaps even more for the soup kitchen charity he founded, les restaurants du coeur, now a major institution. When I take a cab home and indicate my street to the driver, he will often respond - Ah, mais c'est là où habitait Coluche! and slow down to check out his house as we drive past it.

Parc Montsouris was laid out under Baron Haussmann, one of the "English" gardens that were woven into his urban scheme, emulating in miniature those his emperor Napoleon III admired in England.Although often accused of vandalism, he was in effect a visionary of genius, precociously attentive to environmental issues. Closer to us, memorable scenes were shot here for important  French films, not least Agnes Varda's Cléo de Cinq å Sept, an award winner at the Cannes Festival.

Parc Montsouris started, however, with a tragedy, for no sooner had the lake been filled up for the official inauguration than it emptied again, causing the chief engineer to commit suicide.

The gorgeous weeping willow by the lake is gone, as are the swans, and the one-time manicured lawns have been given over to the crowds and look more like meadows. But the venerable cedar and the balm of the slender coniferous, the lime, the elm, the azaleas, the winding paths, the miniature yet spectacular ravines, the little brook that leaps merrily to the waterfall, have resisted the erosion of time. Come here in the morning, when the birds converse across the tree branches and everything is divinely serene: a mother with a pre-school doll of a child may be feeding the ducks by the lake, an elderly retiree dozing off in the sun on a bench. A lithe jogger is wired to her ipod, her ponytail swinging to a rhythm I can't hear, a fitness enthusiast fiercely exercises at the top of the steps, a cross-legged guru meditates on the grass. Up the hill, a woman is engrossed in her novel in the little rose garden that, thank heavens, goes unnoticed by most... Paris is so many miles away.

Thirza Vallois is the author of the internationally acclaimed Around and About Paris series, Romantic Paris and Aveyron, A Bridge to French Arcadi (click here to order). She is also the author of the Paris entry of the Encarta Encyclopedia. Thirza has lived in Paris most of her life and holds several degrees from the Sorbonne, including the most prestigious agrégation(a French doctoral-level teaching degree).

Thirza Vallois lectures worldwide on various aspects of Paris. She appears and contributes to television, radio and magazines in the UK, US, France and elsewhere - PBS, BBC, The Travel Channel, Discovery, CNN, The French Cultural Channel, NPR, The Financial Times, Condé Nast Traveller among others. Her award-winning "Three Perfect Days in Paris", written for Unites Airlines' Hemispheres, was aired as a video on United Airlines international flights and travel channels worldwide.

www.thirzavallois.com

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, author of the bestseller The Ethnic Paris Cookbook. 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: 185 euros per person (about $240)
Time: 9:30AM- 2PM (approximately 4 1/2 hours)
Location: We will meet by a metro station close to the market
Class days: Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday
Minimum of 3 students, maximum 6 students.

Click here to sign up for the next class or for more info.

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 Private Eye: The Bold and the Beautiful

This month Meredith Mullins, my monthly photography contributor, takes us to a most unique jewelry shop on rue St Paul with handmade one of a kind pieces.

The Bold and the Beautiful -story and photos by Meredith Mullins

In Paris, there is a story waiting to be discovered down each alleyway, behind each coded gate, and inside even the most innocent looking cafés and shops. You find yourself wishing you had an infinite amount of time to explore every one of these hidden worlds.

When you walk into Joana Cocea’s jam-packed jewelry shop near the Seine in the Village St Paul, you sense there is a story. Even if the artist herself is hidden behind a wall of papers, tools, silver, and beads, you will feel her presence. Everywhere. The walls explode with color and form. Her personality and imagination are in every one of the unique, bold “jeweled” creations.

It may have all started with that treasure chest of jewels that mysteriously appeared in her childhood in Romania. Her father was a film director, her mother a costume designer. One of her father’s films—an outlaw adventure set in the 1800s—had a treasure chest at the center of the action. She was mesmerized.

There were, however, other paths to be traveled before the jewelry passion (and a love of Paris) would take hold.

Her first holiday to Paris was at age 11. “I think I made the decision then to live here,” she says. “But I had to wait. I could not convince my parents to change countries.”

At age 20, she came to Paris for good … making the courageous choice to defect. She had no fear … just hope for the future. She studied at the national theatre school where “you had to do it all,” she says, “from sets to costumes to acting to lighting.” The mastery of all these skills prepared her well for a job as a set designer with the Nice opera and then with Club Med, and later as a textile designer.

Then one day, as she was wandering through a jewelry fair, a force overpowered her (the spell of the ancient treasure chest?). It was decided. A career change at age 42. She quickly taught herself the art of making jewelry, using her theatrical experience and her creative instincts. And without the structure of formal training, she had free reign to break the rules. The result: unlimited possibilities … and beautiful one-of-a-kind pieces. Classical with a touch of craziness.

You would expect to see these pieces at the Grammies or Cannes or Fashion Week (in fact, they have appeared in Elle Magazine). They are not for everyday wear. They are about making an artistic and dramatic statement.

When asked who would best wear her pieces … (I’m thinking Courtney Love, Cher and Sharon Stone … although Janis Joplin would have loved them too.) …she says she can’t choose her clients. They must choose her. She has a loyal following, all looking for something truly original. So, she strives to surprise them each time they return. Even if someone asks her to replicate one of her designs, she will always make it a little differently. “Otherwise it’s too boring for me,” she says.

One of her favorite clients was a 90-year old American woman who said she was no longer able to put her make-up on. But by wearing a dramatic piece of jewelry, she knew people would still SEE her.

From the Mona-Lisa-as-pirate earrings to the cascade of silver flowers that the spirit of Sarah Bernhardt is undoubtedly coveting, Joana’s “25-hour work day” pays off. Those who wear this fine art will definitely be SEEN.

Meet Joana and her haute couture bijoux at the Von d’Art boutique at 5, rue Saint-Paul, 75004 Paris. Open Thursday through Sunday from 12h00 to 19h00. Telephone: 33 (0)6.17.06.60.52. info@vondart.com
www.vondart.com.

Meredith Mullins is an internationally exhibited American photographer, currently living in Paris. Visit www.meredithmullins.artspan.com to see more of the Paris images. Her award-winning book, In A Paris Moment (click here to order), and her 2009 Paris Calendar published by Browntrout Publishing can be ordered online or in bookstores throughout Paris and the U.S. Original photographs are available directly through the artist. She will be teaching several photography workshops this summer (and a special workshop for teenagers beginning July 20) and is available for private photography instruction/exploration in Paris. Sign up for an information-filled, creative half-day lesson! Contact: meredithmullins@earthlink.net 

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, author of the bestseller The Ethnic Paris Cookbook. 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: 185 euros per person (about $240)
Time: 9:30AM- 2PM (approximately 4 1/2 hours)
Location: We will meet by a metro station close to the market
Class days: Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday
Minimum of 3 students, maximum 6 students.

Click here to sign up for the next class or for more info.

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

New Monthly Feature: My Private Eye

I am pleased to announce a new monthly feature, My Private Eye.

I belong to The Paris Writers Group, a collection of mostly American writers living in Paris and we meet once a month to discuss our writing projects and upcoming books. It's a very talented and accomplished group, many who are well known published authors. I asked them if they would each write a piece for me once a month about their favorite person, place, or thing in their Paris neighborhood.

The first piece about a most unusual boulanger on the Ile St. Louis is by Lynn Jefress. I want to also thank Lynn for thinking of the clever name for the series: My Private Eye.

The Art of Buying Croissants Ile Saint Louis Style
(excerpt from “Island Portraits,” an article about the Ile Saint Louis)

"No soup for you! Come back one year!"  Who can forget the Seinfeld Soup Nazi? Certainly not I, living here on Ile Saint Louis, where, believe it or not, there's a French version, the Croissant Nazi:  Hédi Habhab. Master patissier-boulanger. Ssh!  Don't say maître -- he hates the word. Too pretentious. Call him a “trainer.” He spent ten years teaching others how to make the best croissants and baguette anywhere, instructing, as well, members of his own extended family who now own twelve boulangeries in Paris.

Seven years ago, when he “hungered” to get back into the business, he bought the shop at 78, rue Saint Louis en l’Ile where he works six days, a week thirteen hours a day, along with five other bakers. His wife runs their second boulangerie at Place d'Italie.

The Tunisian born, French-raised Hédi, 48, is a proud, self-respecting artisan who, above all, despises arrogance such as that sometimes displayed, he says, by the nouveaux riches. First order of business when entering his boulangerie (that’s Hedi in the white visor cap like American house painters wear) say "Bonjour."  Second order: Do not point your finger and curtly demand this, and this, and that.  And, finally, do not have the audacity to ask if the croissants are fresh. This will surely call forth the dreaded words: "No croissants for you! Casse-toi!" 

Amazingly, in a country where you are not allowed to refuse service to a customer, he has had only one complaint filed against him.  The police came. He described how arrogant the customer was and they dropped the case.  Stubbornly, laws be damned, he continues to banish the snobbish and impolite, wretched pariahs who are forced to wait across the street shame faced while a cousin or friend is sent inside to buy the famous forbidden fruit.

And famous it is. When Camilla and Prince Charles (not arrogant people) were in last summer, Camilla told Hédi his croissants were the best in France. Hédi has a cell phone picture of himself with the royal couple, which he clicks open and holds up to show me.  A reserved Bill Clinton also happened by recently, just himself, no body guards.  But not so Sharon Stone, a woman dangerously close to arrogance, who entered the shop with lots of garde de corps, pointed to what she wanted and left without paying. Hédi was bouche bée, not sure what to think. Then back lumbered one of the body guards with a sack of gold to pay the bill. All was well. Just as it was with Clint Eastwood a customer Hédi truly admires. “He comes in alone, a modest man, asks politely for what he wants and leaves alone.”

Hédi is self-made. Every boulangerie he’s owned he started from scratch. He’s proud of this. And the word “boulangerie” over the shop door.  He points out that according to French law you can only advertise your bakery as a “boulangerie” if all the baking is done at the bakery itself. 

Before bakeries, Hédi worked in fashion, designing clothes, then owning retail stores. In the late 80s the industry changed and Hédi, restless, looked to his roots: his family had always been bakers. Back he went and loved it.  But he doesn’t insist on baking as a way of life; his sons are going in entirely different directions.  And Hédi says the secret of his long running baking passion is the one day he takes off each week. Not a word about work. He jogs, spends time with his sons, does a hundred other things and the bakery is forgotten for 24 hours.

Wednesday morning at 5 a.m. he’s ready for the onslaught again, which can mean as many as four or more bakings a day (your odds of finding warm croissants and the amazing Tradition baguette are great). And, of course, there’s the glory. Tell Hédi his croissants are the best you’ve ever tasted and watch the Croissant Nazi smile, really smile.  You are talking about his work and he is very proud of what he does.  He is exactly, I think, what the best of France is all about.

78, rue Saint Louis en l'Ile, 4th arr.
Metro: Pont Marie, St. Paul

Lynn Jeffress
Writer, teacher living in Paris
Forthcoming book: The Dali Code, and Other Paris Stories
Founder: The Buzz Shop Marketing Co-op – (a group which exists to help writers work together to market each other’s work).

 

IMPORTANT NOTE: I apologize for ending the contest a day early. I got my dates confused and the contest winners were supposed to be announced today instead of yesterday. It did not effect my choice of the winners.

Click here read the wonderful review of my tours on the very hip blog www.hipparis.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