Isabelle Andover's Blog, page 5
June 3, 2015
Flowers and fragrance
When it’s sunny and you’ve been stuck in the office all day, there’s nothing better than breaking up the journey home with a bit of culture.
The Fragrance Foundation France has put on a photography exhibition at Jardins du Palais Royal in the heart of Paris, a stone’s throw from the Louvre.
Entitled Le Parfum dans tous les sens (French speakers will appreciate the word play here), it’s made up of 50 panels. Walk one way and you’ll be taken through the major steps involved creating and industrialising a perfume, retrace your steps and an ‘artistic adventure’ awaits.
The exhibition isn’t just visual – scent devices attached to the panels means you can smell different fragrance notes, including rose and lavender.
Le Parfum dans tous les sens is on at Jardins du Palais Royal, in Paris’s 1st arrondissement – from 28 May to 14th June. Open 7am to 11pm. Free
June 1, 2015
Nice day for cake
If you’re looking for somewhere to go for coffee and cake in Paris, than look no further than The Sugarplum Cake Shop.
Located in Paris’s fifth arrondissement, this is the place to come if you want a really big slice of cake. You’ve been warned – the slices are huge.
My favourite is the Nutella cake, below, which needs no introduction. It’s probably best shared between two people, but since I took my laptop along to do some writing, I ate it all by myself. I had to have a lie down afterwards, mind you.
The Sugar Plum Cake Shop also makes cakes to oder for special occasions. Perhaps I could get one for next year’s milestone birthday.
J
The Sugar Plum Cake Shop- 68 rue du Cardinal Lemoine 75005 Paris, open Tuesday to Sunday from midday to 19h.
May 30, 2015
Paris says adieu to love locks
Paris, city of amour? Well, not exactly. Authorities in Paris have finally decided to remove the love locks from Pont des Arts, starting from June 1.
Back in 2010, the mayor said the locks would eventually be removed – there were concerns that they were damaging the bridge, and part of it collapsed last year under the weight of the locks.
The metal grills on the bridge are set to be replaced by paintings initially, and then by glass panels.
It’s become a tradition among tourists in recent years to attach a lock to the bridge and throw the key in the river Seine below.
Looks like another tradition will now have to be found.
May 27, 2015
Paris’s first €1 cafe
When I heard that a new cafe had opened in Paris where every item on the menu costs €1, I had to go and check it out. Technically it’s in a suburb, but it’s in the very bourgeois Boulogne-Billancourt and on the metro line, which is good enough for me.
Finding cheap food in Paris is no easy feat, and finding cheap food that actually tastes good is even harder. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve shelled out upwards of €5 for a small and dissatisfying sandwich. But now, thanks to the Oup’s cafe, which opened last month, that €5 could get me a slice of pizza, a bagel, a pepsi, a cappuccino and a bar of milka.
I went along with a friend after work, having purposely eaten a light lunch in preparation for the feast I was anticipating. Unfortunately, as we arrived about an hour before closing, there was very little left. No pizza and no bagels, which of course means I’ll have to go back on a Saturday (I imagine it does a roaring trade at lunchtime). I did however manage to nab the last salmon and dill ciabatta, which was surprisingly tasty, and also opted for a hot chocolate, which was pretty close to perfect.
To congratulate ourselves on the money we’d saved, my friend and I went to a bar and ordered a carafe of wine. Well, when in France…
Oup’s cafe is located at 84 rue de Billancourt, Boulogne (métro : Boulogne – Pont de Saint-Cloud or Marcel Sembat).
May 20, 2015
Jean Paul Gaultier at Paris’ Grand Palais
If anyone is in Paris between now and August 3, I highly recommend that you go and see the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition at the Grand Palais.
The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk, has attracted over one million visitors on its world tour, and has already stopped at San Francisco, London and Melbourne, among other cities.
The exhibition features over 140 outfits created by the ‘enfant terrible’ of fashion, including his iconic marinière striped tops and his conical corsets made famous by Madonna.
Particularly noteworthy are the animated mannequins that blink and move their eyes. The one pictured below proclaims to be the ‘true’ Jean Paul Gaultier, and, among other things, chats to you about his inspiration, his muses, equality of the sexes and cougars (not the feline variety).
I guarantee that this exhibition will a) Make you wish you were rich enough to by haute-couture, and b) Make you want to buy stripes. A must see.
May 17, 2015
La nuit européenne des musées
© DR ILLUSTRATIONLast night, 16 May, was La nuit européenne des musées in France.
the annual event saw over 130 museums in Ile-de-France open their doors, including the Palace of Versailles and the recently opened Fondation Louis Vuitton, which participated in the event for the first time this year.
It has to be said that I was particularly cultural last night, visiting the Palais Galliera fashion museum to see the Jeanne Lanvin retrospective, the Palais de Tokyo to explore some of the most mind-boggling contemporary art I’ve seen in a long time, and to the Manufacture nationals des Gobelins, which actually has nothing to do with manufacturing goblins, sadly.
The latter deserves a special mention, as it was undoubtedly my favourite.
The exhibition was dedicated to the restoration workshops of the Mobilier national, which repairs, conserves and maintains roughly 80,000 pieces of furniture and textiles. it provides the furnishings of France’s official palaces and presidential residences.
At the exhibition, restorers were on hand to explain the processes involved, and there where sensory tables where you could touch different fabrics. Of particular note were the various videos (in French with French subtitles) where restorers explained the training they go through and the best projects they have worked on.
May 16, 2015
My top 5 music videos set in Paris
After the rumours a few months ago that Rihanna was in Paris to shoot a new video, I thought I’d share with you my top five music videos set in Paris. In no particular order, here they are:
Taylor Swift – Begin again
Adele – Someone like you
Wolfman featuring Pete Doherty – for lovers
Sam Smith – Leave your lover
Indila – Dernière Danse
May 14, 2015
How To Become Parisian in One Hour?
Last week, I went to see the popular Paris one man show, How to Become Parisian in One Hour?
I’d been meaning to see it for about two years, but somehow never got round to it. Then I won some tickets (all those hours spent on Facebook finally paid off), so went along with a friend.
Over the course of an hour, Olivier Giraud takes you through how to be Parisian in a shop, in a restaurant, in a taxi, in the metro…. In a word, it’s hilarious. 100% in English, the show draws an international crowd, including French people.
Everything GIraud says about the Parisians and Paris is uproariously accurate, and his at-time risqué humour had the audience laughing throughout.
Check out the video below for a taster of the show
April 21, 2015
24 hours of vélib’
Continuing my recent sporting theme, I thought I’d draw your attention to this – the 4th edition of 24 hours of vélib’. On Sunday 14 June 2015, in celebration of the eighth anniversary of vélib’ bikes in Paris, part of the Champs-élysées (from Concorde to the Petit Palais), will be closed to traffic from 8am to 8pm, and a 600m circuit set up. The aim is simple: for participants to collectively cycle over 25,000km using the 400 vélib’ bikes to raise money for various associations. For every two laps cycled, 1 euro will be donated by the partners of the event. There will also be open air DJ sets, food trucks and a pétanque contest. The event is free and open to everyone. See you there! 
April 19, 2015
Paris color run 2015
Today was the Paris Color Run, a 5k from Hotel de Ville to Trocadero. After a few weeks of training, I was confident about being able to cover the distance without collapsing around kilometer number four. I was further reassured by the fact that our team included an asthmatic smoker, which would hopefully make me look as though I casually ran 5km on a regular basis without even breaking a sweat.
In the event, the run was more fun than anything: lots of music, lots of coloured powder, and of course, great scenery.
The endorphins had me rashly agreeing to consider signing up for Mud Day next year – before I realized it was roughly 13km and includes 20 obstacles. La Parisienne – a women-only race that is a positively tiny 6km in comparison – is a distinct possibility, however.
