It’s not often we get a new museum in Paris, and rare we get one as spectacular as the Bourse de Commerce. Located in the entirely round, 18th-century building in the 1st arrondissement that once housed France’s Commodities Exchange, the Bourse de Commerce reopened in 2021 as a contemporary sculpture museum. Subtitled the Collection Pinault, … More La Bourse de Commerce- Collection Pinault
If you’re ever wandering the cobbled laneways on the border between the first and second arrondissements, perhaps after a visit to the Louvre, you may come across a pedestrian oasis tucked away off the Rue St Honoré. Across the expansive Place Colette and through the stone archways of the Conseil d’état lies the forum-like open … More Le Palais-Royal
Unless you’re immensely lucky or immensely rich, you’ll most likely have to make some compromises when looking for a Paris apartment. Most people have their list of essentials, and a list of things they’re willing to sacrifice. For me, I will never again rent a place with a shared toilet down the hall (one flat … More La Tour Saint-Jacques
There are few areas of Paris as detested as les Halles. Located in the very heart of the city, over the largest subterranean train station in the world, les Halles has been a busy, noisy, messy meeting place for nine hundred years. As Paris evolved through the Middle Ages, the Ancien Régime and the République, … More L’Eglise Saint-Eustache
Isn’t it odd how we pay less attention to sights on our own doorstep than we do to unfamiliar ones, even when our local attractions are more beautiful, unusual or remarkable? We all do it. Part of it must be that we become desensitised to the beauty around us when we see it every day, … More La Conciergerie et la Sainte-Chapelle
Note: this post mostly covers the decorative arts section of the museum, however this address also includes the Paris advertising, graphic design and fashion and textiles museums. I’ve written before about Paris museums that thrive on contradiction. Light and dark, old and new, life and death; museums in la ville lumière know how to strike … More Le Musée des arts décoratifs
When I was little, I had a collection of books that I read religiously, over and over again. Most of them were whimsical fantasy tales set in the English countryside. But among the Enid Blytons, Edith Nesbits and J.K. Rowlings were two books which gave me a taste for French life well before I ever … More Le Musée de l’Orangerie
Les Musées de Paris 