BonjourParis

Rue Daguerre, at least its first two or three blocks, seems to shout Authentic Paris to tourists and expatriates. With the exception of a café and a hairdresser, all the businesses are selling food: a kind of spontaneous supermarket, you might think, without a common roof or cash registers. A Parisian, especially an older one, would say it is no such thing. It is a remnant of ancient logic—put all the food shops of a quartier on one street for convenience—and the logic still holds. It is not an ornament or an artifact to inspire snapshots, but sensible commerce. Napoléon was the pot calling the kettle black when he declared the English were a nation of shopkeepers.

A wonderful way to see Paris is from the air. While that is not readily possible, most people choose to climb to Sacre Coeur, especially as night falls over the city of lights or to go atop the famous Eiffel Tower for a view that’s hard to beat. I’ve even walked to the top of the Arc De Triomphe where a view of the cars rounding the Etoile without stop signs or traffic lights is a miracle looking for a disaster. It reminded me of ants scurrying to and fro without collisions. I traveled to the western Peripherique and ascended the arc shaped office building at La Defense.

If one thinks of the most romantic city, overflowing with culture, abounding with gastronomy and fine wine and is exquisitely beautiful come nightfall, one is probably thinking of Paris. Whether alone or with your partner, Paris is the stuff love is made of. Here are the Top 10 places to rouse romance in the City of Love.

Christian Le Squer, the young talent who won 3-Michelin stars at Ledoyen, Paris,  has launched ETC. his chic bistro. He became the talk of the town for his modern spin on classic French cooking but wanted a different atmosphere where he could deconstruct the dishes of his Brittany childhood, revise and correct them for a young, hip clientele. 

As a Francophile and a frequent traveler to India, I have long been fascinated by the prospect of visiting the one remaining French enclave on the subcontinent – Pondicherry. Located in the state of Tamil Nadu on the southeast coast, this seaside city still counts French among the languages spoken and has most of its streets labeled as Rue… It even has a French quarter – La Ville Blanche – complete with Hôtel de Ville.

About a month ago,* Colette and I were alighting from the famous #31 bus on our way to the Clocher Periere on the Bvd Pereire for another one of their superb meals, and I spotted a new sign at the corner that said l’Agapé not l’Ampére, as it had for years.  Whoa, said I, let’s take a gander.  We approached and looked at the chalkboard in the window, 3 dishes for 39 €uros, not too bad, but the dishes offered didn’t turn us on.  Then we looked at the carte, whoa again, dinner was 77 €uros and the “carte blanche” menu 110 €uros.  Out of our league, said I.  I was later to learn that the kitchen and frontroom teams came from l’Arpege, where anything less than these prices would have been unthinkable.

Spring Fly Drive Packages with Car Rental & Airfare to Europe from $537! Book Your Spring Airfare with a Car Rental in Advance for GREAT savings! Valid for Departures 4/1/2008 through 5/15/2008.

There’s music in the air, and it isn’t charming.  I don’t mean accordionists playing “La vie en rose,” though amazingly they still exist, or marauding Scots in kilts playing the pipes invading the Champs Élysées.  Those could actually be fun in small doses and at a safe distance.  What’s actually in the air isn’t music itself, but a lot of brouhaha about the Eurovision Contest.

It's not that I think all things French are the best in the world.  I think the best things in the world are, uh, the best things and they come from all over. In fact, that's why I wrote a book about it—Where to Buy the Best of Everything.

After more than thirty years of pediatric practice I had an experience today that I could not have predicted. I was seeing three members of a polygamous family to bring them up to date with their immunization status. Years ago I began to see a number of polygamous families for some reason; once you gain their trust you start seeing others. It is probably a question of not seeming judgmental and not asking too many questions.

Half a dozen errands to do and lunch with friends, then stock up the pantry: a day on foot.  Not enough distance to bother taking the Métro and anyhow the weather is good and I’m a walker.  Coming up from underground and holding the chin up, since it’s no longer cold or rainy, Paris begins to look like Paris again.  I’d almost forgotten one of the city’s most striking characteristics.  There’s advertising everywhere.

There’s something absurd in Paris and it doesn’t quite fit.  Parisians are not absurd, not by nature and not, I’ve always thought, by artful choice.  The theatre of the absurd flourished here and might even claim Paris as its capital. But not so with the new absurdistes I’ve been seeing this spring in Paris.  They are riding scooters.  Not motor scooters, but the Razor, an American child’s toy that also caught on with some adults in the States, but mostly they were high school and college students.  There, the Razor is passé.  It seems to have caught on in Paris this year, and those who scoot are mostly young children.  But there have been too many adult men (I haven’t seen a single woman scooting), and they bother me. 

Lightweight and super-portable, ECTACO jetBook is the ultimate pocket library. Capable of storing thousands of books in the world's most popular languages, plus music and picture files, it is a universal mobile library for professional, business and leisure reading. With an easy to scan high-resolution 5-inch display and a viewing angle close to 180°, it is fully customizable. Even readers who have difficulty seeing print books will benefit from its adjustable text size and font face. And weighing in at only 7,5 ounces, this handy device fits perfectly into the palm of your hand.

We like to say that some things are unimaginable, incomprehensible to the human mind, even unspeakable.  But then we manage to conjure up—and not only in our minds—avocado ice-cream, a book written without using the letter e, or genocide.  Ecclesiastes was surely right: there is nothing, no matter how absurd, vile, or unnecessary, that has not been or, given human imagination, will not be some day.

A “Rhone Renaissance” wine tasting at the French Embassy in Washington recently featured fine wines from throughout the Northern and Southern Rhone. This column treats those from the Southern Rhone. While we were tasting the wines, Pope Benedict XVI was visiting Washington. Therefore, we must start with Chateauneuf du Pape! This storied southern Rhone appellation takes its name from the removal of the papacy to Avignon in the fourteenth century. Chateauneuf du Pape became the papal summer residence, and there the vineyards grow today. The region has long produced sturdy, flavorful wines, and the appellation was formally created in 1936.

A pleasant and thorough introduction to the wines of the Rhone Valley, both North and South, was recently held at the French Embassy in Washington. The tasting featured fine wines, well displayed by their knowledgeable distributors. The able wine missionary work of the French Wine Society, which helped organize the event and publicize it, deserves particular note. It was suggested that these wines are now being “rediscovered”: hence the title for the tasting. Whether that is entirely the case or not, it is certainly true that with a few well-known exceptions, such as Châteauneuf  du Pape (CDP), these wines deserve to be better known.

La Luna is not a new, bling, bling address, but a modern classic. At the helm is Catherine Delaunay, who came to Paris 15 years ago. “After Hotel School. Nice, I wanted to get to know the scene in Paris, I worked at some top addresses, that was better than Hotel School”, she recalls. Ms Delaunay says restaurant work is tough, especially for women, it's either make or break. “Several times I decided to quit, but cooking and running a restaurant becomes a passion”, she admits. When the opportunity arrived to take over a little restaurant in the Villiers area of Paris, “I jumped in with both feet, called it La Luna, because I'd just been in Spain and there was a hit song with that name, I couldn't get out of my head!”  

Another area where it’s tough to find a good restaurant just outside a touring destination is around the Orsay Museum.  Essentially one must either head West towards the Rue du Bac or Southeast past the Assemblee Nationale. Westward one has several opportunities.  My most recent favorite is Cinq Mars on the Rue de Verneuil where the hearty fare include such things as a huge sausage on a huge bed of mashed potatoes and a huge chalkboard of wines from all over (France of course.)

Do you sometimes despair of finding a lovely spot to spend a few days R&R. Sometimes you think you have and, when you get there, it turns out to be a Club Med concept with Metro style food and kids peeing in the pool? Don't get me wrong nothing wrong with Club Med, but if you want an authentic French experience you need Hostellerie Bérard.