Five Must Dos When Visiting Paris

Paris is the most magical playground. It is jaw-droppingly beautiful and there is so much to do, especially in the warmer seasons. Here are five things you must do when next visiting Paris.

Visit the Dior Museum La Galerie Dior

Open every day except Tuesdays

30 Avenue Montaigne, Paris.

La Galerie Dior has been designed to bring the kind of exquisite pleasure to the visitor that can only be expected from the most highly respected and talented fashion houses in the world. The museum itself is curated in a manner that is as meticuously and intricately assembled as one of Christian Dior’s bejewelled gowns.

Dior saw himself as a master of dreams and in his original atelier, now the museum, you can see, feel and hear those dreams materialising. As you enter the hotel particular you begin where Dior began, through carefully curated documents, archival film, magazine pages and mannequin. That’s as pedestrian as it gets. From there you are led into his fashion house where the New Look was launched, behind the scenes to a most magnificent world of fitting rooms, models, excitement, sequinns, and the finale, a ballroom scene from dusk till dawn (truly spectacular) the grand staircase surrounded by minature models of his designs gradiated into the colours of the rainbow.

Tip: Book your ticket online in advance to avoid the longer queue. Give yourself a few hours to visit. Be prepared to be moved ~ it truly is breathtaking.

Pretend you’re Parisian and shop at the Bastille Market

Held 7am to 3pm every Thursday and Sunday

Boulevard Richard Lenoir

Marche Bastille is a thriving bustling grocery market held twice a week. Here among a wonderful vibrant ambiance you can buy and taste your French cheeses, pick up a baguette, olives, a fresh bouquet of flowers, your seafood, a bottle of French vino, down a few oysters with a splash of white wine, and buy a souvenir for your loved ones back home.

Head on over to La Seine or Jardin du Luxembourg and have yourself a picnic. Or, if you’re staying in an apartment for a while, it’s the perfect way to stock up on food essentials to snack on in between the plethora of dining options.

Visit Monet’s Garden at Giverny

 

March through to November

While it’s a little jaunt outside of Paris to the quaint village of Giverny, it’s a lovely respite from the intense but beautiful bustle of Paris. Claude Monet’s Maison and his famous garden are a gift to us as much as the legacy of his paintings. It’s easy enough to get to by following directions on the Giverny Organisation website to Vernon-Giverny. Once there, you can hire a bike, hop on a bus or on the miniature train for about 10 euros roundtrip. In summer, the garden is a riot of flowers, lily ponds, bridges and the magficent yet humble home of Claude Monet and his partner Alice Hoschedé.

The garden is packed with people most days but choose your hours (earlier the better), and if it’s all a little overwhelming, you can find one of the sweet fleur-laden cafes or restaurants around the village.  Aside from the beauty of this place, which is both calm andbreathtaking, a blood orange sorbet and a glass of champagne while gazing at the nearby roses is something we all should experience at least once in our life.

 

Dine in a Parisian Home

A relatively new app Eat With matches you with an English speaking host who offers a wonderful night in and a quintessential Parisian evening with wonderful surroundings, a four course meal and good company.

I was fortunate to dine with Karen Bauer, a former Paris Match editor and her Romanian artist husband in their highly creative abode in Le Marais in the heart of Paris. At the event, i met with folk from all over the US, as well as Australia and Germany and we were all entertained by a young Russian artist. The four-course meal began with champagne, delicous home-cooked cheese puffs, fresh melon and other morsels. The main was a delicious homecooked chicken, which was served with wines.

The dessert was a beautiful tarte aux fraises (above), more wine, and champagne and cheeses to finish. It ended around midnight, and it was one of those fabulous relaxed evenings – with Karen somehow unflappable, perhaps from all the years running a magazine with deadlines –  where we all left to wander home, thinking how wonderful life can sometimes be.

Take a Textile Tour through Paris

The Textile Tours of Paris was for me was the highlight among all of the Parisian highlights. I chose the Textile Tour and the accompanying Flea Market Textile Tour the following day.

Through former Chanel embroiderer and textile expert Rebecca Davey, an Irish expat in Paris, we were taken through the history of France and the fascinating story of how Paris became the capital of luxury textiles and fashion. Did you know that most French banks were founded on the silk trade that had flourished in Lyon from 1466? We visited the real Modiste of Paris (modistes are traditionally milliners rather than dress shops as in Bridgerton), and we saw where the silk cotton for the Hermes house are sold.

Over the course of the two mornings, we were introduced to a world within a world that basically took us through the history of French couture – from the courts of Marie Antoinette through to the reason why the passages of Paris exist. It was the most fascinating experience, and one I am going to need to do again it was so incredibly enriching.