Hello my very dear Friends! So it looks like this week has transformed itself into the hunt for the perfect Paris Apartment for us to pretend to buy all together! Everybody wants in on the deal! So let's continue faux house hunting! This is fun :) Here's one I found in the 1st...Enjoy!




It does come furnished. I figured we would keep what we love, take the rest to the flea market and search for treasures while we are there! So many of you have such impeccable taste, it's going to be hard to divide the rooms to decorate! My dream is to have Claudia from the Paris Apartment (my personal favorite) design a room. We'll have to order some of her fabulous furniture too! It's just so gorgeous and where would it belong better than in our beautiful Parisian apartment!?!

Perfect "pied-à-terre"- 1st arrondissement

Near the Place des Victoires, behind the Palais Royal and facing the “Hôtel Mazarin”, this 60 sqm apartment in a listed 17th century building has kept the grand ambiance of these historical days. This ideal “pied-à-terre” on the piano nobile is perfectly equipped and includes : entrance hall – living room – dining room – kitchen – bedroom on the mezzanine level – 2 shower-rooms – 2 toilettes – fully air-conditioned. It is sold entirely decorated with period furniture and ready to live in.

Unfortunately, the price was not listed, but who cares! It's Paris!

Bisou Mon Amis!

Another Paris Apartment

OK, now I have a problem, I can't stop looking for these jewels in the city! They are so beautiful!!! It seems as though everybody wants to pitch in & buy an apartment in Paris, so here is another option!!! Just in case. I think I'm still partial to the last one but this one is certainly on my list!!! Enjoy...

Bisou Mon Amis!

I think I just saw heaven!

I'm in love! Sotheby's has this remarkable Belle Epoque apartment up for sale in Paris! I'm going to go check my bank account to make an offer! Just kidding!

Bisou Mon Amis!

Ah! Then we'll dine at Maxim's!

The legend of Maxim's began in 1893 when Maxime Gaillard, a simple waiter, opened a bistro, small as a cork, at number 3 Rue Royale in Paris. He could have simply remained there if it wasn’t on a lucky day, a charming young Parisian, Irma de Montigny, hadn’t passed his way. Charmed and fuelled with enthusiasm by what she had discovered, she assured Maxime Gaillard: “I’m going to pop your little cork”. And she kept her promise!
She came back again and again with many of her friends, her admirers, guardians, and soon Maxime found his bistro filled with fabulous clients, the fashionable, elegant and brilliant. But, unfortunately the bills often remained unpaid and Maxime Gaillard eventually handed the keys over to Eugene Cornuché. Cornuché then went on to create the legend that Maxim’s is today.

He turned the bistro into an Art Nouveau masterpiece by calling upon the artists in vogue from the ‘School of Nancy’. But the magic card in the pocket of the maitre d’ of Maxim’s were his lovely courtesans, Cornuché was accustomed to saying : “An empty room… Never ! I always have a beauty sitting by the window, in view from the sidewalk”. And it is in this way that he received the finest elite of the French gallantry.

Jean Cocteau during a conversation in 1913 said about these wonderful evenings: “I dined with Otéro and Cavalieri at Maxim’s, it was an accumulation of velvet, lace, ribbons, diamonds and what all else I couldn’t describe”, he continued, “to undress one of these women is like an outing that necessitates three weeks advance notice, it’s like moving house”.

Crowned heads, the wealthy and great names from all over Paris crossed paths at Maxim’s at the turn of the century : Edouard VII, Boniface de Castellane, Marcel Proust, Ernest Feydeau who wrote “The Lady of Maxims”, Mistinguett who sang “My Man”,the exquisite Yvonne Printemps, Sacha Guitry with his lovely spirit and temperament, Tristan Bernard, Greta Garbo, Marlène Dietrich… all made the evenings delightful.
However the most ostentatious period remains the decade of the 1950’s. Every evening influential people like Onassis,La Callas, the Windsors, Martine Carol, the playboy Porfirio Rubirosa, film director Max Ophuls, the fabulously rich heiress of the Woolworth store chain, Barbara Huton, who was married to Cary Grant, and the rest of Hollywood dined on the banquettes in the great salon.

The very banquettes which would, years later, reveal a treasure chest when they were changed at the end of the 1950’s. The workmen who were in charge of dismounting them were dumbfounded when they discovered, trapped down between the cushions and the wooden base, gold coins, rings, diamonds, rubies, that had slipped out of the pockets of the wealthy at the turn of the century. Those affluent customers never even made the effort to dig the gems out knowing that the next day they would easily double their loss! In the seventies, Brigitte Bardot would create a scandal when she entered the restaurant with bare feet. Sylvie Vartan danced with John Travolta, one could spot Jeanne Moreau, Barbara Streisand, Barbara Hendrix, Kiri te Kanawa or Pierre Cardin.

One evening in 1981, Maxim's owners, Mister and Mrs Vaudable, pleasantly invited Pierre Cardin to dine with them. During the meal, they proposed that Pierre should buy their restaurant without further ado. It seemed that the following day, they were going to sell the restaurant to a rich Asian and they were very upset at the idea that Maxim's would be held in foreign hands.

Pierre Cardin, slightly tipsy by the end of the evening, listened to their plea and then agreed.The following day, he honoured his word and signed. From the 1980’s on, Pierre Cardin gave Maxim's a brilliant and new international radiance.

He multiplied the number of events and organised evenings for the young. But in the end, his greatest decision was to create an Art Nouveau museum on three floors of the building and to install an authentic 1900 cabaret which he filled each night with songs from the turn of the century and the recited history of Maxim's of Paris.

Maxim's will remain a legend of former times and of today. For proof, in 1992 on the night before Christmas, the room was packed, a table was reserved for an Arabian emirate and his family for a late night dinner. The emirate arrived, protected by two bodyguards, they carried with them a small bag which they refused to leave with the cloakroom.

Then at midnight, the twelve strokes of the clock began to sound - and on the twelfth, the emirate rose and made a sign : the two bodyguards brought over the bag to him, the emirate opened it and spilled out watches covered with diamonds, bracelets, earrings, a river of jewels onto the table, like in the ‘Thousand and One Nights’, and then distributed them as gifts to all who were present in the room. ..... At Maxim’s, fairy tales still exist.

Bisou Mon Amis!

All info via Maxim's de Paris official site

Place Royale

Bonjour All!!! Thank you so much for your warm and generous holiday wishes! I hope everybody had a beautiful and delicious holiday! I did, I love spending time with my family, there really is nothing else like it! Well, I'm back from my mini vacation with the hubby & I have to say I feel like I was in a Chevy Chase movie for the last few days! It was a a terrible trip but I'm already laughing at all of our mishaps! Oh well, it is never bad to spend time with your loved one! It is true...there is no place like home (well, maybe Paris)!

I just love taking as stroll through the Place des Vosges! I really think it is just grand! It's one of my favorite haunts in Paris. Here's why...

The Place des Vosges is Paris' oldest square and it is breathtaking. Built from 1605 to 1612 by Henri IV. It was originally known as the Place Royale. A true square, it embodied the first European program of royal city planning. It was built on the site of the Hôtel des Tournelles and its gardens. At a tournament at the Tournelles, the royal residence, Henri II was wounded in a jousting tournament and died. Catherine de Medicis was devastated and had the Gothic pile demolished in her grief she then moved to the Louvre.

What was new about the Place Royale in 1612 was that the housefronts were all built to the same design of red brick with strips of stone quoins over vaulted arcades that stand on square pillars. Within a mere five-year period the king oversaw an unmatched building scheme for the ravaged medieval city: additions to the Louvre, the Pont Neuf, and the Hôpital Saint Louis as well as the two royal squares.

It was originally known as Place Royale. This changed after the French Revolution when the region of Vosges in the northeast of France on the border of Luxembourg and Germany was the first to pay taxes to the new French government. To honor them, the most beautiful square in Paris was named after this region.

A stroll through Le Marais without visiting Place des Vosges would be like going to the Champs Elysées without seeing the Arc de Triomphe! The Place des Vosges has two major houses. In the middle of the north side is the Queen Pavillon, dedicated to the former queen of France. On the south side is the King Pavillon, Le Pavillon du Roi. These houses are not open to visitors. You can, however, visit the home of Victor Hugo, the famous author of “Les Miserables.”

The home of Victor Hugo

On the southwest corner of the square, a secret door open only during the day, allows entry to the fantastic Hotel de Sully Gardens. A must if you are there. Cross through another passage and you’ll find a courtyard with enchanting statues representing the four seasons. If you keep heading south you’ll come to rue Saint Antoine, an extension of rue de Rivoli. Make a left and you’re on your way to Place de la Bastille. You may notice some white marks on the ground – these show where the infamous Bastille prison once stood. Remarkable!!!

Of course my favorite part about this famous square is of course, the history it encases within its' walls. The houses are incredible and the only thing more incredible than their beauty are the former residents that inhabited them!

No. 1bis ~Mme de Sevigné was born here

No. 6 ~Victor Hugo from 1832 - 1848, in what was then the Hôtel de Rohan-Guéménée, now a Ville de Paris-managed museum devoted to his memory (and it is free to go in)!

No. 7~ Sully, Henri IV's great minister

No. 8~ poet Théophile Gautier and writer Alphonse Daudet

No. 9 ~(Hôtel de Chaulnes) the Academy of Architecture

No. 11~ occupied from 1639-1648 by the famous courtesan Marion Delorme (what I wouldn't give to see her home in it's hayday!)

No. 14 ~(Hôtel de la Rivière). Its ceilings painted by Lebrun are reinstalled in the Musée Carnavalet

No. 17 ~former residence of Bossuet

No. 21~ Cardinal Richelieu from 1615 - 1627

Photos via Flickr

I say we all meet up here for an espresso and some girl talk! Could you think of a better place to meet!?!

Bisou Mon Amis!