Paris Travel Blog

Summer in the city can leave you needing more than an ice-cream to cool down – especially if you have been slogging round the must-see sights. As the sun beats down on the roofs of Paris and crisps the leaves of the horse-chestnut trees in the Jardin du Luxembourg, the beaches of Paris Plages appear...

On the heights of la Butte Montmartre (the hill of Montmartre), opposite the celebrated cabaret Le Lapin Agile, you’ll find a remnant of the times when Paris was much smaller than it is today and stretched little further than the banks of the Seine. It is a tiny vineyard, whose grapes are still harvested...

What’s happening? On the night of Tuesday 21 June, it’s France’s 30th annual Fête de la Musique. In Paris and all over the country, choirs, orchestras, Andean flute players and scruffy indy kids will be striking a chord or several and providing free entertainment for anyone who wants it. What...

You may have difficulty finding a taxi today (Wednesday 25 May 2011). The newspaper Le Parisien reported this morning that three of the largest taxi companies have called for a “national day of action” to protest against rising fuel prices and taxes. The action is expected to affect taxi services...

Tomorrow, Saturday 14 May, for one night only, nearly all of the museums in Paris will be open late, mostly until midnight, celebrating the annual European Museums Night. As well as keeping their doors open way past their usual bedtime for visits to their regular collections and their temporary exhibitions,...

Even more than le vin (wine), le pain (bread) is the basis of French gastronomy. People swear by certain bakers and each Parisian has his or her favourite boulangerie. Can there be a more affordable or delicious way to get into the French psyche while you’re here? Of the 1,200 boulangeries in the city, ...

All eyes will be on Cannes this week for the annual film festival. Among the many accolades the French film world can bestow, one of the greatest is to be chosen as the film to open the festival. This year at the 64th festival, that honour goes to the American director Woody Allen and his latest movie,...

There’s nothing better than a five-star hotel, right? Officially, perhaps not, but the bar has been raised in recent years by hotels such as the Burj Al Arab in Dubai, which is widely described as “seven-star”. Perhaps stung by this, earlier this year the first rumours emerged of a new French “palace...

It’s opera weekend all over Europe this Saturday and Sunday (7 and 8 May), and Paris is not going to be left out of the festivities. Impecunious opera buffs will, of course, be flocking to the free performances, but if you’ve yet to decide whether arias are your thing, be assured that the events...

If, like a group of Chicagoans I met in the queue, you say, “Well we were visiting the museum, so we figured we’d see the special exhibition, too,” the Musée d’Orsay’s latest blockbuster will show you everything you wanted to know about Manet – and quite probably more. Billed as one of the...