Paris Paris by Night
Paris by Night - or is it Paris by Dawn? Nightllife in this city is perpetual.
Paris in a Glance: Paris Bridges
Photo by Chris Card Fuller ©2007
According to the www.Paris.fr site, the inauguration of the Passerelle de Simone de Beauvoir brings Paris’s number of bridges crossing the Seine River up to 37. Another site Paris-tourist-information.co lists Paris’s bridges at 36. I’ve only counted 35 on the Paris.fr site. So, here’s an opportunity for any of you astute Paris bridge counters out there to set the record straight.
Meanwhile, although I know, it’s the kind of statistic to have handy and at your fingertips, I must …
Date: July 20th, 2007 |
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Paris’s Piaf: Slice of Post World War I Paris
There are plenty of good reasons to see Olivier Dahan’s film “La Vie en Rose” a biography of singer Edith Piaf. She was born in Paris in 1915. She lived in the Belleville district of Paris (in the northeast which remains to this day a working class neighborhood). If director Martin Scorsese still plans on making a film about Paris between the two World Wars, he will do well to study the brilliant portrayal of this era in Dahan’s “La Mome” as La Vie en Rose is called in the French version.
Edith Piaf trivia: Did you know that some performers consider it bad luck to sing an Edith Piaf song? Although it was true that Piaf suffered many losses - one of her greatest loves, Marcel Cerdan, the boxer died in a plane crash, certainly her success as a performer and her rise to stardom from such modest beginnings had to include a little bit of good luck.
Date: July 5th, 2007 |
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More on Museum Night
Photo by Chris Card Fuller ©2006
Musee du Quai Branly was unable to participate last year in the Free Museum Night because it hadn’t opened yet, but this year it will make up for lost time by keeping its doors open for an extra half hour. Visitors will be allowed free entrance after 6 pm. Jugglers, acrobats and contortionists will be on hand to add some animation to the already dramatic sculpture exhibits. Don’t miss the trapeze act in the garden.
Musee du Quai Branly opened last June, 2006. The museum …
Date: May 19th, 2007 |
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The 5-Star Myth
This may come as a surprise to you, but five-star hotels do not exist in Paris. The most famous hotels in Paris such as the Ritz and the Crillon are called 4-Star hotels ‘de luxe’. 4-Star Luxury Hotels. So, when you hear about 5-Star Cuisine and 5-Star Hotels, this is more often the work of over-enthusiastic brochure writers. I’ve noticed that ‘5-Star’- cuisine is particularly a cruise-talk cliche.
Date: April 19th, 2007 |
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Gotan Project in Paris - tonight!
If you missed Gotan Project in Caen in February, it’s not too late to catch their 8:30 pm concert this evening at the Grand Rex. Metro: Bonne Nouvelle.
The GoGoparis.com site explained something of which I was unaware when I mentioned Gotan Project to you an a past entry. Gotan is ‘verlaine’ or reverse for Tango. Which is what Gotan is all about. Even if you can’t get to their concert tonight, be sure and check out their video sequence at their website: www.gotanproject.com.
If you don’t feel like going out, pick …
Date: April 4th, 2007 |
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Late Night Transportation in Paris
Paris is being kinder and gentler to late night revelers in the past few years, particularly with the introduction of the late night bus service called Noctilien. Buses run from 12:30 pm to 5:30 am. You will recognize Noctilien bus route shelters by either the Noctilien icon or an ‘N’ posted in front of the bus number.
There are forty such bus routes and 2000 bus stops. The main Paris night routes tend to connect the centers of late-night activity such as the Champs Elysees, Bastille, St. Germain-des-Pres and Montparnasse. The major train stations …
Date: July 13th, 2007 |
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Retour de Flamme summer show
Here is a reminder that I just received in the mail from Lobster Films.com Mark July 7th on your calendar - and don’t miss this show if you’re in town. It’s FREE! You will have the opportunity to see silent films and hear the incredible Serge Bromberg play piano. I’m not sure where Serge’s passion for film ends and his joy for playing piano begins - they are probably inextricable. Attending a Retour de Flamme show is not simply entertainment - it’s a chance to learn a little about film preservation and the urgency. …
Date: June 24th, 2007 |
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Requiem at St. Germain des Pres
Thirty years ago, a friend played a recording of Mozart’s Requiem for me. That was the first time I heard the Requiem. We were in an apartment in Rue Monsieur Le Prince in the Latin Quarter. My mind was on other things - the Requiem sounded solemn, lugubrious even - and in those days I was probably more interested in listening to Jeff Beck than Mozart. Sometimes one has to be patient for the good things in life.
Date: April 25th, 2007 |
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Hotel Advice from Thackery
For as long as tourists have been visiting Paris, writers far more talented than this blogger have been giving advice about how to pick out a good hotel - what is truly amazing though, when you’re talking about Paris, some of these hotels are still in business. Which means that they must have been doing something right for the past hundred years or more.
Thackery gives some advice for fresh arrivals regarding the Hotel Meurice on Rue de Rivoli. He suggests that upon arrival when you’re surrounded by touts approaching you with phrases in broken English, …
Date: April 10th, 2007 |
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Perceptual Paris Performance
The jazz group - Perceptual - introduces their music as “an awakening of the senses - letting the music lead you into poetic, idle wanderings . . . ”
Do not try this at work! Like I did this morning, trying to prepare for a productive morning of blogging. I started off with Perceptual’s website - From Jazz, I segued over to some Citroen DS sites - and went idly wandering until early evening - cars are whooshing by outside and from some other apartment window, I hear soft strains -of, …
Date: April 1st, 2007 |
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