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Category / Forget Paris

Stepping Inside a Paris Cartoon

Most Paris clichés and stereotypes really bug me. Those French perfume commercials starring Hollywood actresses on Parisian balconies with perfect Eiffel Tower views? Eyes roll. But this place? Well this place brings me back to childhood, behind the scenes of an animated wonderland set in Belle Epoque Paris… We’re at the Musée des Automates in La Rochelle, on the…

Saving the Carmen House on the Seine

At approximately 1.45pm this afternoon in Paris, I received a text message from my friend who has a restaurant in the 11th arrondissement: “There’s a woman here who says she wants you to help save the Carmen House,” it read. I raised an eyebrow. My phone buzzed again. “She came in for lunch, figured out that I knew…

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…

The Real “No-Go Zone” of France: A Forbidden No Man’s Land Poisoned by War

When you imagine France and its scenic countryside, you might think of the picturesque villages, vineyards a plenty and endless rolling green hills to drive through on a blissful summer road trip. But there’s one corner of this scenic country that no one has been allowed to enter for nearly a century, known as the “Zone Rouge” (the red zone).…

Here’s an Instagram Account dedicated to finding Forgotten French Ghost Signs

Instagram has become one of my favourite resources, probably because I’ve trained my digital eye to know exactly what I’m looking for while scrolling endlessly through accounts, allowing me to pinpoint more places on my wanderlust map like a visual mood board of things I love. Make sense? Well anyway, it’s a great travel tool and…

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,…

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…

Inside Le Monocle, the Parisian Lesbian Nightclub of the 1930s

If you were to hang around Montmartre after sundown in the 1920s & 30s, it’s likely you were looking for something a little more Avant-Garde than what you might find on the Parisian Left Bank. At the time, it was a haven for struggling artists, bohemians, burlesque dancers, straying husbands as well as a vibrant gay & lesbian community. In Montmartre, they…

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