2023

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Paris tips: visiting

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  Note : this post and the April 28 one, about eating out, were written for American friends visiting Paris, one of them for the first time, who wanted a few tips from a local. They were staying in a hotel just off République... ***** I guess you'll have your own guide book to help you plan your visit. But whichever one (or more) it is, I thought you might find the Michelin Green Guide 's tourist map of Paris (below) helpful, as it makes it easy to locate the main sights. I think you'll find if you click on the map, it will blow up to a more legible size. The inset box at top left explains Michelin's ratings system, similar to its approach to restaurant ratings. With a decent guide book, you won't need much help from me, but I just wanted to add one or two items that visitors might miss, plus an idea for a north-south walk (or south-north, as you wish) that makes a change from the usual main east-west (or west-east!) drag. Also, finally, one neglected but unique mus...
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Paris tips: eating out

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Note : this post and the April 30 one, about things to see, were written for American friends visiting Paris, one of them for the first time, who wanted a few tips from a local. They were staying in a hotel just off République... ***** THREE STRONG RECOMMENDATIONS These are the three places I'd most strongly recommend during your visit, as I think they offer a nice variety of quality Parisian eating experiences. 1. Dinner at Le Train Bleu When the underlying idea was to recommend places off the tourist track, it might seem odd to start with Le Train Bleu, at the Gare de Lyon. But this is surely one of the most extraordinary restaurant spaces in the world. You can only experience it in Paris, of course, and I usually take any first-time visitor there for dinner. It's Lyon-influenced brasserie food at more-than-brasserie prices, but they have simple set-price menus at 55 and 74 euros, and anyway, as usual, the final bill depends above all on what you drink. It's worth it (and...
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Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry at Chantilly

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This week I made the trip out to Chantilly where, in the Jeu de Paume, the Condé museum is showing, quite exceptionally, the calendar folios of the Duc de Berry's  Très Riches Heures . These twelve double-page spreads have just been restored, which explains why it was possible now to display them individually, in specially-made, air-conditioned cases, before they are bound back into the book and shut away, like Sleeping Beauty (the original Disney version of which they are said to have influenced), for the next hundred years, maybe more. The museum is marketing the show as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. According to museum director Mathieu Deldicque, who also curated the exhibition: ' This manuscript was already famous in the Middle Ages. By putting it back into context, we can better understand what makes it the most ambitious, where it came from, who commissioned it, and why, from the 15th century onwards, it had such a profound influence on the arts, manuscripts, painting,...
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