Normally, I’m the sort of gal that doesn’t need an invitation to have a lollop around in a large green space, being a country girl at heart, with fine English sap running through my veins. But a friend with small human in need of celebrating his three whole years on this earth steered me last weekend to a patch which hadn’t previously seen a great deal of lolloping on my part, and picnic blanket and thermos of wine in hand, I headed south on RER B to the resplendent Parc Montsouris.
Literally translating as a very unappealing and frankly incorrect ‘mouse mountain’ thanks to years of linguistic tinkering with its original moniker of ‘Moulin de Moque-Souris’ (meaning the equally perplexing ‘mouse-mocking windmill’), this 15.5 hectare park is nestled in the 14th arrondissement and forms part of the quartet of vast green urban spaces across the capital created by the power duo of Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann (capable of creating much smaller bits of green too), eventually completed in 1878.
Much smaller than the bookend woods Boulogne and Vincennes, it echoes the hilly contours of sister park Buttes-Chaumont in the 19th, though unlike the others was designed specifically in the English landscape garden style. So far, so elegant and refined. It’s construction story though was a million miles away from its classic, cultivated exterior, being built on the site of a former quarry and a network of abandoned tunnels and mines which came to reveal a gruesome cache of some of the six million Parisians that were buried under the city in the 18th century. Around 800 skeletons were removed to their final resting place in famous catacombs of Paris.
Thankfully no hints of its macabre past remain today and you’ll find an undulating park perfect for picnics and frisbee or a good old-fashioned stroll. There’s also a duck pond towards the middle and a café and kiosk for something cold and refreshing should you be stupid enough to forget your thermos of chilled white wine. Kiddles will get all squeaky and excited when they spy the ponies offering rides round the winding paths, and joggers decided long ago that this is in the top five training spots that the capital can muster.
As for us, we took advantage of the wide open spaces and spread our picnic blankets under the shade of a giant tree, surrounded by fellow alfresco diners, snoozing citizens and lounging couples. We might not have seen any mice, but the bubbles (of the soapy-water-blow-into-the-air kind) and birthday cake(s) were far more interesting than any mouse-mocking that could have taken place. As English experiences in Paris go, all that was missing was a delicious cup of afternoon tea.
Reach Park Montsouris by taking RER B or tram 3a to stop Cité Universitaire.
What a time to be nestled in the heart of Europe, eh? What with unceasing showers, Euro tournament troubles, terrorist threats and the potential break-up of the EU looming on the horizon, it’s a time for the nerves to be well and truly jangled. Contemplating the present and future state of Europe is enough to give me grey hairs, particularly in light of the referendum vote which who knows, might result in me being turfed out of my French home. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, but for sure, looking around and ahead at this present moment is only a job for the very brave.
Compared to the sleek, uniform lines of Baron Haussmann’s building style that typifies the capital, nestled in and around the centre are a small handful of Parisian buildings that make the Baron’s work seem positively space-age. With their wonky forms and beamed façades, they point back to a version of Paris way before revolutions shaped the city, hundreds of years before nearly all of today’s must-see sights appeared, presumably a time long before rulers and spirit levels were invented.
The majestic double-fronted specimens I encountered are to be found at 11 & 13 Rue François Morin, with a handy plaque explaining their littered and lengthy history. Not quite the oldest Paris can muster (you’ll find the oldest at 51 Rue Montmorency, Nicolas Flamel’s old gaff, or a similar medieval example at 3 Rue Volta), but clearly stuff of legend no less, the buildings’ construction date is that far back, sources can’t quite agree on when exactly they sprung up. Most estimates point to the beginning of the 16th century, though many repairs have been made since then. If I ever make it to 500 years, I’ll expect to have the same.
It’s difficult to imagine a Paris before Haussmann got his hands on it and created the long, wide boulevards we all know and love, but this was a city going through a renaissance, aesthetically more in line with Tudor London than the modern city style we’ve come to be so familiar with. Forget the Louis’ contributions, this is a slice of Paris before the wheels well and truly fell off. If you’re expecting to be welcomed through the door into a medieval museum bringing its origins to life though, then you might just be a little disappointed. The famed Parisian sense of passion is older than the building still, and quite fittingly, now houses an ‘adult’ nightclub, for those brave enough to indulge. If only walls could talk, eh?
Stuff, eh? We might all assume that our daily lives are ruled by crooked politicians and the chafing chains of bureaucracy, but we’d all be wrong. What actually seems to have the stranglehold over most of our lives these days is stuff. Yep, all of those things that we dedicate our lives to getting and having, before the buzz wears off and the getting and having reveal themselves as soul-sucking monsters with infinite appetites. That cycle of emotions that comes with every possession we encounter which takes us fleetingly through joy, quickly into indifference, finally sinking into guilt as our consumer desires eventually begin to drown us in clutter. Forget bent governments, that Ikea catalogue is really the boss of you.
In Paris, many of us manage to escape this ‘power of things’ given that we live in matchboxes (we can only dream of living in shoeboxes), forcing us to adopt a one-in-one-out policy when it comes to possessions. That joyous feeling of having a shiny brand-new thing quickly turns into frustration when you get it home and realise you have absolutely nowhere to put it, besides out the window. But as the generous provider of things, Dame Paris makes sure that we can both inhale and exhale goods as we need them in order to maintain our domestic equilibrium, and at the very same time instil within us the waste-not want-not community spirit that is so very virtuous, but somehow so typically un-Parisian. Behold, the Vide Grenier.
Something also very un-Parisian is the concept of the car boot, a vehicular feature rendered utterly useless thanks to Parisian parking rules dictating that cars need to be caressing each others’ rear ends like excited terriers to be considered properly parked. Forget trying to sell your old vinyl collection from the back of your car, even if you had room, you wouldn’t be able to open the damn thing. Thankfully Parisians have decided not to deny themselves access to the bric-a-brac spirit and every so often spill on to the pavements of the city’s quartiers to either peddle or browse the contents of theirs, and others’ homes (sorry, ‘matchboxes’) in an officially organised event known as a Vide Grenier, or literally ’emptying of the attic’.
As is the case in many countries throughout the world, the first day of the month of May is officially known over here as la Fête de Travail or Labour Day. Originating in the US, the day became a commemoration of the Haymarket affair in Chicago in 1886, in which four demonstrators were killed when striking workers clashed with police, but encompasses a wider celebration of labourers, the working classes and international workers rights.
If organised objection isn’t your thing, then happily on the other side of the paradoxical May 1st coin, things are far quieter, prettier, and friendlier. The day also goes by the name la Fête du Muguet after the tiny white lily-of-the-valley that is traditionally given to close friends and family as a sign of love and affection. King Charles IX was the first to do so in 1561 and the tradition has lasted throughout the years, apparently most popular in the Île-de-France region around Paris.
Guys, breathe a sigh of relief. We’ve pretty much done it. You can raise your head from out of the beige blanket that was winter, and start to look towards the shining spring light of March, just a whisker of days away. Now although this winter was a great deal kinder than most, it still doesn’t stop me from finding myself desperately needing a showering of colour in the dying embers of a dingy February. Thank God it’s the year’s shortest month.
Paris hasn’t been nice enough to supply me with a giant ball pit in which to flap amidst the colours, so I’ve had to search out my own place of rainbows. And readers, thanks to my inexhaustible adventure feet, I’ve uncovered an absolute gem, buried in the heart of the vibrant 20th arrondissement.
Beautifully contrasted to the traditionally muted Haussmannian avenues in more well known parts of the city, here your eyes will be delighted by some of the best street art Paris can muster in an ever-changing palette of colours and design. Forget the crazy tangled eyesore (IMO) that is the Pompidou centre, this is modern art at its graffittied best.
Just as the vibrant colours of the spring flowers must eventually fade, so it seems that sadly, so must the bright tones of Bellville’s modern art. Of course there’s plenty around the city still to spy, including hundreds of offerings from Paris’ most famous street artist 
You know how there are some things you can do in life, and then there are those that you can’t? Me for example. Great at cooking and writing, but try and make me drink a bottle of water whilst walking and you uncover a serious weakness. Dear old Paris is the same, though like a real lady, she wouldn’t thank me for pointing out one of her flaws.
Sure there are bistros and brasseries galore and a thriving modern restaurant scene, but check out the menu and it’s really her regional cousins propping up the reputation with dishes from all corners of the country. Beef stew and coq au vin from Burgundy, mussels and cider from Normandy, crêpes from Brittany, enough meat to terrify vegetarians in Lyon, and classic Bouillabaisse from the south – wherever you travel you’ll be spectacularly well fed.
See, she may be all culture and style, but when it comes to feeding and watering us, Paris skipped dinner and preferred to head straight to the cabaret instead, blinding our appetites with her sparkling nipple tassels. I’ve been here for 7 years, and I can’t help but picture the traditional Parisian dish as a McDo and a Coca Light, with half a packet of cigarettes on a café terrace to finish.
Literally meaning ‘Mr Crunch’ and his wife ‘Mrs Crunch’, legend has it that some dim workmen left their lunches of ham and cheese sandwiches on a radiator whilst they hammered and chiselled away, and were surprisingly delighted with the result when the midday hunger hit. It didn’t take long for the dish to hit brasserie menus in the capital given the French’s penchant for talking about food (like ALL. THE. TIME.) and now it’s considered a classic, occupying blackboards with its more sophisticated regional friends.
For me, Paris has always been a paradox. And one of the reasons why I started this blog was to address exactly that, exploring both the city’s magic and contradictory grit, trying to find both the rough and the smooth in its inner soul. But no paradox can, and I hope never will, be as painfully stark and heartbreaking as what the world saw on Friday 13th November, just a short and life-changing week ago. How can something so horrific have happened in a place so beautiful? How can there be forces so dark at work in the City of Light?
Now it has been immortalised once again as the symbol of unity in the face of a new, modern terror. But it will hold fast as it always has, and infuse our anguished hearts with its message of ‘Freedom, Equality and Fraternity’ and give us the strength to conquer, just as it so powerfully ignited conviction in the past.
I’ll admit it – after nearly seven years in France’s fair capital, there’s still a list of things I sorely miss from the motherland for which Paris can supply no substitute. It has diminished over time, a mere scribbled shadow of what it once was, but the one thing that remains steadfastly stubborn at the top (and I’m not proud of myself, dear readers), is the British supermarket. Sorry Carrefour, Monoprix et al, but you’re just simply no match for the behemoths I’m used to (and guys, if you insist on selling Marmite at such an offensively inflated price, you never, EVER will be).
In Paris though, there’s one thing on the other side of the coin that floats high above these pile-’em-high grocery warehouses, and that’s the traditional produce market, largely abandoned back home in favour of convenience and the fruitless (ha!) search for the cheapest price. And I don’t mean the status-coated ‘farmer’s markets’ either – throughout the city you’ll find both covered and outdoor markets every day of the week selling ordinary fruit and veg from mere pennies to the more upmarket selections in the more well-to-do arrondissements.
Whereas the supermarket is a relatively modern invention at a mere 100 years old*, showing its true influence in our food culture only in the last 40 years or so, the traditional market goes way, way back into the very deepest mists of time – so far back you can hardly even see the beginning anymore. I’ll leave Tesco, ASDA and friends to contemplate their frustratingly unflinching stranglehold on the UK economy, and instead 
You’ll find this rain-friendly covered market in the 3rd arrondissement near the Rue de Bretagne, and its name, ‘Market of the Red Children’ comes from the red-suited inhabitants of an ancient orphanage that used to stand nearby. Though the latter is long gone, the market has stood strong for the last 400 years, though understandably needed a facelift after centuries of trading, and closed for six years for a spruce-up in the late 1990s.
Rainbows of produce await hungry punters, but waiting until to you get home to satisfy your hunger sounds like unnecessary torture to me. To save you from breaking your teeth sinking them into a raw turnip, the real draw of le Marché des Enfants Rouges is the huge selection of freshly prepared food on offer from all corners of the world, hot and cold, served in compact glass pod-like structures with plenty of seating scattered around to take the load off. Happily the menu also includes fish and chips, so authentic that you could close your eyes and be sitting in a café on Brighton seafront. That’s another British comfort ticked of my list then.
pARIS: small capital 