Paris "by night"

You say it, "Paree bai naitte" (in a cheesy Pierrot-speak-ze-engleesch accent) and everyone seems to want a piece of it.

The latest "I love Paris in the nighttime" victim is Elaine Sciolino, writing in the NYT travel section. She describes walks around Paris's monuments late at night, after the tourists and commuters have-- mostly-- gone home. She's right: the Cour Carrée is breathtakingly gorgeous at night, and I've got the blurry underexposed photos to prove it. You think that Henri IV is going to walk through one of the guichets at any second. The Rue de Rivoli, the square in front of the Comédie Française, the Hôtel de Villle (especially when it had the adorable multicolored "Paris 2012" sign on it during the Olympics campaign), the dome of the Institut or the sparkly lights on the Tour Eiffel- yeah, it is all that. Not to mention the Panthéon or, even, as she mentioned, the neighbors across the street ... I used to look at the Centre Pompidou late at night, and wonder what contemporary installation it was flickering there, after the gallery lights were off.

100 (sans) Tabac

The New York Times has an article today about non-smoking restaurants in Paris. Most restaurants in France (not just Paris) are adamantly smoke-friendly. Sometimes you can find a non-smoking section, but it's often separated from the rest of the dining room by a shoulder-height partition. Nothing that flimsy stands up to a couple of Gauloise-smokers at the bar. Or worse, the non-smoking section is upstairs, or in the back next to the kitchen and WC, or something. Because non-smokers are by definition, tourists and not Parisians.

The article seems to include a bunch of restaurants and salons de thé that are a wee bit beyond my budget, but I'm saving the list for a future splurge-worthy occasion; I don't have many smoker friends and even those who do seem to be able to hold back during dinner. There are also websites to find further restaurants- in all price ranges, presumably.

The title of this post comes from the delightful "Café 100 Tabac" behind the Opéra in Lyon. It has a short menu and simple food, and would be a great place to take your visiting family or friends on a rainy night even if it were smoky!

Les mystères d'Onésime

TV 5 Monde, the French international TV channel, has launched a little serial on its website. "Les mystères d'Onésime" are supposed to help everyone discover "the Paris multiple and colorful of today." So far, the introduction and one episode- just a very short story- are online. I'm not sure how much of Paris we're going to see; so far there's more about Belgian slang and foodways than anything-- but hey, it just started.

Journées du patrimoine

Well, it's been awhile since I've posted, but what better moment to get back in the swing of things than the Journées du patrimoine?

Confession: I've never been in Paris for a Journées du patrimoine.

But, if I were there this year, here's my wish list of things to see. It would probably require teleportation and line-jumping skills to see everything.

1) Government ministries:

-- The Ministry of Culture (Immeuble des Bons-enfants). The Culture Ministry has moved to new digs recently. The building looks awfully cool.

-- Ministere de la cooperation (Hotel de Montesquiou). I have no idea what the Ministry for Cooperation even does, but if the hotel de Montesquiou is the former digs of the Belle Epoque dandy Robert de Montesquiou, friend of Proust and one of the inspirations for the dandy in A Rebours by Huysmanns, I'm there! Maybe there will be a jewel-encrusted turtle crawling around on the oriental rugs ...

-- Ministere de l'Economie et des finances (Quai de Bercy). I am not sure how I feel about this massive rectangular block, but it was designed by Paul Chemetov and Borja Huidobro, people I respect. I just want to see what's inside ...

-- The Hotel de Ville de Paris. Actually this isn't very high on the list since I've been inside part of it, at least to the Bibliothèque administrative de la ville de Paris. If I were more adventurous I would totally have gotten "lost" and wandered, relying on broken French and a brandished "carte de lecteur" to extricate myself from any sticky situations. Next time?

2) All things Le Corbusier

--Le Corbusier's atelier (16th arrondissement)

-- Fondation Le Corbusier/Maison La Roche (16e)

-- Villa Savoie (Issy?)

-- Cité du Refuge/Armée du Salut (13e)

3) Parks and Gardens

--Parc de Sausset (Aulnay-sous-bois). Yeah, yeah, *that* Aulnay. The park is supposed to be really nice ... and its landscape architect, Michel Corajoud, is giving tours HIMSELF. What I wouldn't give...

-- Vaux-le-Vicomte (Melun). Le Notre, Le Brun, and Le Vau, before Versailles. Purists like this one better.

This is not to mention the walking tours of architecture in the Paris region (Boulogne-Billancourt in the 30's, for example) or the new Cité de l'Architecture et du patrimoine in the Palais de Chaillot, or even the new Musée des arts premiers at the Quai Branly. Or the churches, or the former Mont-de-Piété-- the municipal pawn shop!!

http://www.journeesdupatrimoine.culture.fr/