Sofia Coppola's Paris

Oh. So fantastic. Who wants to go? We'll stay with my friend Elaine and eat macrons all day. And sip hot chocolate...

(photos from the New York Times.)

xo

A Stroll Through Paris

Hi there! It's Julie here inviting you to come along with me as we take a stroll through Paris...

Pass the Eiffel Tower...


through the nearby gardens...


to watch the children laughing on the carousel...


and grab a bit to eat at a boulangerie...


and visit the Musée d'Orsay...


pass through a veggie market...


and end up at Notre Dame...


Wasn't that fun? Sigh, I really miss Paris. My husband and I went in April of this year and took thousands of pictures. Really, thousands. If you'd like to see more of our Paris pics, click here.

Hope you're having a good day!

So many reasons to miss Paris...

...but here's one: the macarons. I know this is horribly devilish of me, but which flavor is your favorite?


(Photo credits: here.)

Time and Love

I love this photo (via Lolita). It says: "Time has been invented by people unable to love." (Even the taggers in Paris are romantic!)

What's the most interesting thing you've seen written on a wall? (For me: I saw "hang up" written on a stucco wall in Santa Monica, a nod to LA's cell phone addiction.)



From English Muse readers:

In the Second Street Tunnel in Los Angeles:
"The white lady on TV lies."

In a bathroom at Sarah Lawrence College in New York:
"Eve was framed."

And on a wall in Melbourne:
"/war"  between "< >"

Which Do You Prefer?

Parisian Hot Chocolate??

Or Roman Coffee???


What's better:  the delicious morning jolt of coffee at a Roman café? Or the afternoon elixir of a Parisian hot chocolate? 

(Photos by flickr members Dan Taylor, Niyantha, Songbird_fra, and Edith and Wim.)

Paris Snow

Ernest Hemingway famously wrote in A Movable Feast how he dreaded autumn in Paris. He and his wife Hadley would leave for the mountains and return once the city had "accommodated itself to winter."  "When we came back to Paris it was clear and cold and lovely."  Makes me long even more to be there, especially this week with a blanket of snow. Maybe it's because I live in Los Angeles, where enchanting weather only comes in the form of sunshine.  Alas.

(Photo by Gregory Bastien.)

Private Internet Sales

My best friend Elaine, who lives in Paris, is always on the lookout for stories in Le Figaro that her friends in America would find interesting. This week, she recommends the magazine piece "Bien dans sa vie en 2009" about living well and smartly in a time of recession. There's also an interesting story posted on the paper's website detailing France's growing love for Internet designer discount clothing.  Some of the sites French women click on for private sales? Brand Alley, Vente-Privée, EspaceMax and Bazar Chic. There. The secret is out. 

(Illustration by Ivan Soldo, Le Figaro.)

The Violet Hour

There's a certain time in Paris in the early evening that my friend Elaine calls "the violet hour."  It's when the sky gives way to twilight and the lights of the city start to flicker on.  The beautiful white buildings turn bluish-purple.  Elaine's husband, Jean-Loup, teases her about this "violet hour."  He jokes: "Elaine is the only one who has ever heard of it." But I think Elaine has it aptly described. Recently on the Rue Violet, pictured above, Paris' violet magic was at work. 

Spiral Staircase

There's something wonderful and even a little mysterious about spiral staircases. This one was in the apartment building where I rented a little flat recently in Paris. The morning light was coming in through the windows above. Later, in the evening, I climbed all the flights to see what the view was like from the top looking down. Beautiful. (more photos on my Flicker page.)

Marseille

The bathroom in the Paris apartment I rented for a week recently had a large salmon-colored tub from the 20s. On a nearby glass shelf, the landlord had left a bottle of citrus-scented Le Petit Marseillais, the French version of liquid Dove soap. (Only better.) Nothing fights jet lag like a morning bubble bath.