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Category / My Secret Paris

The Ghosts of a Parisian Apartment Frozen in Time

It looks like the Fitzgeralds have been round for dinner. But they’ve commandeered the soirée, taken the hostess hostage and disappeared with her into the Parisian underworld. A trail of half-empty champagne glasses have been left on almost every surface, a copious feast abandoned mid-meal, entertainment flyers and calling cards are strewn around on a…

Unmasking the Parisian Phantom of the Opera

What if I told you there is a lake under the Paris Opera House, just like in The Phantom of the Opera? Down, down, down, deep underneath the Garnier Opera in a dingy room with a square-shaped hole in the middle, I found it. Resting in the hole was a ladder that seemed to be descending into…

The Art of Squatting in Underground Paris Galleries

I first met one of the founders of Madame Lupin in the Paris catacombs on Halloween one year, sharing a bottle of red wine, squatting on some ancient limestone. He told me about the secret gourmet picnics he liked to organise in abandoned chateaux around the city. He then met a girl who worked in…

Let this Instagram Dedicated to Parisian Floors be your new City Guide

As a general rule in Paris, I always say, don’t forget to look up. But this instagram account by local photographer Sebastian Erras proves that looking down can be just as rewarding in this city. I know it’s not the first instagram account dedicated entirely to beautiful floors (#Ihavethisthingwithfloors), but if you’re looking to discover Parisian cafés,…

Paris Launched a Contest to Re-Design its Derelict, Disused and Defunct Spaces

Three abandoned metro stations, two defunct underground nightclubs, a forgotten art nouveau shopping arcade, an old Renault garage, a disused water reservoir, and a post office– these are just a few of the 34 incredible hidden sites of Paris being presented as a creative canvas for potential designers, architects and urban planners as part of “Reinvent Paris 2”. The…

A Janitor’s View of La Sorbonne University

I imagine that the school janitor of La Sorbonne University doesn’t have it so bad. When school is out and all the students and teachers have left, imagine roaming these halls and polishing the blackboards in classrooms that taught Voltaire, Balzac, Jean Paul Sartre, Marie Curie and T.S Eliot. Parisian photographer Ludwig Favre is not the janitor, nor was…

The Hermès Secret Garden on a Paris Rooftop

High above the grand boutique windows of number 24 rue Faubourg Saint-Honoré, where Charles-Émile Hermès relocated his father’s harness workshop in 1880 and first began to retail saddlery, there is an exquisite little-known paradise that overlooks the rooftops of Paris. I stumbled upon some insider photographs by Quentin Bertoux of this secret little Parisian terrace, so let’s take a…

How to Crash a Party at the Communist HQ in Paris

In my ongoing effort to prove that us Parisians aren’t forever sitting around red-chequered table cloths wearing berets and drinking red wine in our leisure time, here’s just about the strangest thing you can do in Paris this weekend: Dress up like a Soviet Cosmonaut and crash a party at the Communist Headquarters in Paris. First of all,…

The Amphibious Car that Lives on the Seine in Paris

The shiny red vintage car that sits proudly on the back of a houseboat in Paris, is a sight well known to Parisians that take time out from the bustling boulevards to walk along the banks of the river Seine. It’s a bit of an urban oddity that no one really knows the story behind.…

A Hidden Jungle Book Façade of Paris

Could you dream of a more perfect façade? I tell you, it’s really hard to get anywhere in this city when you’re constantly jumping off your bike to photograph something magical at every turn. This pastel mosaic menagerie has just been hanging out on a backstreet in Paris’ 11th arrondissement, waiting for someone to notice… When I saw the building’s caretaker sweeping…

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