May 2014—The search for proper balance between explorations in Paris and elsewhere in France weighs on the minds of many travelers as they plan their vacation. Should we visit Normandy on a daytrip or longer from Paris? Should we begin or end in Paris or Nice when visiting Provence? Should we stay 5 days in the Loire Valley and 2 days in Paris or 4 days and 3?
When advising travelers and travel agents in search of a personalized “recipe” with which to savor city and town, countryside and coast, I’m aware that each traveler is different in his or her interests, desires and available time.
France Revisited seeks its own subtle balance—between Paris and elsewhere in France and between the well-known, the little known and the unlikely—but without specific interests, desires and available time in mind. What’s essential in writing, accepting and assigning articles for France Revisited is making sure that the material is varied enough and unexpected enough to titillate travelers’/readers’ natural curiosity as they seek their balance on the road.
For a few weeks now I’ve been working on the “elsewhere” and the “unlikely.” I’ll begin posting those articles next week. In the meantime, the most recent articles on France Revisited serve as a Paris interlude before venturing far and wide.
Here, in the Paris Interlude Issue, you’ll find two articles written by the ever-informative Corinne LaBalme and two articles by me.
Fashion food alert!
“Don’t be seen with last year’s cream puff,” warns Corinne. In Paris haute couture extends all the way to the dessert trolley. Even a venerable institution like Angelina has to keep up with the trifle trends.
French-Japanese fusion of the artistic kind
Corinne also reports from an art gallery in the 8th arrondissement whose owner/curator Chozo Yoshii brings French-Japanese fusion to Paris and a Montparnasse artistic landmark to the shadows of Mount Fuji.
Cartier Foundation surveils 30 years of art collection
Questions of the art of surveillance and the surveillance of art are delightfully, profoundly and perhaps inadvertently explored in the 30th anniversary exhibition of the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris’s 14th arrondissement, as explained in my review.
Jewelry: a hidden gem on rue de la Paix
Colors, flowers, historical tidbits, well-studied yet easy-going elegance: what sounds like a stroll through the Luxembourg Garden or a glimpse into the lobby of a palatial hotel is, in this case, an encounter with Isabelle Langlois in her shop along Paris’s runway for high jewelry.
Enjoy the read, enjoy the road!
Gary