Valentine’s Day 2012 The Manoir are holding a very special Valentine’s night experience. Billed “Dark Valentine Night” you’ll tour through the Manoir in total darkness apart from one light, and to mark Valentine’s day you’ll be serenaded by “love songs and rock and roll” and attacked by 20 monsters. Got to be better than an [...]
Continue reading about Le Manoir de Paris: A Haunting Experience
Can anyone help with this? I read recently, in the excellent book “Parisians – An Adventure History of Paris,” by Graham Robb, on page 371, that the phrase “Parce que je le vaux” (translated as “Because I’m worth it”) appeared as one of the slogans during the French students’ riots in 1968. I have been [...]
Continue reading about Was “Because I’m worth it” used in 1968 riots??
Andouillette – I love andouillette. Always have some when I’m in Paris. But it’s not to everyone’s taste. The meaning of the word andouillette (which originated in the nineteenth century) is simply “small andouille,” and the andouille in question must not be confused with the Cajun version. And the thing is, they’re not particularly small [...]
Continue reading about For Love of the Andouillette – France’s Quirky Sausage
One by The Five Oh, I so want to stay in this remarkable hotel. Situated near the Jardin du Luxembourg and the Pantheon, this looks spectacular. The enormous bed in the dreamily lit bedroom is meant to resemble a cloud, suspended from the wall, with stars and clouds painted above and below and extravagantly gorgeous [...]
1) Nicknames for the building with its workings on the outside are the gerbil cage and the cruise liner. It reopened in 2000 after a two year refurb to the sounds of seagulls and fog horns in recognition of this. 2) Holly Goodhead’s office at Drax’s space-shuttle plant in the James Bond film Moonraker (1979) [...]
Continue reading about 3 Fascinating Facts about the Pompidou Centre
I saw this ad in the Eurostar magazine, and was intrigued by the picture. The boy has a funnily weird expression on his face, and I wondered what on earth was going on with the crooked hand. I decided to do a bit of research. Not surprisingly it turns out that this is an iconic [...]
Hilarious. I’d just arrived in Paris, not having been in a while, so my ear for French wasn’t particularly well-developed (not that it is at the best of times …) So there was a misunderstanding with the lady at the ticket desk right at the beginning. I was told to go down the stairs to [...]
Continue reading about Les Etoiles du Rex – Backstage tour of a great cinema
There was a much-derided alternative plan for the Paris train system, put up by the imaginative sea captain, Edouard Mazet in 1884. He proposed a system which used neither rails, nor wagons, nor bridges, nor tunnels. He reasoned that it was impossible to fit an underground sytem under a town that was already built, and [...]
La Défense Named after the statue La Défense de Paris by Louis Ernest Barrias, which was erected in 1883 to commemorate the soldiers who had defended Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. (la defense pic) That very same man is also reponsible for “Nature unveiling herself to science”, now housed at the Musée d’Orsay. Argentine Originally [...]
Continue reading about More Paris Metro Stations: How did they get their names?
