Riding to the summit of the Eiffel Tower—or even to the second level—has long been a Paris must-do. Millions flock to the iconic monument every year to stand in long lines, ride an elevator up one of the sturdy pylons, and then look at the view.
But should you bother? Especially if your time in Paris is limited, should you spend a half day braving the crowds to ride an elevator or two (or even three) to see a view?
Read on for my recommendations about putting the Eiffel Tower on our must-see list while touring Paris.
Going Up the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France
Well, it’s the Eiffel Tower and you’ve traveled a long way to see it. And after all, it’s the most famous architectural feature of the Paris skyline. Going up the Eiffel Tower is almost a rite of passage for the first-time visitor to Paris.
But do you really need to go up it?
Frankly, I say forget the elevator ride and just admire the tower from a distance. Take pictures of it from the Trocadero on the opposite side of the Seine, or from the middle of one of the bridges.
Stay well away from the crowds and enjoy seeing the tower pop up every now and again as you tour Paris. There are so many amazing things to see in this city that spending half a day waiting in line (and you’ll likely wait in line even if you buy tickets in advance or take a tour) seems like such a waste of time.
I know—blasphemy—but really, if you don’t like crowds, can live without an elevator ride, and can find better things to spend the 25+ euros on (like lunch), then I say skip the Eiffel Tower.
What to Know If You Decide to Go Up the Eiffel Tower
That said, I totally get why going up the Eiffel Tower is appealing. Over the years, I’ve gone up the tower at least five times, and each time was more crowded than the time before.
My most recent visit was in spring 2024—and wow! I couldn’t believe the size of the crowds as well as how little there was to do once I reached the second level and circumnavigated the tower to view Paris from all directions.
Go Up the Eiffel Tower in the Evening
Of my five visits, my favorite was the one I took in the evening a few years ago. The crowds were thin and the view over the sparkling lights of Paris magical.
If you can manage to find a time when the Eiffel Tower is not crowded then sure, take a ride up to at least the second level.
Purchase Tickets in Advance
Whenever you decide to go, buy your ticket well in advance. You’ll probably still have to queue, but not for as long as you would without a ticket. Also, if you don’t get your ticket in advance, you risk not being able to get in at all if the tower is at capacity.
Here’s the official website for purchasing tickets to the Eiffel Tower.
Riding to the Tippy Top
Don’t be fooled by tours that say they include the summit. They may not, so you really need to double-check. If you have your heart set on going to the summit of the Eiffel Tower, then book your tickets on the official website as far in advance (up to three months) as you can. Spots book up really fast.
At the top, you’ll enjoy the highest view from two floors–one open-air and the other enclosed. You’ll also see a reconstruction of Gustave Eiffel’s office and a tableaux of wax models depicting Gustave Eiffel and his daughter Claire receiving the famous American inventor, Thomas Edison.
Should You Consider a Guided Tour?
On my most recent visit to the Eiffel Tower, I chose a guided tour because I (mistakenly as it turned out) thought it would take me to the very tippy top. It did not.
Basically, a guide takes you to a long line and waits with you while occasionally regaling you with facts and figures about the Eiffel Tower. At the second level, the guide bids you farewell and you’re on your own to enjoy the view.
Here’s a brief summary of my Eiffel Tower tour experience so you can decide for yourself if the 50+ Euro price tag is worth it.
My Tour of the Eiffel Tower
I arrive at the Eiffel Tower with moments to spare before the tour is to begin, only to discover I’m in the wrong place.
HINT: Double-check the meeting place for the tour; it likely is not at the entrance to the Eiffel Tower. In the case of the tour I took, the meeting place was a brisk ten-minute walk away.
I run to where the guide is supposed to be, arriving ten minutes late to find her waiting and not at all worried. After joining her and eight other people, I briskly retrace my steps back to the base of the Eiffel Tower where we wait a good thirty minutes, which is about ninety minutes less than the wait for people without tickets, to ride the elevator to the second stage.
I ask if we’re going to the top.
Non, Madame.
But it says in the tour description that we go to the top…
Non, Madame. Second level only.
Oh.
I resolve to enjoy myself and get my 50 euros worth (pretty much double the cost of a regular ticket). The guide’s commentary is interesting, although I’m the only person who listens to it. The other people on the tour are either not interested or don’t speak English, or both.
Some History of the Eiffel Tower
I’m working on a novel set in the late 1880s during the time when the Eiffel Tower was being constructed. The novel includes a character modeled after the brave souls who, in the frigid winter before the Eiffel Tower opened for the 1889 World Exposition, climbed higher and higher every day to bang rivets into a structure that at the time was a marvel of engineering (and still is). Two men lost their lives building the Eiffel Tower (although not my character).
The guide doesn’t tell me very much that I haven’t already read during my research about Gustave Eiffel and the history of his tower. Construction of the Eiffel Tower began in 1888 and finished in May 1889 just in time for the opening of the 1889 Paris Exposition that celebrated the 100th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, which marked the beginning of the French Revolution. Over 32 million people attended, which is a lot of people in 1889!
If you’re looking for in-depth information about a site, you’re not likely to find it on a tour designed for the general public. You’d be better off connecting with an expert and arranging a private tour.
Riding Up to the Second Level
It takes about an hour to finally get up to the second level of the Eiffel Tower. The two elevators are crowded and hot, and the ride isn’t all that exciting. I snag a place by the window to snap photos and face away from the germs. If you are at all claustrophobic, you may wish to think twice about cramming yourself into the elevators to the first and then the second levels.
At the Second Level
Once we arrive at the second level, our guide thanks us and returns to Earth, presumably to herd another group up the elevators.
I stroll around the four sides, snap some photos, and feel a bit deflated. The view from the second stage is fine but not particularly breathtaking, even on a sunny day.
View to the south from the Eiffel Tower
View to the northeast from the Eiffel Tower
I do, however, enjoy snapping photos of the rest of the Eiffel Tower soaring up to the third level that I didn’t get to visit.
After the Tour
After taking as many pictures as I can and circumnavigating the second level at least twice to get my money’s worth, I descend to the bottom and snap lots of photos in the beautiful golden light. The nearby gardens are particularly fetching.
A Paris Traffic Jam
With the sun starting to set, I go in search of a bus. I can’t find the right stop and finally admit defeat and hail a taxi. The traffic is practically gridlocked. I can probably walk back to where I’m staying near Boulevard Saint Michel faster. The driver entertains me with a lot of voluble French commentary about the shocking state of the circulation in Paris, the bicycles, the other cars, the stupid pedestrians, etc. As the fare creeps up over twenty euros (I have a 20-euro bill clutched in my hand), I reach for my wallet. He gestures for me to put it away.
Non, non, madame. Il est vignt.
He waves away the number on the meter as if to make it disappear. I gather he’s not going to charge me more than the twenty euros that I have ready to pay him because the traffic is so bad. That’s very kind of him!
Where Are the Rude Parisians?
My taxi driver drops me at my destination, cheerfully takes the twenty and wishes me a bonne journée. I’ve yet to meet the fabled rude Parisians who are supposedly abundant in Paris.
In my experience over many, many trips to Paris, the Parisians are almost uniformly helpful, friendly, and good-humored. They also frequently like to make jokes. The night before, the clerk at the supermarket, after being asked the way out, shakes his head and tells us gravely that there is no way out, and that we will be locked in and have to stay the night. He then laughs and leads us to the exit where he merrily scans our items while telling us all about his brother who is moving to Calgary.
Tours of the Eiffel Tower
If you’ve decided to go up the Eiffel Tower, you have two choices. Either purchase a tour to get some commentary along with your elevator ride or go it alone with tickets you’ve purchased in advance. While I can’t say the tour I took was worth the extra euros, it did give me the chance to talk about the Eiffel Tower with the guide and glean a few more useful bits of information for my research.
Here are some ticket and tour options offered by GetYourGuide:
I love the Eiffel Tower! It’s the symbol of Paris, and it’s beautiful and iconic and just so cool. I’m fascinated by how it was built, I love taking pictures of it, and I even include it on the cover of one of my novels (Love Among the Recipes). I’m writing a new novel featuring the Eiffel Tower at the beginning of its life. So yes, I think the Eiffel Tower is awesome!
But I also think that you’d not be missing a whole lot if you decided to skip waiting in long lines (even with a ticket and/or a tour) for what is essentially an elevator ride.
Spend your time touring some of the world’s best museums, enjoy a café crème at a sidewalk café, take a cruise on the Seine, snap pics of the Eiffel Tower to your heart’s content, and relax in Paris’s lovely parks (the Luxembourg Gardens is my fave).
Here are more posts about being an Artsy Traveler in Paris:
A visit to Lascaux IV in the Dordogne region of France is a must for the artsy traveler. Here you will view the incredible paintings done by our artistically-inclined ancestors over 30,000 years ago (give or take a few centuries).
The size, breadth, and sheer beauty of the paintings definitely will take your breath away.
In this post, I’m sharing my experience at Lascaux IV near the charming town of Montignac in the Dordogne region of France.
We first visited Lascaux II in 1995 almost reluctantly. The original cave closed to visitors in 1963 after they’d been allowed to crowd through for about fifteen years. Unfortunately, bacteria from their breath was eradicating the paintings at an alarming rate.
Lascaux II
Lascaux II opened in 1984–an almost exact facsimile created to show tourists the paintings in the Great Hall of the Bulls and the Painted Gallery. Purists as we were back in those days, we didn’t think a facsimile could be as good as the real thing.
We were very wrong.
Lascaux II was small, cramped, and fabulous. The magnificence of the prehistoric paintings blew us away, particularly inspiring Gregg (my husband & an artist–meet him on the About page) to create several paintings related to our visit. We could hardly believe the paintings were in fact almost exact replicas of the real thing.
Lascaux III and IV
The Lascaux cave’s fame as the premier destination for prehistoric art lovers in France, or indeed all of Europe, continued to grow. In 2012, reproductions of the paintings, called Lascaux III, were taken on the road. Then, in 2016, the massive complex that now houses Lascaux IV and its accompanying museum opened to the public.
Preparing for Our Visit to Lascaux IV
We secured our reservations for the English tour weeks before leaving Canada—and a good thing. There were only three English tours available daily during the three days we were in the Dordogne. Even a month out, only a few spots remained in the time slot we wanted (11:10 am). We snapped them up, printed off our tickets, and looked forward to the ultimate prehistoric treat. We knew the paintings themselves would not have changed since we saw them in Lascaux II, but were interested to see how the Lascaux IV iteration had enhanced the experience.
Buy Tickets in Advance at https://www.lascaux.fr/en
Or check on Tiqets.com:
Location of Lascaux IV
The map below shows the location of Lascaux IV in the Dordogne region of France. It is close to the charming town of Montignac.
We arrive about twenty minutes before our designated time slot and park in the huge lot across from the long, low modern building housing Lascaux IV, built below the hill that houses the real Lascaux cave.
In the airy atrium, we spend the time before the tour starts browsing the gift shop and discovering a whole new level of Lascaux-themed merch. We resolve to return after the tour and make our choices.
But before leaving the gift shop, I can’t resist snapping a pic of a whole wall of prehistoric animal stuffies. Is life truly worth living without a stuffed mammoth? I think not.
The tour begins with a flurry of English-speaking people affixing headsets and audio receivers as the cheerful guide asks if we are “hearing my voice in your head?” After several minutes all thirty or so of us are kitted out and the tour begins in an elevator.
Starting Outside Lascaux IV
We zip up to the roof of the low-slung building and learn about the discovery of the Lascaux cave in 1940. A man was out with his dog Robot (yep, that was the dog’s name) and discovered the narrow entrance to the cave at the top of the wooded hill behind the building. He returned the next day with three boys. They entered the cave through a 15-metre-deep shaft and discovered cave walls covered with depictions of animals—aurochs, bison, deer, horses, and more.
Our guide plays up the drama of the discovery and then invites us to cast ourselves back 30,000 years to imagine leaving the fresh air to clamber into a dark cave. He reminds us frequently that the humans who created the paintings in Lascaux are the same as is, biologically speaking. They were Cro-Magnon, relatively recent arrived in the area which had been inhabited for several hundreds of thousands of years by their Neanderthal cousins.
Entering Lascaux IV
With a flourish, the door slides open and we troop into the narrow cave. Our guide exhorts us to proceed in total silence and with reverence for what we are about to witness. He does a good job of setting the scene.
My art sensors are on high alert.
The door slides shut behind us and we are in the first room. Arching high above us and on the walls either side are an awe-inspiring jumble of painted animals. Some overlap, and the prevailing impression is one of constant, joyous movement. Looking up in the eerie light cast by the guide’s flashlight, the animals sway and gallop across the uneven surfaces of the cave. Each bump and swell of the simulated rock has been incorporated into the bodies of the animals in exact imitation of how the animals appear in the real cave.
Description of Images
The images of animals cavorting above us are not primitive scratchings on a rock wall. This is the prehistoric Sistine Chapel. The beauty and freshness of the vividly colored animals explode in front of us. We gasp with wonder and respect. These early painters truly were artists.
Throughout the tour, the guide emphasizes that we have no idea why the long-ago artists made these paintings. The prevailing theory is that they were made because the artists wanted to make them. In other words, these cave artists were not much different from an artist in any period. They created the animals they saw outside the cave in all their kinetic glory because, well, they just kinda felt like it. Perhaps they painted during the winter when game was scarce. Being inside a relatively warm and cozy cave was better than being outside in the snow.
Who knows!
Types of Images in Lascaux
The cave contains nearly 6,000 figures, the vast majority of which are animals. One bird-headed human figure appears in a shaft that they don’t include in Lascaux IV (but show in the museum). The cave also includes various symbols whose meaning archeologists have yet to determine.
There are no images of the surrounding landscape or the local vegetation. The animals charge across the cave walls and ceiling unencumbered by gravity.
Creating the Images
The artists used three colors: red, yellow, and black made from minerals and sometimes mixed with grease. Tools used include early versions of brushes along with tubes for blowing the paint onto the rock. The museum we enter after touring the replica cave provides many more details.
Hall of the Bulls
First up is the Hall of the Bulls. The clarity, brightness and size of the many images is spectacular. Each animal looks like it was painted yesterday, which is sort of true since it’s a replica, but it’s a replica of what the real caves look like.
The Hall of the Bulls contains 130 figures, including cows, horses, aurochs, and the only bear in the cave. One of the bulls is enormous. Spanning 5.5 meters, it’s the world’s largest known prehistoric representation of an animal.
Also in the hall is the first unicorn—a representation of an animal that never existed in nature. What was the artist thinking? Why did he or she choose to paint it? We’ll never know. The guide spends a lot of time focusing on the unicorn and speculating.
Axial Gallery
We keep going through the hall to the axial gallery, a 30-meter passage dubbed the Sistine Chapel of Prehistory. My favorite is the line of small horses merrily cantering along one wall. Called the Frieze of the Small Horses, they face the direction of the entrance to the Axial gallery. Each one is different in color, size, and shape. I unfortunately did not snap a picture of the little horses later when we entered the museum.
Overhead flow more horses and bulls and cows and aurochs and even two ibexes in a joyous celebration of movement and color. Below is a photo of one of the ceilings, taken from Canva. Photography inside the replica cave is forbidden so I wasn’t able to snap my own pics.
The Nave
Five large stags follow in a row, only their heads and antlers visible as if they are swimming. Also there are two black bison facing back to back with the rump of one placed just ahead of the other to give a 3D effect. They look like they are galloping off in opposite directions.
Where Are the Reindeers?
Being inside the replica cave is somewhat claustrophobic and yet wondrous at the same time. I tried to imagine what compelled people just like me to lower themselves into a cave and use tools and pigments to cover walls with a riot of animals in motion. And what’s even more astonishing is that not one of the animals depicted is a reindeer—the most plentiful animal roaming the landscape at the time.
Why did the artists only depict the less common animals instead of the one they depended on most for food? Again, no one knows.
The population of France during the time when the paintings were created was less than 50,000 people. And yet a fair number of them must have been artists, considering the large number of painted caves in the Dordogne area, elsewhere in France, and in northern Spain. The guide tells us that all the painted caves in existence will never be discovered.
Ending the Tour
At the end of the tour, we emerge into the sunlight to the sound of running water. The guide asks us to consider the role water played in creating caves of hollowed-out rock beneath the earth.
After answering questions, the guide leads us into the museum. Here, each of the main panels in the caves is reproduced so we can study them more closely and also take pictures. As mentioned, photography is forbidden within the caves.
Exploring the Museum
The museum is very high-tech and stylish. I would like to stay longer, but it’s already one o‘clock and tummies are rumbling. After snapping pictures of my favorite parts of the cave, I check out some of the interactive stations where people are invited to try “painting” on the screen using the colors and tools available to the cave artists. It’s all very cleverly done.
Once out, we make a quick pit stop at the gift shop and load up on Lascaux-themed merch. I buy myself a Lascaux mouse pad, a fridge magnet to add to our growing collection, a stylized figurine of an auroch, and a book about Lascaux so we can read about what we’ve just seen.
Tour Options for the Dordogne
Here are some more options for touring the Dordogne area of France. Allocate at least a week for the area. We stayed for just three days and it was not long enough!
Conclusion
A visit to Lascaux IV is a must if you’re traveling in the Dordogne area. It’s located close to the charming village of Montignac. Have you visited? Share your impressions and your tips for other artsy travelers in the comments.
Here are some more posts about wonderful things to see and do while traveling in France:
We’ve come to beautiful little Pont-Aven in southern Brittany for six days. The works created by painters of the Pont-Aven School, most notably Paul Gauguin, Emile Bernard and Paul Sérusier, has long intrigued my husband Gregg Simpson. These artists—plus many more over the past century—have found the light and landscape of this corner of Brittany inspiring. Gregg wants to find out if inspiration will also hit him. (Spoiler alert: it does!).
I’m toying with an idea for a character who comes from a provincial French town and makes her way to Paris during the Belle Époque. Why not have her come from Pont-Aven? I resolve to spend the week soaking in the atmosphere and the vistas, and learning what I can about what life was like here in the 1880s.
Tuesday, October 2
Morning in Rennes
After breakfast at our hotel in Rennes (Hôtel Anne de Bretagne—a good choice for a one-night stay), we set off to explore the medieval streets of Rennes, the capital of Brittany. The city allegedly has the greatest number of half-timbered medieval houses still standing in France—360 houses in total. We don’t think we’ll have time to see all 360, but I’m determined to see a goodly portion of them. Armed with a route I mapped out from various blog posts about Rennes and its medieval architecture, we set off.
There are few people on the streets on the fine and sunny Tuesday morning. We walk about ten minutes, retracing our steps from our post-dinner stroll the night before, then turn a corner and voilà! We come face to face with the famed Rennes medieval houses—well, a few of them at least.
Half-Timbered Houses in Rennes
They are gorgeous! Half-timbered, often painted, some crooked and leaning out into the street. It takes a very small leap of the imagination to see myself back in the 1400s so long as I keep my gaze upwards to avoid looking at the modern storefronts at ground level.
After a while, we notice that ghostly images of what we think are white ferrets fill the windows of many of the half-timbered buildings. These are the buildings that must be in the process of being preserved because instead of storefronts at the bottom, there are … ferrets. We quickly become obsessed with snapping pictures of these rather creepy guys!
En Route to Pont-Aven: A Stop in Josselin
We leave Rennes and take our time driving to Pont-Aven. According to our navigation system, it’s just two hours away, and since we can’t check into the house we rented until 4 pm, there’s no need to rush.
On our way, we stop in Josselin. I had no idea it would be as pretty as it turned out to be. I was looking on Google Maps for a good place to break our journey. A click on Josselin showed it had a château. I’m always up for checking out a château, so we set the navigation system for Josselin.
Wow! Josselin is adorable! Its half-timbered houses have been meticulously renovated and restored, many painted in bright colors.
The town is small—really more of a village, so it doesn’t take long to walk along its cobbled streets and down toward the river where stands the château. It opens in an hour, but we won’t wait to go in. In my experience, most French châteaux are pretty much empty inside, and according to the website, the château at Josselin is no exception. We opt instead to walk down by the river and snap photos in the glorious October sunshine.
Arrival in Pont-Aven
Then it’s back in the car and onwards to Pont-Aven. At 4 pm, we enter Pont-Aven, our home for the next six nights. We’ve visited the town twice before—first in 1995 when Gregg discovered its association with several of the painters he admires, and again in 2013 when we spent a night there during a short jaunt to Brittany. Both times, we loved the picturesque little town and hoped it hadn’t changed.
The navigation system wants to take us across what looks like a pedestrian plaza. We balk and opt for the long way around that ends in a very sharp turn up a very steep driveway marked privé. But the address is correct and so Gregg barrels up the road and makes a second very sharp turn into the parking area.
Although I’d seen pictures of the place on booking.com, I am not prepared for just how stunning it is, perched on a ridge with a view across the boat-choked inlet. Called Le Fusain, the house itself is large and modern with a massive kitchen, a large living/dining area, a master bedroom with attached bathroom downstairs, and two smaller bedrooms and another bathroom upstairs. It’s too big for us but we don’t mind. And it’s an incredible bargain, compared to what we paid in Paris and Amsterdam.
The person who manages the place shows us around and then leaves us to get acquainted with our new digs. We both stake out our work areas—me at the modern dining room table in the living room (left) Gregg at the large wooden table in the kitchen (right), and resolve to use a lot of our time to get stuck into some work.
First Stroll Into Pont-Aven
But first, we must check out Pont-Aven and buy food for dinner. We set off down the hill for our first of what will be several forays into exquisite little Pont-Aven. I can’t stop snapping pictures!
Eventually, we end up at the Intermarché near the edge of town, load up on provisions, and head back up the hill to our beautiful domain. That night, we enjoy a light dinner of crêpes stuffed with ham and cheese. Divine (and also so much cheaper than eating out!).
Overview of Pont-Aven
Henry Bacon, an American artist, “discovered” Pont-Aven in the 1860s. Many more artists began flocking to the area, attracted by the light and the beauty of the town and the surrounding landscape. Painters came from Scandinavia, England, and the United States, but were all called the Americans by the locals. Pont-Aven‘s reputation as a mecca for artists was cemented in 1886 when Paul Gauguin arrived. Other artists in the Impressionist and Synthetist school soon followed, including Émile Bernard and Paul Sérusier. Their work became known worldwide as the “School of Pont-Aven”. Their likenesses are painted on a wall in Pont-Aven. From left to right – Sérusier, Bernard, and Gauguin.
Check out my post on the Musée d’Orsay for some of the most famous examples of their work.
Wednesday, October 4
Pont-Aven weaves its magic spell around us and we can’t get enough of enjoying its many vistas. We set off mid-morning for our first real exploration. Pont-Aven is located at the end of a very long inlet. It’s a good 90-minute walk along a wooded sentier to get to the sea. Back in the day, the town was a popular fishing port, apparently attracting so many French sailors that locals tended to speak French rather than Breton as did most of the people in the surrounding towns and villages.
Bois d’Amour
We head first to the tourist information office and pick up a map of the area and directions to the Bois d’Amour—the Wood of Love, a delightful walk alongside the river where Paul Gauguin and Paul Sérusier first “discovered” abstraction. Well, that’s the legend, anyway. The very spot where Gauguin apparently told Sérusier how to use color vibrantly is marked with a plaque as well as the painting that Sérusier created, entitled Le Talisman.
We are entranced by the beauty of the walk as well as the almost complete absence of other people. A visit in October is just the ticket to avoid crowds. The area is very popular with holidaymakers during the summer months.
Pont-Aven is tiny and yet boasts 60 art galleries! Pretty much every shop on the four main streets that make up the town is an art gallery of some sort. Most of the art in the galleries is of the sailboat landscape variety, competently done but not that interesting.
Thursday, October 5
After a morning walk into town for coffee and croissants followed by catching up on writing (me) and doing some drawing (Gregg), we head out at 4 pm to explore the area by car. Our first goal is to find the sea! We know we’re close—we can smell it and hear the seagulls, but so far we haven’t yet seen it. That changes pretty quickly after we leave Pont-Aven and drive along beautifully winding country roads to emerge onto our first beach. It’s wide and windy and absolutely stunning. It’s also empty.
For the next two hours, we swoop and swerve along the country roads, stopping every so often to admire yet another sea view of blue ocean and rocks tortured into weird shapes.
Visit to Concarneau
At close to 6 pm, we drive into Concarneau, a relatively large town that consists of a modern portion on the mainland and then a walled old city across a bridge in the harbor. We arrive just in time to watch the merchants closing up their shops. Here’s a shot of the old town from the new town. One of the flags is a Canadian flag!
I had thought we’d eat dinner in the old town but nope. The drawbridge comes down at 6:30! We have a quick walk around and then go in search of restaurant on the street facing the harbor. We are the first people in at 7:15 and ushered upstairs to a table with a lovely view over the harbor (see below).
The server is attentive and friendly. He happily speaks English and laughs good-humoredly at our attempts to order in French. While we eat, the place fills to capacity. Ours is the only server and I watch fascinated as he deftly and efficiently attends to the many tables.
We order steak and both have too large a piece to finish. I ask the server for a box and he brings me a large plastic container into which I unselfconsciously stow our leftovers. It will make a perfect dinner the next day. I remember a time when asking for a “doggie bag” just wasn’t done in France, but fortunately all that’s changed, and a request to pack up leftovers doesn’t even elicit an eyebrow raise.
Friday, October 6
We decide to stay close to home and make a visit to the Musée Pont-Aven our priority. Good call! The museum is wonderful! After four days in Pont-Aven, I’m getting plenty of inspiration for my WIP (Work in Progress) and have decided that an American artist must play a role, preferably a female American artist. Were there any?
Musée Pont-Aven
The museum provides the answer! The oldest painting by a female artist visiting Pont-Aven was done in 1883 by Marie Luplau, a Danish artist and ardent feminist. Apparently, many women artists came to the town to paint during the period, including Emily Carr at the beginning of the 20th century. Marie’s painting is of the Bois d’Amour, where we walked the day before.
Ideas ping and pong off each other as I wander the beautifully curated displays at the museum. In the first room, I take a picture of every single frame of a short slide show about Pont-Aven in the 19th century when it first started attracting artists. Pictures of people at the time in which an historical novel is set provide a wealth of information about what people looked like, what they wore, what the houses were like, and so on.
What strikes me most is how little Pont-Aven has changed. Although now attracting thousands of tourists a year, the town has kept its original buildings and flavor so that photographs taken in the 19th century don’t look all that much different from photographs taken today. Here are just two of the many photos I snapped.
I also learn that local people wore wooden shoes—a nice detail to file away for future reference.
The museum includes works by all the main School of Pont-Aven artists, including the “Big Three”: Gauguin, Sérusier, and Bernard. Here are some highlights.
Les Porcelets by Paul Sérusier
This delightful piece beautifully combines cold blues in the background and warm yellows in the foreground and, while not abstract, definitely shows tendencies towards favoring shapes over realism. It’s a good example of the aesthetic of the Pont-Aven School in its use of simplified lines, bright colors and unusual framing that cuts off the top of the woman’s body.
La Grammaire by Paul Sérusier
This painting represents Sérusier’s interest in the sibyls, ancient prophetesses, but his version is a contemporary Pont-Aven woman. I love the simple shapes and flat planes of the piece, and also how the woman’s hand clasps the book. She looks like she’s just come in from milking the cows, so having her writing in a book like she’s a scholar is both jarring and intriguing.
Special Exhibition
We check out the special exhibition on the second floor and are blown away to discover it’s an exhibition of women artists and photographers who documented their travels in the 19th century. These were some pretty intrepid women—traveling all over the world to paint and photograph local landscapes and people. The exhibition is a great example of how, finally, artwork made by women is being showcased in major exhibitions.
Saturday, October 7
Quick Trip into Quimper
We set off mid-morning for a day trip to Quimper followed by another country drive, this time in search of prehistoric sites. Quimper is the oldest city in France and is known for its cathedral and its many beautifully preserved half-timbered houses. We arrive and park, then make our way into the delightful town. The central area is compact, with plenty of attractive houses to photograph and lots of shops selling local delicacies. We wander around, stop for a good lunch at a café overlooking the cathedral, buy Gregg more art supplies, and then set out in search of prehistory.
Menez Dregan
A thirty-minute drive takes us to the coast to a site called Menez Dregan, a paleolithic site of major importance. We are suckers for paleolithic sites (see my post about Prehistory Sites in Europe) and are astonished to discover that evidence found in the oldest layers of the rock at the site show that it was inhabited around 465,000 years B.C.
Excavations have uncovered flint tools, bones (especially from large mammals like perissodactyls, and an elephant’s tooth) and hearths, making the site one of the oldest in the world where fire is known to have been used. It’s beautifully situated. We sit on a rock and look out to sea, imagining our distant ancestors pausing in their work to gaze out at the same sea on a warm October afternoon.
Getting Lost in Brittany
We leave Menez Dregan and for the first time on the trip, our navigation system lets us down! The main road back to Pont-Aven is blocked but nobody told Madame GPS with the soothing English accent. As a result, she keeps trying to take us to the same exit over and over again. Finally, I tell Gregg to take another exit that leads in the opposite direction and try to plot a route using my phone’s Google Maps across country back to Pont-Aven. We end up driving a good hour longer than we should have, but we do eventually make it home. Fortunately, the bucolic Brittany countryside we drove through made the extra time fly by.
Sunday, October 8
Our last day in Pont-Aven is just as warm and beautiful as each of the days we’ve spent here. The weather is eerily warm for this time of year—high twenties every day. We decide to spend most of the day at our place, finishing up work and generally relaxing before setting out on another road trip the next day.
We walk down to the town and have a delicious lunch of crêpes and salad. Pont-Aven on a warm October day is hopping—the busiest we’ve seen it all week. We end the day with a final stroll down to the inlet to get rid of our garbage. Because our house is on a private road, there is no garbage pickup. As a result, we need to take our garbage down the hill and across the bridge to some public poubelles in a park. I’m not sure what people do if they have a lot of garbage! But after just under a week, we can easily transport our two bags.
And then it’s back up the hill one last time. We’ll miss this little corner of heaven in Pont-Aven. There’s even a cross on a rock alongside the little private road leading to “our” house.
En Route to La Rochelle
After saying good-bye to the manager of the house, we set off for Carnac on our way south to La Rochelle, our destination for the night. We’ve resolved on this trip to never drive more than three or four hours in a day. La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast is about four hours south of Pont-Aven and four hours north of our next destination in Les Eyzies in the Dordogne, so it’s a good choice for a break.
We’ve visited Carnac twice over the past thirty years and both times been blown away by the sheer number of stones in the famous alignments. They really are remarkable! And what were they for? No one really knows.
We park and share a picnic lunch, then check out a few of the largest stones. These days, people are not allowed into the alignments. Thirty years ago, Gregg walked up to a gate and asked a farmer if he could go in to take some pictures, and the farmer was happy to open the gate and usher him in. That wouldn’t happen now!
And finally, a rare photo of the two of us! An obliging hiker was walking by as Gregg was taking a picture of me in front of the alignments and asked if we’d like one of us together.
Touring Brittany
Brittany is a very large department, so choose an area to home base in. We’ve spent time in northern Brittany on the spectacular Côte Granite Rose and in the Gulf of Morbihan area. Here are other posts on Artsy Traveler about various areas in Brittany:
This post presents a day-by-day account of six days I spent in Paris in September 2023. During our stay, my husband Gregg Simpson mounted an exhibition of his paintings at a small ‘pop-up’ gallery on the Left Bank. While he sat the gallery, I visited my favorite museums and took a cooking class.
I’ve visited Paris many times, starting with my first visit at the age of 14 with my mom. I didn’t much like Paris then, nor was I much entranced during the next trip when I was about 20 in 1976. In those days, people were not friendly, men were constantly cat-calling, and the whole place felt a bit grubby. But fortunately, I haven’t let my earliest impressions of Paris prevent me from returning many times during the last four decades, starting with a marvelous family trip in 1994.
Overview
Now, on each trip to Paris, I discover something new, and on each trip, I love Paris even more. I even set my fourth novel there—Love Among the Recipes—about a cookbook author who comes to Paris and rediscovers love in all its flavors.
Day 1: Arrival in Paris
We leave lovely little Ghent around 10 am for the pleasant three-hour drive to the Porte d’Ivry in the south of Paris where we will park our car for the duration of our stay in Paris.
Parking with Parclick
On our last trip to Europe in 2022, I discovered Parclick. It’s an awesome parking app that finds parking wherever you want to go. Enter the location into the app (or on the website) to view a list of all the parking lots in the area that accept Parclick customers. The prices range, from exorbitant to park in the center of any city to incredibly reasonable to park on the outskirts. And price is not the only consideration. Most European cities severely restrict vehicular traffic. This means you risk a fine if you drive into a city without a permit or fail to register your presence if you do have a permit.
Several weeks before our trip, I booked a parking place at the Comfort Hotel near Porte d’Ivry, which is just off the Périphérique—the massive ring road that circles Paris and is always, at least in our experience, plugged solid with traffic. Parking for a week costs 53 euros, which is a pretty darned good deal compared to what parking in the center of Paris would cost—and without the hassle of actually driving into Paris, which is a nightmare. We know because, unfortunately, we’ve driven into the center of Paris a few times over the years and yeah, it’s not easy.
We quickly find the Comfort Hotel thanks to our car’s excellent GPS system. After receiving a code from reception, we drive into the super-dark underground parking lot, park our car and emerge into the sunlight to call an Uber. Yes, Paris has Uber, which is a godsend (well, it starts out as a godsend –more on that later!). The Comfort Hotel is in quite an obscure location, and we have a lot of luggage. It’s unlikely we’d have easily found a taxi in the vicinity.
Uber into Paris
The Uber driver arrives and cheerfully helps load our luggage into his car and whisks us through Paris to our apartment on rue de Sèvres on the Left Bank. We chose the apartment because, although ridiculously expensive, it wasn’t quite as expensive as apartments closer to the gallery where Gregg will be exhibiting. It’s about a ten-minute Mètro or bus ride followed by a 10-minute walk to the gallery. The area is well serviced with restaurants, food shops, and some swanky department stores such as the Bon Marché.
Entry to our Apartment
We are early and so wait in front of the place until our contact arrives at 4 pm. She leads us through a long and involved gamut of locked doors and courtyards to our apartment. First, we use a fob to open the heavy outdoor gate. We then walk through a large courtyard to a set of stairs. After hauling our heavy suitcases up the stairs, we use the fob to get into one of the buildings that is part of the large, sixties-built apartment complex. We walk through that building to another set of doors that leads out to another courtyard. After crossing that courtyard, we go through a third set of doors that are fortunately open and then blip the fob again to enter our corridor. We walk down the long, darkly paneled corridor to the end and finally use the one key to open it.
Or, as we discover later, we could have just entered via the front of the building, used the fob twice and walked a quarter of the way. I still haven’t figured out why she took us in the back way.
Our Apartment on rue de Sèvres
Our apartment is modern and very spacious—almost ridiculously spacious! We have an enormous living room with two enormous couches and a dining table, a kitchen equipped with everything we could possibly need and a large entrance area that includes a desk. In addition, we have a bathroom with a bathtub (a rarity these days), a toilet room, a walk-in closet and finally a bedroom. I spend the first day getting lost, particularly in the middle of the night when searching for the toilet.
It’s certainly a comfortable place, which, considering the cost, it should be. Mind you, a hotel room that is a quarter the size costs the same, so I could say the place is a bargain. We’ve stayed in many apartments in Paris and this one ranks as the most comfortable. It is not charming, but I will take modern conveniences and a ground floor place over an 18th-century loft up five flights of twisting stairs any day.
Why Choose the Center of Paris
You can certainly find cheap rooms on the outskirts of Paris, like those at the Comfort Hotel where we parked. However, I don’t recommend doing so unless your budget is really tight. You’ll end up spending a lot of time on the Mètro to get into the center of Paris, where the vast majority of the best sightseeing is located. After your day of sightseeing, you’ll return to a neighborhood that is often dreary and devoid of the Parisian charm you’ve traveled so far to find. A few times, for various reasons, we’ve stayed near or just beyond the Périphérique and will never do so again if we can help it.
Finding the Gallery
After getting settled, we decide to walk to the gallery to meet the person who will let us in. After walking for about 5 minutes, we realize we’ll never make it in time and so get an Uber. We arrive at the gallery to meet our contact after being stuck in traffic a few times.
She leads us through the complex protocol for accessing the gallery. First, we enter a code to open the huge wooden door next to the gallery. We then use the fob to get through the next door and one of the four keys provided to get through a squat red door that leads into a passageway that looks like it hasn’t changed since the Middle Ages. I imagine people cowering under the low ceiling while citizens during the Revolution scour the area for people to send to the guillotine. I must turn on my phone flashlight to get down the passage, my head ducked. Gregg has to bend almost double.
We reach a slightly open area where yet another door awaits. This one requires a special key that must be inserted in exactly the right way, turned and then the door shoved hard. This door leads into the back of the gallery. But we’re not done yet! We must use the round key to unlock the massive metal grate protecting the window. With a great clanking and grinding, the metal grate rolls up and up, finally coming to rest with a satisfying clunk. Then and only then can we use the fourth key to open the front door of the gallery.
The gallery is gorgeous! What a relief! We rented a gallery in 2022 from the same outfit and were disappointed because although the space itself was functional, the location was not. This gallery is smack dab in the middle of gallery land. And most of the art in the galleries is modern art. Gregg’s work will look right at home.
First Meal in Paris
With the gallery keys secured and the instructions on my phone, we head out for our first meal in Paris. I booked a posh place for our first dinner—Le Christine just a few meters away from the gallery on rue Christine. The place is comfortable and full of both French people and tourists. The servers bend over backwards to give us a memorable experience.
We start with a shared appetizer—an interesting concoction of zucchini, green onions, and a bunch of other ingredients swimming in a crispy puff pastry crust. It goes down easy.
For the main course, Gregg has a fillet of cod cooked with all sorts of tastes and even a smattering of foam. I opt for the lamb with chanterelles—succulent and rich. We each have a glass of wine but decide against dessert. The prices are a bit above my comfort zone although because it’s Tuesday, we are getting a 20% discount on the main courses. Still, the bill comes to 117 Euros, which in Canadian terms isn’t that bad considering the incredible quality of the food, but it’s certainly not bargain basement.
Day 2 in Paris: Visit to the Louvre
Paris teems with eight-million-plus Parisians, who all seem to know exactly where they are going and why. Interposed with the fast-walking, forward-facing French people are plenty of tourists, eyes fixed on phones as they navigate the back streets of the Left Bank.
In the morning, we take the Métro to the gallery and I leave Gregg to wait for the shippers to deliver his boxes of paintings while I make my way across the Pont des Arts to the Louvre. Although I’ve visited many times, I decide to give it one more try. To be honest, it’s a bit of a mistake. The Louvre is over-crowded, over-hot, and over-amped. I give it the old college try but eventually have to admit defeat and leave.
Louvre Highlights
Here are two of the highlights, only scratching the surface of what’s available if you have the stamina. Most of the really famous pieces by artists such as Delacroix, David, and Ingres are so large that they can’t be photographed effectively, and I quickly lost heart, mostly because every room I entered looked like this:
The Three Muses
This Roman copy of a Greek statue of the three muses catches my eye. The three women are symbols of beauty, the arts and fertility.
St. Jerome in His Study
My attention is caught by this piece, an oil on panel painted around 1450 by Colantonio, an artist of the Naples school. He is famous for his meticulous depiction of objects–and no wonder. Check out how he renders the books and other objects to give the impression of a somewhat messy but productive office. There are even paper notes tacked to the wall. And then there’s the sad, patient look on the lion’s face. The scene has a wonderful immediacy, as if St. Jerome is at his desk writing, then breaks off to attend to the lion who has just limped in. As soon as he gets the thorn out of the lion’s paw, St. Jerome will return to his work–turning the page of the book on the desk, reaching for one of the other books to look something up, carrying on with his studies as if nothing untoward had happened.
Louvre Suggestions
If you do visit the Louvre, buy your ticket in advance and go as early as you can to avoid the crowds. Check the map provided and plan in advance which paintings and sculptures you want to see. Avoid wandering aimlessly through the Louvre—that way lies madness (along with sore feet and frayed nerves).
Also, don’t bother checking out the Mona Lisa. You’ll not get within ten yards of her and you’re in danger of getting pick-pocketed. I did actually wander into her room, but only to take a picture of the crowds!
Après Louvre
I stop for a crêpe from a street vendor and watch, fascinated, as he carefully pours the crêpe batter onto a large circular griddle, then uses a tool like a windshield wiper to spread the batter into a perfect circle. With incredible care and precision, he lifts the edges to reveal a crisp brown, then deftly flips the crêpe over and sprinkles it with cheese. Finally, he performs a complicated set of maneuvers with his flipper to create a cone-shaped crêpe that he slides into a paper and hands to me.
I eat it sitting at the edge of one of the fountains next to the Louvre pyramid while watching the tourists flow past. It’s delicious and a bargain at just 5 euros.
In the late afternoon, I treat myself to a glass of wine and a very nice slab of paté in a café very close to the gallery. The outdoor patio is bigger than most and I find a table in a corner. Unfortunately, next to me is a group of young Frenchmen who are extremely loud. Every so often, they burst into raucous laughter, making me jump. It’s a tad annoying and also unusual. In my experience, Europeans are generally much quieter in restaurants than North Americans.
As usual, the servers leave me strictly alone once they’ve brought my order, which is fine by me because they also don’t mind how long you stay. But when I do want to go, it’s almost impossible to get their attention!
I pick up Gregg at the gallery and we catch the bus along the Seine to the Grand Palais where we are to see an exhibition of art nouveau. Alas, we arrive at the Grand Palais to find it completely boarded up. I check the ticket and realize that the exhibition is sponsored by the Grand Palais but is actually being held way across town near Place de la Bastille—a good 40 minutes away by Métro. Since the exhibition closes at 8 pm and it’s already 7:30, we decide to pass. C’est la vie!
We’re not too bothered since both of us are exhausted—Gregg after spending half the day putting up his show and me slogging through the long, long galleries at the Louvre.
Day 3 in Paris: Musée d’Orsay & Vernissage
Today we’ll be hosting the vernissage at the gallery, but that’s not until the late afternoon, so after walking with Gregg to the gallery, I take myself off to the Musée d’Orsay. I’m hoping my experience will be more positive than it was at the Louvre. Fortunately, it is, and then some. There is no line-up, even for people without tickets. I waltz in and go directly to the 5th floor and have lunch. I want to be well fortified before being confronted with some of the world’s most famous Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings.
I decide to walk back to the gallery, arriving with a few hours to spare before the vernissage starts. Gregg and I have a late lunch/early dinner at a nearby café where I treat myself to escargots and French onion soup. Gregg chooses a robust-looking croque monsieur served with some of the best French fries I’ve eaten for a long time.
There are few things more charming than sitting at a sidewalk café in Paris and watching the world go by. I feel myself finally slowing down and just being in Paris, not worrying about schedules and to-do lists. My most pressing problem is how to get the escargot from the shell. I fumble with the tool provided and the waiter kindly comes over and shows me how to hold the clamp in my left hand, pick up the shell, then fish out the escargot with a tiny fork held in my right hand.
After our late lunch, I buy some wine and pretzels for the vernissage. It turns out to be a quiet affair. We connect with a very old friend that Gregg played music with forty years ago and whom I also knew, so that’s fun. A few associates from the various French surrealist groups also drift in and I have an interesting conversation with a woman who teaches at York University in Toronto and is also a novelist. We had hoped that because the gallery is in an area with many galleries that we’d get some foot traffic, but it wasn’t to be.
Still, the exhibition looks amazing.
Day 4 in Paris: Cooking Class at Le Cuisine Paris
I’m up bright and early to catch the bus across the Seine to the Hotel de Ville where I’m taking a three-hour cooking class with Le Cuisine Paris. Back in 2013, when we stayed in Paris for a month, I took a market class with them that I thoroughly enjoyed. This time, I’ve booked a sauce-making class.
Along with seven other people (all Americans), I troop downstairs to the basement kitchen where Chef Philippe teaches us how to make eleven sauces over the course of three hours. It’s intense, practical, and very tasty.
We start with the sweet sauces. Philippe hands me a metal bowl half full of chocolate lozenges and instructs me to whisk while he pours in hot cream. Within minutes, I have a smooth, velvety chocolate sauce that Philippe tells us can be used in a multitude of ways—for dipping, drizzling, mixing with other flavors, etc. Next up are two versions of a simple caramel sauce. We learn how to boil the sugar and what to look for (no candy thermometers here) and how to slightly darken the boiled sugar to make a more robust caramel sauce. Philippe adds some salt et voilà! The resulting salted caramel sauce is divine.
We move on to salad dressings—vinaigrettes to start and then creamy dressings. I learn about the 1-1-5 ratio—one part each vinegar and mustard to five parts oil. Philippe suggests experimenting with combinations of olive oil and sunflower oil.
Next up are creamy béchamel sauces—one with cheese and one without. We learn how to cook the flour and milk together for long enough to get rid of the floury taste and then how to vigorously whisk in the liquid.
There is a lot of whisking required in this class! I find that it takes practice to sustain a good, vigorous whisking action, and need to stop several times to rest my aching wrist. I’m not quite ready for chef school yet.
From béchamel sauces, we progress to wine sauces. The red wine sauce Philippe teaches us to make is to die for. He also makes a green peppercorn sauce that he flambés with cognac—a process I catch on video. Very dramatic!
Finally, we learn how to make a béarnaise sauce with butter, egg yolks, vinegar, tarragon and chervil. A lot of whisking is required to mix the egg yolks with the butter, but the resulting sauce is worth the effort. Philippe demonstrates how a chef whisks!
The three hours fly by and before we know it, Philippe passes out plates and hands around all the savory sauces we’ve made, adding a dollop of each to our plates. We are then invited to mop up the sauces with bread, potatoes, carrot sticks and salad.
After we’re done, Philippe gives each of us a beautifully plated dessert, drizzled with the chocolate and two caramel sauces we created at the beginning of the class.
I highly recommend taking a class at Le Cuisine Paris. The staff there are friendly and the prices are reasonable for an educational and fun cooking experience. They offer a wide range of classes—from making macarons and croissants to creating a full menu in one of their market classes.
Notre-Dame Cathedral & Shakespeare and Company
After my class, I wander across the river to the Île de la Cité and sit for a while in the bleachers set up in front of the building site that encloses Notre-Dame Cathedral. Fortunately, the façade was not affected by the fire so from some angles I can almost believe the cathedral is still intact. Hundreds of tourists are gathered on the bleachers snapping photos of the façade and generally relaxing in the glorious late September sunshine.
I walk across the bridge back to the Left Bank and visit Shakespeare and Company—the famous English bookstore that was the haunt of the likes of James Joyce and Hemingway. I buy a copy of David McClaughin’s book about American artists and writers visiting Paris in the mid-to-late 19th century—part of my research for a novel I’m thinking about setting in Paris during La Belle Époque.
Back at the gallery, I hang out with Gregg for a while and then take the bus back to our apartment. I love taking the bus in Paris. It’s so much easier than taking the Métro—less walking, often faster, and you get to see Paris instead of a dark tunnel. The Métro is great for long rides, but for short hops, the bus is my first choice every time.
Paris now uses a Navigo card rather than the iconic green tickets we’ve used for years. They were phased out at the end of 2022. I rather miss them but must admit that the new Navigo card is much more convenient. Instead of fishing in my pocket for an unused green ticket, I just whip out my Navigo card and tap it on the reader at the front of the bus or at the entrance to the Métro. I can load up the card for more trips any time I wish at a Métro station.
Day 5 in Paris: Visit to the Eiffel Tower
On Saturday morning, we take a leisurely walk to the Luxembourg Gardens, the scene of many good memories over the years. On our first visit to Paris as a family in 1994, we discovered the children’s playground at the Luxembourg Gardens. Julia loved it there, and so on our trip in 1995 when she was nine, we spent a lot of time sitting in front of the playground sipping coffees while she played. I set an important scene in the Luxembourg Gardens in Love Among the Recipes.
We check out an exhibition about Gertrude Stein and Picasso at the Musée de Luxembourg that is okay, but not particularly impressive. I snap some photos of a few of the more memorable pieces, but in truth, there aren’t many.
Afterwards, we sit a spell next to the large pool in the center of the gardens and watch the world go by. Since it’s Saturday, the park is thronged with families, people getting fit (there’s a lot of jogging in this park!), and groups doing Tai Chi under the trees. It’s all very civilized and wholesome.
I spend a relaxing afternoon back at the apartment while Gregg sits the gallery, then take the bus to the Eiffel Tower where I’ve booked a tour that I think will take me to the very tippy top.
Touring the Eiffel Tower
I arrive at the Eiffel Tower with moments to spare before the tour is to begin only to discover I’m in the wrong place. I run to where the guide is allegedly supposed to be, arriving ten minutes late to find her waiting and not at all worried. After joining her and eight other people, we set off at a brisk pace back to the base of the Eiffel Tour where we wait a good thirty minutes (at least less than the 90 minutes for people without tickets) to ride the elevator to the second stage. I ask if we’re going to the top.
No.
Oh well. I guess I misread the description.
I enjoy her commentary which I’m sure she appreciates since I’m the only one in the group who appears to speak English. The rest of the people are not listening to her which makes me pay even more attention. I’m considering setting a novel during the time of the building of the Eiffel Tower in the late 1880s so my tour is part of my research. I’ve visited the tower many times over the years, first in 1970. And it also plays an important role in Love Among the Recipes.
The view from the second stage is fine but not particularly breathtaking. In truth, spending a large part of a visit to Paris waiting to go up the Eiffel Tower is a waste of vacation time in my opinion. Go once if you’ve never gone, but try to go very early in the morning, or go after dark when the lights are twinkling. It really is a lot of fuss and a lot of waiting for what is essentially an elevator ride. Here’s a view to the south.
A Memorable Taxi Ride
After the tour, I descend to the bottom and snap lots of photos in the beautiful golden light, then go in search of a bus. I can’t find the right stop and finally admit defeat and hail a taxi. The traffic is practically gridlocked. I could probably walk it faster. The driver entertains me with a lot of voluble French commentary about the shocking state of the circulation in Paris, the bicycles, the other cars, the stupid pedestrians, etc. As the fare creeps up over 20 euros (I have a 20-euro bill clutched in my hand), I reach for my wallet. He gestures for me to put it away. Non, non, Madame. Il est vingt. He waves away the number on the meter as if to make it disappear. I gather he’s not going to charge me more than the 20 I had ready to pay him because the traffic is so bad. That’s very kind of him!
He drops me in front of the gallery, takes the twenty and wishes me a bonne soirée. I’ve yet to meet the fabled rude French people that Paris is supposed to contain in abundance. In my experience over many trips to Paris, the Parisians are almost uniformly helpful, friendly, and good-humored. They frequently like to make jokes. For example, the night before, we asked the clerk at the supermarket the way out. He shook his head and told us gravely that there was no way out, that we will have to stay all night. He then led us to the exit and efficiently scanned our items while telling us all about his brother who is moving to Calgary.
Dinner on the Left Bank
Gregg and I set out to find a place for dinner. We settle on a crowded place (all the places are crowded!) on the lively rue de Seine very close by. It’s a hopping place on a Saturday night!
Day 6 in Paris: Cluny Museum
On our last full day in Paris, I spend the morning at the recently renovated Cluny Museum. While the entrance is much more spacious and accessible, I rather miss the old version with its twisting stairwells and dark corridors.
I spend a goodly amount of time in the room housing the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. They never lose their appeal for me. I really can just stare at them for hours.
The Cluny is filled with treasures from the Middle Ages—lots of stonework, woodwork, porcelain, and some paintings. My favorite painting is still there, although hidden away in a smaller room. Painted in 1445, it depicts a large family of sons and daughters dressed in attire befitting their role in life. Mom and Dad (first picture) are followed by eleven children. Two of the daughters are nuns, two of the sons are archbishops and two of the daughters wear elaborate headdresses signfiying their high status. The other boys are knights. It’s a pretty fine-looking family!
After the Cluny, I wander through the atmospheric streets near Saint Michel to reach the gallery, then spend a few hours writing and sipping coffee at a nearby café. Gregg arrives with two friends, and we catch up over drinks.
And then it’s time, finally, to take down the show! With me helping, Gregg gets packed up in record time. The walls are again bare and all that is left of the beautiful exhibition are three taped-up crates at the front of the gallery waiting for pick-up the next day. Gregg lowers the iron grating for the last time.
We catch the bus “home” and opt for an easy dinner in for our last night. Paris is wonderful, but we’re tired and ready for a new adventure.
Day 7 in Paris – Leaving
But before our new adventure can begin, we need to get ourselves out of Paris. This proves to be more of a challenge than we anticipated. We must first get ourselves and our luggage from our apartment on the rue de Sèvres to the gallery, then pick up the boxes of paintings at the gallery, then get us, our luggage and three boxes up to the shippers in the north of Paris and finally get us and our luggage and two boxes all the way back to the very south of Paris where our car is parked. Easy!
Not so much!
We intend to use Uber but it lets us down spectacularly. We attempt several times to order an Uber for the first leg to the gallery and finally must admit defeat when one driver cancels, another drives by and doesn’t stop and then cancels, and the Uber app informs us that there are no drivers. Fine. We hail a taxi. So far so good.
At the gallery on the VERY narrow Left Bank street, we leave the taxi and pile all the luggage in front of the gallery while Gregg goes in through the multiple doors to get the boxes. One of the boxes is far too big too carry and the other two contain glass and must be handled carefully. We have to have a ride; taking public transport is completely out of the question.
While Gregg negotiates the ins and outs of the gallery for the last time, I start ordering another Uber (a van this time) to take us north to the shipping place. Nope. Nada. Uber gets our hopes up multiple times only to let us down an equal number of times.
Driver not available. Try again.
Trying not to panic, I download a taxi app and struggle to enter credit card information so that we can be registered. I then use the taxi app to order a van. No dice. No vans. We are just about on the point of despair when I look down the street and what do I see? A regular taxi van with its green light on coming straight for us. I almost don’t flag him down, thinking its presence at that exact time is too good to be true. Fortunately, I come to my senses and wave frantically, only just stopping short of stepping into the street so he has to stop.
Can you take us to rue de Cardinet in the north? I say in execrable French.
Le dixseptième arrondissement?
Oui!
I actually have no idea if it’s in the 17th, but I’m desperate. Meanwhile, Gregg is saying C’est une emergency!
Fortunately, the driver, who speaks no English, agrees to take us. Perhaps he takes pity on us. I’ll never know but I wish I knew his name because I owe him a large debt of gratitude. Out he jumps and helps us load the luggage and boxes into his capacious van. Phew!
On our way to the shippers, we ask him if he would arrête pour cinq minutes while we unload the big box at the shippers and then take us to Porte d’Ivry where our voiture is parked.
Oui, Madame!
Oh joy!! We sit back, hearts pounding, and watch Paris fly by as Monsieur expertly maneuveres his van around bikes (there are a LOT of bikes in Paris) and other cars, buses, and pedestrians. We arrive at the shippers, and he helps Gregg unload, then smoothly gets us to our final destination, even checking the back seat after I’d gotten out and finding my pack that I’d left behind (the one with the computer!). Many, many mercis later and a pretty hefty tip, and we were retrieving our car and on our way to Rennes.
Phew! Never a dull moment.
Visiting Paris?
Check out these tours and tickets.
Or consider a walking tour with GuruWalks. I’ve been on a few of their walks, and really enjoyed them. Here are their walks in Paris.
What is the “best of the Musée d’Orsay”? That’s a matter of opinion for sure!
What I think are the best pieces, and what others think is pretty subjective!
But I can confidently say that every artsy traveler who visits the Musée d’Orsay in Paris will not be disappointed.
A visit to the Musée d’Orsay is always a high point for me, no matter how many times I walk through the grand hall on the main floor and ride the escalators to view the outstanding collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist art on the 5th floor.
The Musée d’Orsay is more than a must-see for the artsy traveler. It’s akin to a pilgrimage! It certainly ranks as one of my all-time-favorite European museums. In this post, I share some of what I consider the top masterpieces.
Musée d’Orsay at a Glance
Favorite Artist: It’s a tie between Manet and Morisot
The map below shows the location of the Musée d’Orsay (#1) in Paris. Also shown is the location of the Louvre for Renaissance, Baroque and 19th-Century art (#2), the Cluny for medieval art (#3), and the Pompidou for modern art (#4).
Always reserve a time to visit the Musée d’Orsay to avoid standing in long lines. You can reserve directly from the museum’s website, or purchase tickets through resellers such as Tiquets.com or GetYourGuide.
Once you’ve entered the museum, consider whether to pick up an audio guide.
Two types of audio guides are available. You can hire one at the museum that will include commentary on the contents of both the permanent collection and the main temporary exhibition on during your visit. Alternatively, you can download an audio guide onto your mobile phone that includes commentary only on the main temporary exhibition.
Touring the Top Masterpieces at the Musée d’Orsay
The Musée d’Orsay’s collection is housed in a converted railway station. As such, part of its attraction is the massive atrium that stretches the length of the museum and is filled with light and sculptures.
Long galleries run either side of the atrium and contain mostly academic paintings from the 19th century. Some of these rooms are skippable, unless you’re a fan of the overly florid, heroic style popular during the mid-19th century.
However, make sure you pop into the galleries to the left that include several masterpieces by Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Millet.
Most visitors head for the far end of the atrium and take the escalators to the fifth floor where they find one of the world’s largest collections of impressionist paintings, in addition to an impressive number of paintings by post-impressionists.
A series of rooms includes works by all the late-19th century biggies–Manet, Monet, Renoir, van Gogh, Morisot, and more.
The following highlights of what see is presented according to artist rather than the order in which you’ll encounter them while walking through the museum. All of the works mentioned are in the collection on the fifth floor.
Edouard Manet
The collection includes several iconic pieces by Edouard Manet. I zeroed in on two of them as representative of my favorite aspects of his work. I like the way he flattens the planes and uses a fairly neutral palette.
Even bright colors such as red and blue have gray undertones. Manet’s work always seems much more understated than the work of some of his contemporaries like Monet and especially Renoir.
Sur la Plage by Manet
Manet’s wife and brother sit on the beach—she is reading and he is staring out at the boats sailing along the English Channel. By making the sky take up a very small percentage of the painting, the focus is on the beach itself and the figures.
Manet’s sketchy, fluid brushstrokes makes the scene look like a snapshot in time, as though at any moment the figures will shift position.
Dejeuner sur l’herbe by Manet
If I had to choose the most famous painting in the Musée d’Orsay, I think it would have to be Manet’s Dejeuner sur l’herbe. It’s also one of my favorites.
I’m certainly not alone in loving this piece, which has been reproduced countless times and analyzed within an inch of its life.
Manet painted it in 1863 and included it in the Salon des Refusés along with other artists who were excluded from the Salon (the exhibition of all the accepted painters of the day).
Manet’s large painting shocked critics and the public because it represented such a marked departure from the academic tradition of only depicting mythological figures as nudes.
In this painting, there is a naked woman next to two men wearing modern dress. She looks brazenly out at the viewer as if to dare them to be shocked. The work was deemed to be obscene not only because of its subject matter but because of its loose brushstrokes, contempt for the rules of perspective, and violent contrasts.
Nowadays, we consider it a masterpiece, and it is certainly arresting.
Paul Gauguin
Gauguin’s paintings always make me smile. He combines bright colors in sometimes startling ways and depicts his figures and his landscapes with a flattened perspective that gives them a pleasing immediacy, as though they could easily step out of the canvas.
Gauguin’s work is exhibited alongside several other painters of the Pont-Aven School.
On a recent trip to Europe, I spent a week in Pont-Aven, mostly because Gregg (husband and usual travel companion and also artist) is fascinated by the work that was done there by painters such as Gauguin, Bernard, and Sérusier, and wanted to be inspired by the same landscape that inspired them.
Paysage de Bretagne by Gauguin
This beautiful landscape of a typical scene in Brittany practically glows. The red and orange bushes on the mid-section contrast intensely with the blue sky and bright green foreground.
La Belle Angèle by Gauguin
Gauguin completed this portrait of Marie-Angélique Satre in 1889. He depicts the woman in traditional dress in a composition reminiscent of both Japanese prints and medieval stained-glass windows.
Perhaps as a nod to his Peruvian heritage (his mother was born in Peru), Gauguin includes a Peruvian-inspired piece of pottery next to his model.
Émile Bernard
Bernard was another painter in the Pont-Aven School. Called Les Bretonnes aux ombrelles, this striking depiction of Breton women wearing traditional dress shows how Bernard, as a post-impressionist, ignored perspective, instead filling both the foreground and the background with his figures, bringing them into prominence.
I’m reminded of medieval paintings where the figures take precedence over perspective.
Paul Sérusier
Another member of the Pont-Aven School, Sérusier has become one of my faves from this period. His work almost borders on abstraction and I love how he uses color.
Le champ de blé d’or et de sarrasin by Sérusier
This golden field takes up almost the entire painting, with just a bit at the top for the sky. I feel like I could walk straight into it and be instantly enveloped in a riot of flowers.
Tetrahedra by Sérusier
Painted around 1910, this piece showing floating objects in a formless space is part of a cycle of pictures by Sérusier that pushed the boundaries of Symbolism towards abstraction.
Sérusier believed that geometric forms were sacred and in this painting he depicts his thinking on the origins of life and the universe. The chromatic range of colors progresses towards the light, passing from the coldest to the warmest shades.
The painting is just a delight!
Vincent van Gogh
It’s never difficult to spot a painting by van Gogh in the Musée d’Orsay since there’s always a clutch of people holding cameras aloft in front it.
There are several van Goghs—all fabulous—but I include here just two that I particularly love.
La Salle de danse à Arles by van Gogh
I was surprised to discover a painting by van Gogh that I’d never seen before. At first, I thought it was by Gauguin because the way the figures are depicted and the colors used remind me of his work.
But nope – it’s van Gogh. What an energetic, lively piece this is! Van Gogh really captured the almost frenzied crush of people, the women wearing Arlesian headdresses, their expressions blank.
The Starry Night by van Gogh
Van Gogh painted a few versions of Arles on a starry night. This one is not quite as well known, but it’s still fabulous. Van Gogh worked by candlelight to complete a night view of Arles illuminated by gas lamps and the Great Bear constellation glittering in the sky.
Henri Toulouse-Lautrec
Although Toulouse-Lautrec hailed from a wealthy family in Albi in the southwest of France, he became famous for his gritty depictions of real Parisians, many of whom were down on their luck, lonely, and marginalized. I’m particularly intrigued by two of his pieces depicting prostitutes.
Blonde prostitute, also known as Study for the Medical Inspection by Toulouse-Lautrec
The partially-clothed model is Gabrielle, a prostitute in a Parisian brothel. She’s getting ready to be inspected for venereal disease. Her expression could be interpreted as angry or stoic in the face of what must have been a very demeaning procedure.
Woman Pulling Up Her Stocking by Toulouse-Lautrec
Toulouse-Lautrec was a frequent visitor to the brothels and was able to sketch the prostitutes in all manner of poses. This drawing shows an everyday act—pulling on stockings—under the watchful eye of the brothel’s Madame.
If you’re headed to southwest France, drop into Albi and tour the marvelous Musée Toulouse-Lautrec.
Maximilien Luce
This artist may not be as well known as many of the others in the collection, but this piece is a striking depiction of the violence that stalked Paris on and off throughout the 19th century.
This particular scene shows the aftermath of Bloody Week (May 21 to 28, 1871) when the Paris Commune was brutally suppressed and hundreds of people were shot down in the streets.
Paul Signac
This gorgeous portrait of Signac’s wife uses very sharp contrasts between complementary colors: yellow with purple, and orange-red with green. It’s a very stylized composition that shares an affinity with Art Nouveau posters.
Berthe Morisot
I’ve long been a fan of Impressionist painter Berthe Morisot and am delighted to discover several paintings that I hadn’t seen before on display at the Musée d’Orsay.
Les Deux Soeurs by Morisot
This painting depicts two dreamy-looking young girls just emerging from adolescence. The blossoming hydrangea symbolizes their imminent emergence into womanhood.
Morisot is considered by many (myself included) to be one of the most impressionist of the Impressionists. She uses very loose brushstrokes and almost abstract backgrounds to convey a real sense of immediacy.
Her paintings look so fresh and alive. I like them so much more than works by painters such as Renoir that can look too over-worked and florid.
Le Berceau by Morisot
This portrait of Morisot’s sister gazing at her newborn child is so tender and domestic. And the way Morisot conveys the sheerness of the fabric draped around the baby’s crib is incredible–again proving just how skilled (and under-appreciated) a painter she was.
Paul Cézanne
Cézanne’s works are so redolent of the south of France that I can almost feel the heat coming off the canvases. His palette of warm greens and oranges perfectly captures the landscape around Aix-en-Provence.
Montagne Sainte-Victoire by Cézanne
Here’s one of many versions of Mont Sainte-Victoire near Aix-en-Provence. It’s such a bright, cheerful painting that perfectly captures the heat and space of one of France’s most beautiful landscapes.
Rochers près des grottes au-dessus du Château-Noir by Cézanne
This piece perfectly captures the profusion of rocks and dense foliage in the countryside around Aix-en-Provence, where I’ve spent a fair bit of time over the years. No wonder painters who came after Cézanne credit him with being the father of Cubism.
Gustave Courbet
One of the most controversial paintings in the Musée d’Orsay is L’Origine du Monde by Gustave Courbet, a foremost proponent of realism. This piece was acquired by the museum in 1995, but wasn’t displayed publicly until quite recently.
When you see it, you’ll know why! It’s an amazing painting!
I have a soft spot for this painting because I read an excellent novel called L’Origine by Lilianne Milgrom and interviewed her on the Art In Fiction Podcast (my podcast featuring interviews with authors of arts-inspired novels!).
Lilianne’s novel tells the story of the painting from its commission by the Turkish-Egyptian diplomat Khalil-Bey to its acquisition by the Musée d’Orsay.
Claude Monet
One entire wall is taken up with a series of five paintings showing views of Rouen Cathedral that Monet painted at different times of day. Here are three of them.
Mary Cassatt
Cassatt joined the Impressionist group after moving to Paris from America in the 1870s.
In this painting, she depicts the young girl, using very subtle white tones to stand out against the brightly colored background. While the clothing is almost sketched in, the face and hands are rendered with gorgeous precision.
Edgar Degas
Degas is most famous for his paintings of ballet dancers at the Paris Opera, and the Musée d’Orsay has several examples, including this one showing dancers practicing on stage.
The figures are in various attitudes–some dancing, some stretching, one even scratching her back. Degas uses subtle tones and ethereal brushwork to convey filmy tutus and barely hinted-at expressions.
Auguste Renoir
I’m not a huge fan of most of Renoir’s work. He’s an important painter but I find his figures a little too florid. The exception is, for me, this piece called Danse du Moulin de la Galette, arguably one of the most famous of Renoir’s paintings.
It depicts the famous guinguette–an open-air drinking establishment with food and dancing–that was located at the foot of a former windmill on the Butte de Montmartre in Paris.
The dance is attended by the working class in Paris, such as shop assistants, artists, workers, and just regular folks. The play of light and shadow bring the painting to life, making the viewer feel like they could step in and take a turn around the dance floor.
Gustave Caillebotte
I first saw and was entranced by this painting in the Musée d’Orsay several years ago. Its subject matter is so different from the other paintings in the collection. It’s not a portrait or a landscape, but instead a depiction of three working men (The Floor Scrapers) who are busily scraping a floor in a fine Haussmann-style apartment in Paris.
Critics at the time condemned the painting’s subject matter as vulgar. Few would agree with that assessment nowadays! There is something so compelling about the concentration of the men and the way in which Caillebotte uses such a limited palette to convey so many tones of browns and grays.
And check out how the light spills in from the window!
Love Among the Recipes at the Musée d’Orsay
After touring the Musée d’Orsay, I couldn’t resist taking a shot of Love Among the Recipes, my fourth novel (set in Paris), in front of the great clock.
The museum plays a role in the novel, with one of its most important scenes taking place on the 5th floor in front of a painting by Mary Cassatt!
Practical Information
The Musée d’Orsay can sell out so buy your tickets online at least a day or two before you plan to travel to Paris (possibly more during the busy summer months).
Guided Tour
Consider taking a guided tour of the Musée d’Orsay so you can learn more about the pieces included in this post, along with many more.kets online at least a day or two before you plan to travel to Paris (possibly more during the busy summer months). Here’s an option from GetYourGuide:
Here are four options to consider for staying in Paris. All are on the Left Bank, which is my preferred location.
The Hotel de l’Université is a reasonably-priced (for Paris) hotel is on a quiet side street in the sixth arrondisement, a few blocks from the lively area around rue Bonaparte and Boulevard Saint-Germain.
In the fourteenth arrondisement, I recommend the Hôtel A La Villa des Artistes, which is stylish and in a great location close to some of Montparnasse’s most famous restaurants.
IIn the fifth arrondisement, I recommend the Hôtel Le Clos Médicis which has a great location about a block from the Luxembourg Gardens near the Boulevard Saint Michel.
If you’re looking for an apartment, this HUGE apartment on rue de Sevres on the Left Bank (#5 on the map at the beginning of this post) is pricey,but excellent value because of its size and central location. Compared to a typical hotel room in Paris, it’s almost a bargain (not that bargain is an appropriate word for any accommodations in the center of Paris).
Conclusion
If you’re an art lover, then I suggest making the Musée d’Orsay the first major art museum you visit in Paris, even more important then the Louvre.
The Musée d’Orsay’s collection is smaller and much more accessible than the vast collection in the Louvre and the crowds are considerably smaller. A visit there is well worth several hours of your time on even the shortest visit to Paris.
Have you visited the Musée D’Orsay? What are some of your favorites? Share in the comments below.
You have ten days to spend in France? If it’s your first visit, then I suggest you focus on two locations: Paris & Provence.
The ten-day itinerary presented in this post is designed to allow you to explore these two iconic destinations in France at a reasonably leisurely pace.
France is a large country and best savored by spending at least two days in each place you plan to visit.
Overview of 10-Day France Itinerary
Here’s an overview of an itinerary that provides you with a taste of fabulous Paris (just enough to make you want to return!), four days split between two of the most scenic areas of Provence, and finally two days of sun and fun on the Riviera.
Days 1 to 3: Arrive in Paris on Day 1 and spend three nights in Paris, leaving on the morning of Day 4.
Days 4 and 5: Take the TGV to Avignon, pick up a rental car at the TGV station and drive east into the Luberon. Spend two nights in Rousillon or Gordes for a super Provence hit.
Days 6 and 7: Drive to Aix-en-Provence and spend two nights there; explore nearby Arles, Les Baux-de-Provence, or the Camargue.
Days 8 to 10: Drive to the coast and spend two nights in Antibes, Vence, or Cannes. Drop off the car at Nice airport and fly home.
Following are my suggestions for what to see in Paris and the South (particularly artsy sites!) and some recommendations for accommodations.
Three days in Paris is nowhere near long enough to fully enjoy one of the world’s most fabulous cities, but it is long enough to explore most of the big bang sites.
I’ll get to sightseeing suggestions in a minute, but first, consider where you wish to put down temporary Parisian roots. To my mind, making sure you stay in an interesting part of Paris is almost as important as seeing the sights.
Find an interesting Parisian neighborhood to settle in, even if only for a few days
Choosing Your Parisian Neighborhood
Before and after you go touring around the city, you want to be able to walk to great restaurants and cafes, enjoy people-watching, and have quick access to the Seine for long, leisurely evening strolls to see the lights.
My preferred neighborhoods to stay in Paris are the sixth, fourteenth, and fifth arrondisements (in that order) on the Left Bank.
Yes, you can save money by getting a hotel near the péripherique (the multi-lane ring road that circles Paris) and then taking the Métro into Paris for sightseeing, but don’t succumb to the temptation unless your budget is really tight.
A few times over the years, I’ve stayed at soulless chain hotels on the edges of Paris, and each time it was a mistake.
I may have saved a few Euros, but I also wasted too many hours getting to and from the cool areas of Paris.
Instead of ending each evening watching the illuminated bateau mouches glide along the Seine with the sparkling Eiffel Tower in the distance before tumbling a few minutes later into a warm bed, I endured long, rattling Métro rides followed by quick walks through some pretty sketchy neighborhoods.
Like all major cities, Paris has its fair share of dreary, and sometimes even unsafe areas, I’m sorry to say, and while you can still find some nice places to eat and enjoy Parisian street life out by the péripherique, I’d stick with the arrondisements closest to the river and the Île de la Cité.
If you’re in Paris for longer than a few days, consider renting an apartment.
I’ve stayed in some great apartments in Montparnasse, the Marais, and Saint-Germain. But for short stays, I almost always head for the fifth and sixth arrondisements on the Left Bank, and ocassionally the 14th arrondisement.
Where to Stay on the Left Bank
Sixth Arrondisement
Sometimes referred to as Luxembourg because it contains the Luxembourg Gardens, the sixth arrondisement is probably still the area in Paris I most like to stay in. In recent years, it’s gotten very chi-chi and can be a bit touristy and expensive, but I still love wandering its narrow streets, window shopping and finding great little cafés to while away an afternoon.
I like the area so much that I had the heroine of my novel Love Among the Recipes rent an apartment on rue Bonaparte right across the street from Les Deux Magots, one of the most famous cafés in Paris.
Back in the day, French intellectuals such as Simone de Bouvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre discussed philosophy in Les Deux Magots and its equally historic neighbor the Café de Flore.
Nowadays the prices for a café crème at either place might make you weep, so walk a few blocks toward the Luxembourg Gardens and you’ll find more reasonable and less crowded alternatives.
Here’s a great choice in the sixth arrondisement.
Hotel de L’Universite
The Hotel de l’Université is a reasonably-priced (for Paris) hotel is on a quiet side street in the sixth arrondisement, a few blocks from the lively area around rue Bonaparte and Boulevard Saint-Germain.
I stayed there for three nights and loved the neighborhood, which is quintessentially Parisian and not too touristy. I spent many happy hours writing and people-watching at a cafe on the corner of the Boulevard Saint-Germain and Rue du Bac (where there’s also a convenient Metro station) about a three-minute walk from the hotel.
The staff was great, the beds comfy, and the location quiet but still central.
Fourteenth Arrondisement – Montparnasse
A little farther south past the Luxembourg Gardens is Montparnasse, another cool and less touristy area to stay.
Back in the 1920s, Montparnasse was the haunt of artists, including Giorgio de Chirico, Amedeo Modigliani, Vassili Kandinsky, Max Ernst, Joan Miró, and Alberto Giacometti. For that reason alone, I enjoy staying in Montparnasse.
It’s a few Métro stops away from the Seine, but within walking distance of the Luxembourg Gardens. The area abounds with cool restaurants such as La Rotunde on Boulevard Montparnasse where many artists and intellectuals congregated back in the day.
Hotel prices can also be a little bit more reasonable in this area.
Hôtel A La Villa des Artistes
I recommend the Hôtel A La Villa des Artistes, which is the first hotel I stayed in on my first trip to Paris with my family when my daughter was eight years old.
Located close to the Vavin Metro, the hotel is also a short walk to the Luxembourg Gardens where my daughter spent many happy hours in a smartly designed playground.
Fifth Arrondisement
I also enjoy staying in the fifth arrondisement near the Boulevard Saint Michel. Like the sixth, the fifth is one of the oldest areas of Paris with plenty of winding side streets and one of my favorite museums, the Cluny.
Hôtel Le Clos Médicis
I recommend the Hôtel Le Clos Médicis which has a great location about a block from the Luxembourg Gardens near the Boulevard Saint Michel.
The rooms are pricey and quite small but very well-appointed and comfortable.
Comfortable lobby in Hôtel Le Clos Médicis
Search for more hotels in Paris. Also check out my post about finding accommodation in France for general tips about finding good places to stay.
What to See in Paris
Where to start? On a three-day visit to Paris, I recommend the sites described below. I suggest checking out two or at the most three each day and then leaving plenty of time for wandering around your new neighborhood, sipping coffee in cafés and going out for dinner.
Eiffel Tower
Yes, it’s touristy and over-priced and super crowded, but you have to go up the Eiffel Tower at least once. I recommend going at night when the crowds are considerably less and the views are just as breath-taking.
Buy tickets in advance from the official website or consider a package that includes dinner:
The Louvre is massive, over-crowded, expensive, and magnificent.
The key to visiting the Louvre with ease is to focus on one or two areas at most. There’s a great deal of art in the Louvre, and while all of it is amazing, some pieces are more amazing than others.
A visit to the Louvre is a must-do in Paris for art lovers
When you enter the pyramid and descend the escalator to the center of the Louvre, you’re faced with three wings: Sully, Richelieu, and Denon.
Most visitors make a beeline for the Denon wing because that’s where some of the most famous artworks in the world are displayed, including the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci.
Unless you have a burning desire to stand in a massive crowd bristling with pickpockets so you can peer over the tops of heads to see a tiny, glass-enclosed painting on a single wall, I’d give Mona a miss.
If you do want to see her, arrive early, or drop by just before the museum closes.
Suggested Way to Enjoy the Louvre
A better and less headache-inducing option is to head for the far end of the Denon wing and work your way back.
You’ll pass several remarkable pieces, including The Raft of the Medusa by Géricault, Autumnby Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Liberty Leading the People by Delacroix, Saint John the Baptist by Leonardo da Vinci, and La Grande Odalisque by Ingres (one of my faves).
Depending on your interests, you may also want to take a quick walk through the Greek, Roman, and Egyptian Antiquities in the Sully wing. The key to enjoying the Louvre is to pace yourself. You absolutely cannot see all of it in one visit.
Visiting the Louvre
You must book a time-slot to visit the Louvre. Check the website for details. The museum is open from 9 am to 6 pm daily except Tuesdays.
Another good option for art lovers is to take a guided tour. This Masterpieces Tour with Reserved Access is a good option from GetYourGuide:
The exquisite Sainte-Chapelle on the Île de la Cité is still one of my all-time favorite Parisian sites. I make time for a visit every time I go to Paris. Its other-worldly beauty will literarlly stop you in your tracks. Guaranteed.
The best way to see and really enjoy Sainte-Chapelle is to get tickets for a concert. You’ll experience its awesomeness without crowds while soaring to the heavens on the wings of sublime music.
For me, a perfect Parisian evening starts with a 7 pm concert at Sainte Chapelle followed by a walk across Île de la Cité to enjoy dinner on medieval Île Saint Louis. Check out this website to buy concert tickets.
Sainte-Chapelle is open from 11 am to 7 pm and reservations are required. Get tickets for priority access.
Notre Dame Cathedral
After the devastating fire in 2019 and five long years of reconstruction, Notre Dame Cathedral is again open to the public. I can’t wait to see it when I visit Paris again in 2025. Notre Dame has long been one of my favorite cathedrals in Europe.
The cathedral is free and open to all. However, you can reduce your waiting time by booking your access online. Here’s the link: Reservation.
The Musée d’Orsay
I love visiting the Musée d’Orsay maybe even more than the Louvre. It’s a little less crowded and not nearly so large.
It also displays some of the most-loved works of art by Manet, Morisot, van Gogh, Monet, and a lot more. To avoid the crowds, buy your tickets in advance and go early in the day or go on a Thursday evening when the museum is open until 9:45 pm (last entrance one hour before closing).
Head first for the fifth floor so you can enjoy the most popular paintings accompanied in relative peace.
Take your time wandering from room to room and then stop by the café behind the large clock–the original from when the Musée d’Orsay was a train station.
The Musée d’Orsay is on the Left Bank in Paris
Here’s an option for a guided tour of the Musée d’Orsay:
If you are a fan of mid twentieth-century modern art, then the fourth floor of the Pompidou Centre is your happy place. In room after room after room, you’ll see masterpieces by modern painters including Matisse, Pollock, Miro, and a lot more.
The area around the Pompidou Centre is also fun, particularly the Stravinsky Fountain. Linger for awhile to people watch.
Stravinsky Fountain near the Pompidou Centre
Buy tickets in advance to avoid line-ups to the Pomipdou Centre, which is open every day except Tuesdays from 11 am to 8 pm.
Quai Branly Museum
Also known as the Musée du Quai Branly Jacques Chirac, the Musée Quai Branly deserves a place on your Paris itinerary if you are interested in art and objects created by indigenous cultures from around the world.
The collection is displayed in four distinct areas representing Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas.
Plan to visit the Branly on the day you visit the Eiffel Tower. It’s within walking distance and is one of the few other noteworthy sites in the Eiffel Tower area.
If you’re in Paris on a Thursday, visit the museum around 6 or 7 pm (it’s open until 10:00 on Thursdays), go up the Eiffel Tower to see the sunset and the lights (depending on the time of year), and end with dinner at a restaurant in the area.
There are not a huge number of restaurants in that area, so check before you go and make reservations to avoid long, hungry walks up and down the relatively restaurant-free streets.
The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10:30 am to 7:00 pm (Thursdays until 10:00 pm). Get tickets in advance to book your time slot and avoid lines.
The Orangerie
Monet’s waterlily paintings take center stage at The Orangerie and are well worth a visit (go early or late to avoid crowds).
The Orangerie makes a nice stop after spending a few hours in the Tuileries Gardens watching the world go by. Get tickets in advance.
Tuileries near the Orangerie in Spring
Paris has many more amazing museums in addition to the Big Three (Louvre, d’Orsay and Pompidou). If you have time, you’ll be spoiled for choice.
My post on Paris Art Museums provides you with some ideas.
And for even more details about my suggested sites and their tie-ins withLove Among the Recipes, along with descriptions of dozens of other things to see in Paris, check out my post on Paris Sightseeing.
Here are some options for taking a bus tour around Paris to see the main sites in comfort. A good strategy is to take a tour when you first arrive in Paris to orient yourself.
After three full days of touring Paris, you’ll be ready for a relaxing morning riding the TGV, France’s high speed train, to the south of France. You catch the TGV to Avignon from Gare Montparnasse. Check the SCNF website to buy tickets or book through Trainline.
I love riding the TGV. It’s so smooth and fast! Within about four hours, you’ll arrive at the sleek, modern train station in Avignon and step into the warm southern air.
I suggest renting a car for pick-up at Avignon station. The traffic around the station isn’t too frenetic, and very quickly you’ll be on your way east to the Luberon.
Made famous by Peter Mayle’s book A Year in Provence, the Luberon region of Provence has been thoroughly discovered. But it’s still a magical area and one which I visit as often as possible.
I never tire of driving around the little villages, taking walks through the glorious countryside, eating fabulous al fresco meals and poking around the little shops. I always come away with a bag full of lavender and honey soaps.
The villages I like best are Gordes, Rousillon (an absolute must-see) and Bonnieux.
I suggest settling into a country hotel in the area and taking day trips to explore the villages and just soak up the Provençal vibe. Other attractive villages are Menerbes, Lacoste, and Saignon where we stayed for two weeks back in the nineties.
Rousillon deserves a special mention. Not only is the village itself delightful with plenty of good restaurants and shopping, it is close to Le Sentier des Ocres. This area of stunning ocher cliffs and pathways is an easy walk from the village. For more information, check out this post.
Ocher cliffs in the Sentier des Ocres near Rousillon
Here are two highly recommended hotels in the Luberon, one in Roussillon and one in Gordes.
Les Sables d’Ocre
A 15-minute walk from the village of Roussillon, Les Sables d’Ocre sets the bar for what a country-style, family-run, low-key, easy-on-the-budget place should be.
Book one of the rooms that includes a terrace. You’ll have your own private outdoor space and be steps from the pool.
Domain de l’Enclos
Close to lovely Gordes, the Domain de L’Enclos is wonderful. On a Spring trip to the Luberon , I snagged a room with a terrace which Gregg made use of to do some drawing.
The views from the garden over the Luberon are spectacular. Check our his work on his website.
Gregg drawing outside at our hotel near Gordes in the Luberon
Avignon
On your way to Aix-en-Provence from the Luberon, consider stopping for an afternoon to see Avignon. I loved touring the Pope’s Palace (the Palais des Papes) where back in the 14th century, several popes lived when the papacy was moved from Rome to Avignon.
The palace is one of the largest and most important medieval Gothic buildings in Europe.
Palace of the Popes in Avignon
The town of Avignon is pleasant and compact, and it’s always fun to see the famous pont d’Avignon that stretches only halfway across the Rhone River.
The Pont d’Avignon made famous in the song
Aix-en-Provence and Arles
You could choose to home base either in Aix-en-Provence or Arles. Both have their charms and both are within easy driving distance of plenty of fabulous Provence landscapes.
Consider spending a day in the Camargue, where you’ll see flamingos, bulls, and the Mediterranean; wander Arles in the footsteps of van Gogh; and enjoy a meal on the picturesque and car free Le Cours Mirabeau, the main drag in Aix-en-Provence.
The key to enjoying this area is just to relax and soak up the atmosphere.
The main drag in Aix-en-Provence
For an off-the-beaten track adventure, check out Château La Coste in the hills north of Aix-en-Provence. It’s a vineyard and sculpture park with a great restaurant. Another option is to take a half-day wine tour of the region. Here’s a GetYourGuide tour:
Drive east from Aix-en-Provence and within two hours, you’ll see signs to Cannes, Antibes, Nice, Menton and Monte Carlo.
You’re on the fabled Riviera!
Enjoying the high life in Monaco on the French Riviera
There is a lot to do on the French Riviera so I suggest finding a home base and then taking day trips. Here are just a few of the highlights.
Antibes
Visit the Picasso Museum and wander the picturesque back streets. Enjoy great views of the Mediterranean and watch the boats.
A view of the Picasso Museum (the tower) in Antibes
Cannes
Promenade along the famous seaside and mingle with the beautiful people, enjoy a cocktail on the terrace of the famed Carlton Cannes Hotel, then check out the high class shops.
Along the waterfront in swishy Cannes
Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild
Located on Cap Ferrat just to the east of Nice, the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild is worth a visit for the gardens alone (and the house is no slouch either). The nearby Greek Villa Kerylos is also fun to visit, particularly for the spectacular views of the Mediterranean.
Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild on Cap Ferrat
Nice
Nice is a large and bustling city and although a bit iffy in some areas, is a great place to home base.
Avoid the areas near the train station. Spend an afternoon and evening exploring the narrow streets of Old Nice to sample great food and just get all your senses stimulated.
Menton
Menton is a great choice for a town that is less crowded than some of its more famous cousins. I’ve spent several afternoons in Menton and can’t wait to go back. Its old town is charming and its beach long and sandy.
Harbor in Menton
Saint-Paul-de-Vence
Located in the hills above Cannes, the enchanting (achingly so!) village of Saint-Paul-de-Vence is truly delightful, even it is has in recent years become very upscale.
I’ve enjoyed some good meals there overlooking spectacular views. Saint-Paul-de-Vence is also very close to the Fondation Maeght, a modern art museum set in gorgeous gardens with very cool sculptures.
The lovely village of Saint-Paul-de-Vence
Vence
A few kilometers past Saint-Paul-de-Vence and closer to the mountains that buttress the French Riviera is Vence, one of our favorite places to relax away from the hubbub on the coast.
The pedestrian-only medieval streets of this walled town are peaceful and shady with plenty of restaurants are available. Vence feels like a place where people actually live.
If you’re a fan of Matisse, a visit to the Matisse Chapel (the Chapelle du Rosaire) a fifteen-minute walk from Vence is a must. Matisse designed every detail of the chapel. The interior is very spare and modern with stunning stained glass windows.
Tour Options on the French Riviera
Here are some options with Tiqets.com for touring the French Riviera. A boat trip would be fun!
Nice or Cannes both make good home bases on the Mediterranean. You’ll find lots of hotels here, some on the waterfront.
Another option is to home base in a village like Saint-Paul-de-Vence or Vence and then drive to the towns on the Mediterrenean.
One drawback of this plan is that the traffic can be horrendous the closer to the waterfront you get. On the other hand, the villages above the Riviera are so spectacular that it would be shame not to spend some time there.
Here are some options:
Les Villas du Parc: I stayed in this gorgeous villa on the outskirts of Antibes for a week. If you have a car, this is a great choice.
Hôtel Marc Hély: We enjoyed a room with a view over Saint Paul-de-Vence and a tasty breakfast in the courtyard. This is a great choice in La Colle-sur-Loup, which is about a ten-minute drive from the Fondation Maeght.
Miramar: This hotel is in Vence, which is just up the hill from Saint-Paul-de-Vence and a larger town with more services. FYI, we had the best pizza in an outdoor café in the Old Town of Vence! The Miramar is a reasonably-priced and well-located property that is great for drivers.
Enjoying French cuisine in the thousands of small restaurants all over France is a huge highlight. You can get a bad meal in France (and I’ve endured some doozies), but that’s usually the exception.
Check online reviews of the restaurants in the area you’re traveling to and make dinner reservations.
Check out my general tips on dining well on a budget in Europe.
Conclusion
One of the best things about traveling in France is just being in France.
People are friendly and helpful, particularly if you attempt to speak French; the food is almost always wonderful; and a great deal of the French countryside is drop-dead gorgeous.
Most of my fondest memories of my travels in France are of great meals I’ve shared with my husband, and the scenic drives and walks we’ve taken through the countryside.
Slow down, make time to smell the lavender, and enjoy!
Here are some more posts about traveling in France:
Do you enjoy reading novels set in the places you are traveling to? I know I do. I love curling up at the end of a long day of sightseeing and reading a novel that helps me revisit the places I’ve seen.
I’ve chosen my top ten novels based on two criteria. First, the novel needs to evoke a sense of the place in which it was set, and second, it needs to relate in some way to the arts. You’re sure to find some new-to-you reads to take along on your next trip, or even to stay at home with.
England
Entertaining Mr Pepysby Deborah Swift
Entertaining Mr Pepys is the third novel in Deborah Swift’s “Women of Pepys’ Diary” series. All three novels are worth taking along if you are spending time in London and want a fascinating glimpse of what life was like in the 1660s. Famed diarist Samuel Pepys is at the center of this and the first two novels (Pleasing Mr Pepys and A Plague on Mr Pepys), each following a different woman who knew Samuel and was mentioned in his diary. In Entertaining Mr Pepys, the actress Elizabeth (Bird) Carpenter takes center stage as she navigates the world of the theater when women were finally allowed on stage as actresses. If you enjoy impeccably researched historical novels with plenty of intrigue, then the “Women of Pepys’ Diary” series is for you.
The Lost Book of the Grail by Charlie Lovett
While traveling in England, plan on touring some of its awesome cathedrals (don’t miss York Minster, Salisbury Cathedral, and Durham Cathedral to name just three of my faves!) and then settle down with The Lost Book of the Grail. The setting is an ancient cathedral in the fictional town of Barchester. Flashback chapters open with succinct descriptions of cathedral areas such as cloisters, the nave, chapels, and more that I found fascinating. Through a series of clever flashbacks, you navigate the history of the cathedral from its founding by a martyred saint through the Norman invasion, Reformation, Civil War, Victorian era, World War II, and modern times. The plot’s twists and turns provide enough mystery to make the denouement both surprising and satisfying.
France
Drawing Lessons by Patricia Sands
Are you taking a trip to Provence? Then pack or download a copy of Drawing Lessons, a delicious novel set in Arles that follows a woman’s quest to redefine herself after the death of her husband. Patricia Sands evokes the sensuous delights of Provence so beautifully that you’ll feel like you are there. And if, indeed, you are there, you’ll have the sights and smells that surround you confirmed in the story.
The Paris Hours by Alex George
This is the novel to read when you’re spending time in Paris. The Paris Hours tells the stories of four “ordinary” people during one day in Paris in 1927. Along the way, they encounter an extraordinary panoply of luminaries including Hemingway, Proust, Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Ravel, Josephine Baker, and even Sylvia Beach, the proprietor of Paris’s most famous English bookstore, Shakespeare & Company. Alex George brings the ambience, and the people, of Paris to life as he takes readers through streets and parks they can still walk through today. Surprises and twists abound in one of the most cleverly plotted and exquisitely written novels I’ve read in a long while.
Germany
And After the Fireby Lauren Belfer
I am a huge fan of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach (check out my visit to the Bach Museum in Leipzig) and so And After the Fire was the novel for me. It tells the fascinating story of a lost Bach manuscript with a disturbing message. The story spans over two hundred years, from Berlin in the 18th century through the Holocaust to New York in contemporary times. Inspired by historical events, the compelling narrative of this deeply researched and evocative novel resonates with emotion and immediacy.
Chasing the Wind by C. C. Humphreys
Heading for Berlin? Take along Chasing the Wind, a rollicking good adventure that mixes a Bruegel masterpiece, a female aviator, espionage, and the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It’s a page-turner, so make sure you’ve finished your sightseeing for the day before reading it, else you may decide to stay in your hotel room and read rather than go out to sample Berlin’s many museums (check out Booming Berlin: Your Artsy Guide for suggestions about what to do during a three-day visit to Berlin).
Italy
Raphael, Painter in Rome by Stephanie Storey
No trip to Rome is complete without experiencing the art of Raphael, Michelangelo and da Vinci. And the perfect novel to accompany you is Raphael, Painter in Romeby Stephanie Storey, and her other novel Oil and Marble. Both chronicle the lives of three of the most renowned artists in western Europe: Raphael in Raphael, Painter in Rome and Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci in Oil and Marble. Even in the 21st century, there are parts of old Rome in which only a small leap of the imagination is needed to be transported back to the Renaissance when intrigue lurked around every corner and the smell of oil paint was heavy in the air. Raphael. Painter in Rome takes you deep into the heart of a Rome that may be long gone but still lingers in the imagination after dark.
Netherlands
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
One of the things I love about touring the Netherlands is how the light often reminds me of an Old Master painting. One of the most famous is Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. So, the perfect read for fans of his work is the novel of the same name by Tracy Chevalier. Set in 17th-century Delft, Girl with a Pearl Earring is a richly-imagined portrait of the young woman who inspired the painting. I love how Chevalier seamlessly merges history and fiction in this and many of her other novels set in Europe, including The Lady and the Unicorn (14th-century France), Burning Bright(late 18th-century London), Falling Angels (early 20th-century London), A Single Thread(1930s England), and Remarkable Creatures (early 19th-century England).
Spain
The Return by Victoria Hislop
I picked up a copy of The Returnin a second-hand bookstore while wandering the back streets of Antibes seeking shade at the height of the 2019 heat wave (la canicule, as the French called it). It was the perfect novel to read while traveling west into Spain. It takes place both in the present and during the Spanish Civil War, a time in history about which I knew very little. The story of a flamenco guitar player (a tocadores) and a flamenco dancer (a bailaora) who fall in love in 1930s Granada and are separated during the terrible excesses of the Spanish Civil War will stay with you long after you leave Spain.
The Miramonde Trilogy by Amy Maroney
For a book lover, few things are more enchanting than enjoying a novel and then discovering that it’s the first in a trilogy. I had that experience after reading The Girl from Oto, the first offering in Amy Maroney’s trilogy about a female artist in Renaissance Spain, the other two novels being Mira’s Way and A Place in the World. I read all three not long after I traveled through the Pyrenees where much of the story takes place. Amy Maroney brings the region to life wonderfully—its wildlife and independent mountain people, the sweeping landscapes and harsh weather, and the turbulent history during the time when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella were on the throne.
What’s your favorite artsy novel set in Europe? Share your recommendations with other Artsy Travelers in the Comments below.
Each region in France has much to offer, and over the years, I’ve traveled in just about all of them.
But if I had to narrow down my choices to just six different regions that I recommend to artsy-inclined travelers, I’d choose Normandy, Brittany, the Loire, the Dordogne, Provence/Côte d’Azur, and of course, Paris.
This post presents an overview of my six favorite regions to visit in France with links to more detailed posts.
If you want to fully explore these regions, consider renting a car. My post on Driving in Europe gives you some pointers gleaned from our three decades of experience exploring Europe by car.
Recommended regions to explore in France
Normandy
Rolling fields, picture-perfect villages, and searing World War II history make Normandy in northern France an awesome destination.
I lived for two months at an artist-in-residence place in the Perche region of Normandy a few years ago. When my husband, artist Gregg Simpson, and I weren’t being artists/writers in residence, we spent several happy days exploring this under-touristed area.
Favorite Places in Normandy
The Perche Region
This far-off-the-beaten-track area has no big sites, but the countryside is lovely. Take a detour through it while driving up to the coast.
World War II Beaches
As a Canadian, I was moved by the museum at Juno Beach where Canadian troops landed on D-Day. You should also visit the Caen Memorial Museum, which is considered the best World War II museum in France. I found it fascinating.
Honfleur and the Satie Museum
Honfleur is a mecca for artists with lots of galleries and beautiful architecture. Linger at a cafe in the harbor and then don’t miss the quirky Satie Museum–an artsy-traveler must-see.
Bayeux and the Bayeux tapestry
The clever way in which the tapestry is exhibited is almost as captivating as the tapestry itself. And the town of Bayeux is just delightful. Plan to spend at least half a day exploring.
Mont St. Michel
It’s crowded and touristy, but go in the late afternoon to enjoy the sunset after the crowds leave.
Étretat
These stunning white chalk cliffs were a favorite of Monet and other Impressionist painters. Wander along the cliff tops of this incredible coastline and marvel at the fascinating shapes sculpted by the wind.
The stunning area of Étretat was a favorite of Monet’s
I adore Brittany. Every time I visit the area, I say We really ought to spend more time in Brittany.
I recommend visiting Brittany in the summer when the weather is pleasantly warm rather than torrid like it is farther south. Beautiful sandy beaches vie for your attention with craggy coves and spectacular rock formations.
Favorite Places in Brittany
Rennes
This charming town with its half-timbered houses is a real delight. Stay the night and enjoy wandering around its virtually empty and picturesque streets.
Pont-Aven
This charming village is a pilgrimmage destination for art lovers. In the 1880s, it was a mecca for such notable artists as Gauguin and Serusier. Walk in their footsteps in the Bois d’Amour (the Wood of Love) and see why they loved the area so much. I recently spent a week there; check out my post: Savoring Life in Pont-Aven: City of Artists.
Cote de Granit-Rose
This rugged coastline in northern Brittanny is a photographer’s dreamscape. Stay a few days to enjoy the seaside and the fabulously shaped rocks.
Carnac and other prehistory sites
Brittany is home to France’s most concentrated collection of Celtic and prehistoric sites. Standing stones abound in this history-steeped region. Check out my post on Prehistory Sites in Europe that includes several places in Brittany.
Saint-Malo
This walled town recently made famous by All The Light We Cannot Seemakes a great home base for exploring the northern coast.
Côte de granit rose in northern Brittany
Consider at least a week’s stay in Brittany, or better still, three or four days on the north coast around Trégastel and three or four days on the south coast near Carnac.
The Loire Valley
Châteaux are exceedingly thick on the ground in the Loire Valley thanks to the Loire Atlantique region being the playground for the kings of France until kings rather suddenly went out of fashion.
Château of Chenonceau in the Loire Valley
Favorite Places in the Loire Valley
Spend a week here to tour not only the big (and crowded) blockbuster châteaux like Chambord and Chenonceau, but also the more intimate, even quirky ones like Villandry and Azay-Le-Rideau.
Rochemenier Cave Village (Rochemenier Village Troglodytique)
Visit the cave dwelling village museum to discover the underground houses inhabited for centuries. This place is amazing!
Château de Chenonceau
It’s hard to choose the most beautiful chateau in the Loire Valley, but Chenonceau with its graceful arches spanning the River Cher is definitely a contender.
Château de Chambord
This is the largest chateau in the Loire and also the most crowded. It’s definitely impressive, but go early or late in the day.
Château Azay-le-Rideau
This is one of my favorite chateaux in the Loire Valley. It’s incredibly photogenic!
Chinon
Registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Chinon makes a great home base for exploring the eastern Loire Valley, and it also famous for its wine, castle, and historic town.
Chartres Cathedral
The cathedral has incredible stained glass windows. Visit on a day trip from Paris or en route to the chateaux in the Loire Valley.
In addition to châteaux-hopping, consider an extended stay in the Loire Valley because, let’s face it, the region is drop-dead gorgeous. Rent a bike or go on a walking tour to immerse yourself in the fairy tale landscape. Also, the food in the Loire is exceptional (and that’s saying something!).
If your time is limited, consider a day trip from Paris to tour at least a few of the châteaux.
The Dordogne Valley
The Dordogne is an excellent choice for two reasons: prehistoric caves and amazing food. Spend at least a week exploring the beautiful towns and villages of this interesting region of France.
Favorite Places in the Dordogne Region
Les Eyzies
This charming little town is home to the National Museum of Prehistory, a must-see if you’re interested in the prehistoric history of the Dordogne.
The charming village of Montignac near Lascaux makes an excellent home base for exploring the area.
Sarlat-la-Canéda
This medieval town hosts an indoor food market, and a glass elevator in the bell tower offers city views. Wander around its ancient streets in the early morning to catch the sunshine bouncing off the yellow sandstone buildings.
Bergerac
Famous for its vineyards and old town center, Bergerac is close to fortified medieval towns called bastides, with Monpazier and Eymet. being particularly noteworthy examples.
If you have a hankering for gorgeous scenery mixed with compelling prehistory sightseeing followed by long, slow dinners where duck often plays a role, then meander down to the Dordogne.
Gorgeous villages are waiting to be explored in the Dordogne
Provence
I dare you to say Provence without sighing!
Ah, Provence! See?
Enjoy lavender fields like this in the Luberon region of Provence
Like Tuscany, Provence has earned its reputation as one of Europe’s most beautiful regions. Settle in for a good long visit to discover why so many artists made their homes here (Picasso, van Gogh, Renoir, Cezanne, Lèger, Matisse, and I’m sure I’m forgetting a bunch).
I think it has a lot to do with the light. Every time Gregg and I visit Provence, Gregg is inspired by the unique way in which light floods a landscape of sharp contrasts—soft greens and lavenders, hard whites and ochers, startling blues.
Favorite Places in Provence
Luberon
This is still one of my favorite regions of Provence. Don’t miss Roussillon with its ocher cliffs, along with the hill towns Bonnieux and Gordes. In recent years, the Luberon has become rather “chichi”, as in scores of well-heeled people driving nice cars and living in lavender-coated villas, but the food is still wonderful, the weather warm, and the landscape stunning.
Avignon
The Pope’s Palace in Avignon is a lot of fun to explore. The last time I was there, a Picasso exhibition was on. Before you go, check to see if any special art exhibitions are featured.
Van Gogh lived here for only a few months but that was enough to put Arles on the map for art lovers. It’s a delightful town, worth a few days of your time to just kick back, relax, and enjoy the ambiance.
Aix-en-Provence
Home of Cezanne, Aix-en-Provence is a great place to kick back and spend a week. Don’t miss the wonderful Hotel de Caumont Art Center which almost always has excellent art exhibitions, drive out to Chateau La Coste and wander around the vineyards and forest paths to look at striking modern sculpture, and drop into the Fondation Vasarely to see Vasarely’s geometric masterpieces.
Gorges du Verdon
Provence is a region of mountains with many tiny, twisty roads leading up into the Alpes Maritimes and into the French Alps. Take some time to explore the rugged Gorges du Verdon.
The French Riviera
Spend at least some of your time with the beautiful people. Cannes is a good choice for a home base.
Another central option is Nice, or my favorite, Menton, which is very close to the Italian border.
And while you’re in the area, visit some of the many single-artist museums such as the Fondation Leger in Biot and the Matisse Museum in Nice.
Provence is big enough to deserve a two-week stay, or at least a week divided in two. I suggest enjoying the stunning countryside in the Luberon region for a week and then driving down to the French Riviera to hang with the beautiful people (and see a ton of art) while basking in the Mediterranean sun.
Spend some time on the fabled Riviera in the south of France
Paris and the Île de France
If you’re planning your first visit to France, Paris will likely be on your itinerary. It’s a must-see city in Europe if you are in any way artsy inclined.
Paris is home to dozens of art museums and galleries in addition to the big-ticket sights like the Eiffel Tower (go early or late to avoid the crowds), the Arc de Triomphe, and the Champs-Élysées.
Le Tour Eiffel–see it early or late to avoid crowds
To truly appreciate Paris, rent an apartment and settle in for the long haul. For the entire month of March one year, Gregg and I stayed in an apartment in Montparnasse. He spent his mornings painting and I spent my mornings writing, and then we set out almost every afternoon to explore the artsy delights of Paris.
Favorite Places in Paris and the Île de France
Musée d’Orsay
With its world renowned collection of paintings from the late 19th century, the Musée d’Orsay is a who’s who of famous painters: Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Morisot, Renoir, Gauguin… You name it!
This museum is always on my must-see list every time I visit Paris.
L’Orangerie
Here’s where you’ll see Monet’s waterlily paintings. The experience of walking through the two rooms surrounded by his tranquil and very large paintings is sublime.
Luxembourg Gardens
This is Paris’s playground that many visitors never see. Go there to relax and people watch.
Musée Cluny
I adore medieval art and the collection at the Cluny AKA the Musée national du Moyen Âge is one of the world’s best. Don’t miss the Lady and the Unicorn Tapestries.
Pompidou
For early to mid-20th century modern art, there’s few better places then the Centre Pompidou. Check out iconic works by Miro, Dali, Ernst, Pollock, and a lot more. It’s a treasure trove!
Île de France
There’s lots to see in a day trip from Paris including Versailles (the gardens go on forever and the Hall of Mirrors is jaw-dropping), Monet’s gardens at Giverney, and the chateau and forest of Fontainebleau where artists of the Barbizon school back in the 19th century did a lot of plein air painting.
I’ve never ran out of things to see in Paris. In fact, a stopover in Paris has been on my itinerary for almost all of our dozen-plus trips to Europe.
Here are some suggestions for things to see, skip-the-line tickets, and tours in Paris.
Other Regions in France
I’ve limited myself to just six of the best regions to visit in France (in my opinion!), but if you have the time, there’s a lot more to explore. Every region in France has a great deal to offer.
In Eastern France, tour the Alsace region, pop into lovely Strasbourg, take a canal trip in Burgundy (check out the wine route!), and visit Dijon with its half-timbered buildings and great food.
While touring Southeast France, check out the Alps, with Mont Blanc a highlight.
In Western France, don’t miss Bordeaux, Bayonne (the Basque Museum is marvelous), Biarritz, and Toulouse, then venture down to the Pyrenees.
Also check out the walled city of Carcassone (go early or late to avoid crowds) and Albi, famous for the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum.
And on your way to Provence, explore the Auvergne in central France and then stop by charming Lyon where you’ll find lots to see and a wonderful culinary tradition.
Conclusion
What is your favorite region in France? Share your suggestions for other artsy travelers in the comments below.
When I travel in France, I enjoy reading novels that are set in France and that relate in some way to the arts. Do you enjoy reading novels set in the places you travel to?
In this post, I feature a selection of novels that are not only set in France, but also relate in some way to the arts.
I also share some of my favorite France guidebooks.
In the 1920s, a dazzling cast of characters including Pablo Picasso, Cole Porter, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos and F. Scott Fitzgerald gather at a villa in Cap d’Antibe.
The mysteries surrounded the death of Vincent van Gogh in the summer of 1890 and an indelible portrait of his final day are meticulously explored in this riveting novel.
An American woman living in Paris as WWII looms becomes entangled in the intense rivalry between iconic fashion designers Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli.
This richly detailed dural-time novel explores past and present, the personal and the historic, and sensuality, responsibility and the mystery of love through the lens of the life story of George Sand, the maverick French novelist whose many lovers included the composer Frederic Chopin.
Discover love in all its flavors in this fun, food-infused romp through Paris that is as crisp, sweet, and smooth as the perfect macaron. To follow the main character’s journey through Paris, check out this post.
Listed in the Photography category on Art In Fiction, The Postmistress of Paris revisits the dark early days of the German occupation in France and is inspired by the real-life Chicago heiress Mary Jayne Gold.
For fans of Nina George, Elena Ferrante, and Valentina Cebeni, a charming, uplifting novel about a man who sets out to fulfil his dead wife’s last wish.
A charming epistolary novel about the love of books and magical ability they have to bring people together. When Anne-Lise Briard reserves a room at the Beau Rivage Hotel for her vacation on the Brittany coast, she has no idea this trip will start her on the path to unearthing a mystery.
Paris of the 1920s and 30s teems with artists, writers, and musicians, a shining crucible of creative genius. But amidst the sparkling creativity of the city’s most famous citizens, four ordinary people each search for something they’ve lost.
An historical novel based on the true story of the American Library in Paris. In Paris in 1939, Odile Souchet stands to lose everything she holds dear—including her beloved library. After the Nazis march into the City of Light and declare a war on words, Odile and her fellow librarians join the Resistance with the best weapons they have: books.
2017, London: When Aurelia Leclaire inherits a lavish Paris apartment, she is shocked to discover her grandmother’s treasure trove of famous art and couture gowns. One obscure painting leads her to Gabriel Seymour, a highly respected art restorer with his own mysterious past. Together they attempt to uncover the truths concealed within the apartment’s walls.
Guidebooks on France
My preferred guidebook writer, hands down, is Rick Steves. I’m not alone in my admiration for Rick’s thoughtfully organized and thorough travel guides. I’ve often seen travelers with one of Rick’s blue and yellow books tucked under their arms, spurring more than a few good conversations when we’ve discovered our mutual admiration for Rick. Here’s a link to Rick’s latest guidebook on France.
Have you read a novel set in France, particularly an arts-inspired one? Do you have a favorite guidebook? Share your recommendations with other Artsy Travelers in the Comments below.
Here are some more posts to enjoy as you plan your adventures in France:
I love Paris so much that I set my fourth novel there. Love Among the Recipesis about a cookbook author who reinvents herself by moving to Paris. The novel is also my love letter to Paris–one of my favorite cities in the world.
In Love Among the Recipes, cookbook author Genna McGraw writes a cookbook/guidebook that matches Parisian sights such as the Eiffel Tower with recipes for bistro-style French dishes such as steak haché.
The next time you visit Paris, use this post to visit the places featured in Love Among the Recipes. Included are descriptions of the sights along with links to some of their matched recipes.
No visit to Paris is complete without a visit to the Eiffel Tower! This iconic monument symbolizes the City of Light. For the most romantic experience, ascend the Eiffel Tower at night.
In Love Among the Recipes, the Eiffel Tower is the first sight Genna visits soon after her arrival in Paris. From the second level, she enjoys both the view and the passing parade of tourists. She also comes up with the idea for the first recipe for her cookbook/guidebook–Steak Haché et Frites.
Here’s how Genna describes this staple of the menu enfant–the children’s menu:
One beef patty, grilled and crispy, accompanied by a mound of light, hot, salty, and crunchy french fries—the best fries in the world. Steak haché et frites was as basic as cooking got in France.
The Eiffel Tower–the most iconic structure in Paris
Get tickets to the Eiffel Tower in advance to avoid very long lines. The Eiffel Tower is open year round from 10:30 am to 6:30 pm (9:30 am to 11:45 pm from June 1 to September 1).
Arc de Triomphe
The Arc de Triomphe stands proudly in the middle of the Place Charles de Gaulle (formerly known as the Place de l’Étoile), oblivious to the traffic swirling around it. I know whereof I speak. In the days before Google Maps and GPS, we took a wrong turn and were swept into the Place Charles de Gaulle. Gregg had to circumnavigate the unusually large roundabout (twelve exits!) numerous times before finally crossing a frightening number of lanes to reach our exit. I still break out into a cold sweat when I think of that drive.
Begun in 1806, the Arc de Triomphe honors soldiers who fought in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Directly under the arch is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier who was killed in World War I.
You can wander around and under the Arc de Triomphe for free, but you’ll pay to climb the stairs to the top. The glorious view of the Place Charles de Gaulle, Champs-Élysées, the Tuileries, and the Eiffel Tower in the distance is well worth the price. WARNING: Don’t even think about trying to cross the Place Charles de Gaulle! Use the pedestrian tunnels located around its perimeter to lead you safely under the traffic.
The Arc de Triomphe marooned in the middle of a river of speeding cars
L’abbaye de Saint-Germain-des-Prés
Dating from the 6th century, the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés is the oldest church in Paris and contains some notable frescoes. The current church was built in the 12th century, with the distinctive spire added in the 19th century. The abbey is also where the heart of philosopher René Descartes is buried.
In Love Among the Recipes, Genna rents an apartment on the top floor of a building steps from the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. I modeled her apartment on one I stayed in with my family in 1995. The needlepoint reproduction of La Grande Odalisque by Ingres that hangs in Genna’s apartment was inspired by a similar (and equally hideous) version that hung in the apartment we rented.
Close to the church are two famous cafés in which several scenes take place: Les Deux Magots and Café de Flore. While sitting at a table overlooking the church, Genna decides to pair it with a recipe for French Onion Soup. This version comes from My Parisian Kitchen.
The Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés
Les Invalides
Napoleon’s mammoth tomb and an impressive military museum (Musée de l’Armée) is housed in Les Invalides and is worth a look for Napoleon buffs.
When life starts to go sideways for Genna in Love Among the Recipes, she makes a tearful visit to her grizzled but kindly landlord and most loyal taste-tester. After pouring her heart out to him while savoring shots of fine Napoleon brandy, Genna pairs Les Invalides and its Napoleonic associations with Steak Diane Flambéed in Brandy. This recipe is created by Emeril Lagasse and comes from the Food & Wine website.
Les Invalides, home to the tomb of Napoleon
Les Invalides is open daily from 10 am to 6 pm, except for January 1, May 1, and December 25. Get priority entrance tickets here.
Notre-Dame Cathedral
The partial destruction of Notre-Dame Cathedral in 2019 broke the hearts of many cathedral lovers, including me. Some of my most memorable moments in Paris were spent in the vicinity of Notre-Dame. Several times, I attended music concerts in the cathedral and was blown away by the sublime sound and medieval atmosphere.
In Love Among the Recipes, which is set several years prior to the fire, Genna matches Notre-Dame Cathedral with Lemon Sole with Butter Sauce. Here’s the description she wrote for her cookbook/guidebook:
A visit to Notre-Dame Cathedral takes you into the heart and soul of France. Emerging from a recent cleaning, the cream-colored stone glows in the spring sunshine, much as it did when it was first built a millennium ago.The cathedral sits on an island in the middle of the Seine, until modern times the principal artery for commerce. For centuries, fish from the river nourished the well-fed clerics who kept the great cathedral running.From soul to sole, this recipe for grilled lemon sole swims in a light cream sauce made tart by thin slices of melted lemon. Serve with a fluffy rice pilaf studded with pistachio nuts for a heavenly experience.
Me in front of Notre-Dame Cathedral on a spring evening
Rose Window in Notre-Dame Cathedral
The rose window at Notre-Dame Cathedral is one of Europe’s most stunning examples of Gothic stained glass. Miraculously, the rose window survived the 2019 fire. In Love Among the Recipes, Genna pairs a classic Strawberry Tart with the rose window. This recipe comes from Recipe Girl.
Sainte-Chapelle
Sainte-Chapelle on the Île de la Cité ranks as my all-time favorite religious structure. I first visited when I was 14 years old while on my epic trip around Europe with my mom, and I always pop in every time I’m in Paris. The joyful release I experience when stepping from the dark, winding staircase into the bright and airy stained-glass heaven of the upper chapel never gets old. I include Sainte-Chapelle in my post about the top cathedrals in Europe.
Sainte-Chapelle is open from 11 am to 7 pm and reservations are required. Get tickets for priority access.
Tour Saint-Jacques
Located in the 4th arrondissement, the Tour Saint-Jacques is a fabulous example of the flamboyant Gothic style. It was originally part of a church built in the 16th century which was destroyed during the French Revolution. I always enjoy catching sight of the statue-encrusted Tour Saint-Jacques while walking around the area. The tower’s connection to butchers (the original church was called Eglise Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie) inspires Genna to pair it with homemade sausages.
Genna liked the contrast of the ornate tower with the lowly sausage, a dish perfect for an everyday dinner. She could include directions for making the actual sausage. A homemade sausage made from freshly ground meats in the cook’s own kitchen and blended with a rich mix of seasonings was surely one of life’s great gastronomic pleasures.
Viewing the eight giant canvases Claude Monet painted of the water lilies in his garden at Giverny never fails to exhilarate me. Two purpose-built rooms contain four canvases each. Stepping into the rooms is like stepping to the edge of a tranquil pond in a cool forest glade.
In Love Among the Recipes, the water lily paintings have a particularly dramatic effect on Marsha, a young woman whom Genna befriends from her French class. While Marsha blisses out in front of the paintings (collectively called Les Nymphéas), Genna settles onto a bench and thinks about Vichyssoise. Here’s what she writes:
Made with tender young leeks, pale yellow potatoes, heavy cream, and black pepper, a bowl of chilled Vichyssoise on a hot summer day will transport you to Monet’s world, where your soul receives the solace that only nature can supply.
Detail from a painting of water lilies by Claude Monet
Musée de Cluny
As I’ve written in my post Paris for Art Lovers: Cool Art Museums You May Not Know, the Cluny (otherwise known as Musée national du Moyen Âge) is my favorite art museum in Paris. I spend at least a few hours of every trip to Paris wandering through the dark rooms overflowing with medieval treasures. That’s my idea of paradise–that and stopping for a glass of wine at a local bistro after my visit.
Genna also loves the Cluny, particularly the stunning Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. While enjoying coffee with Parisian hottie Pierre Leblanc, Genna’s description of why she paired the famous tapestries with Duck Confit comes replete with some seriously suggestive double entendres.
This recipe for Duck Confit to match with the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries comes from Serious Eats.
The sixth tapestry: À mon seul désir Photo: Wikipedia
The Cluny Museum is open every day except Monday from 9:30 am to 6:15 pm. Ticket office closes at 5:30 pm. Evacuation of the rooms begins at 5:45 pm.
Musée Delacroix
The Musée Delacroix is housed in Delacroix’s former home and is considered a rare gem in the heart of the 6th arrondissement. The collection includes over a thousand artworks by Delacroix along with objects that belonged to him, and artworks created by artists who admired him.
In Love Among the Recipes, Genna visits the Musée Delacroix the day before she hosts a dinner party for her new friend Marsha and Marsha’s insufferable boyfriend. She pairs the Musée Delacroix with a rich and flavorful Bœuf Bourguignon:
The idea for bœuf bourguignon came to her as she was touring rooms that once housed Delacroix’s living quarters and studio. When she thought of Delacroix, she thought of clutter and heat, of fallen soldiers and distressed maidens densely painted in browns and ochers and reds. Delacroix’s large canvases were too big, too full, too heroic—and a good match for the richness of a well-cooked bœuf bourguignon.
The museum is open Wednesday to Monday, from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., with a night opening until 9 p.m. on the first Thursday of the month.
Musée d’Orsay
I never tire of visiting the Musée d’Orsay. It teems with masterpieces created between 1848 and 1914, and includes scores of great paintings by Manet, Morisot, Monet and more. Genna matches three recipes to various aspects of the venerable museum.
To avoid the crowds, buy your tickets in advance and go early in the day. Head first for the fifth floor so you can enjoy the most popular paintings accompanied by few visitors. Take your time wandering from room to room and then stop by the café behind the large clock–the original from when the Musée d’Orsay was a train station.
Musée d’Orsay as a Whole
When Genna visits theMusée d’Orsay with her daughter, Becky, she pairs cassoulet with the museum. She explains her choice to Becky, who has arrived unexpectedly in Paris, bringing with her an attitude and a secret:
“I was watching all the people crowding into the galleries and I couldn’t help thinking of them as so many ball bearings all rolling along together, one indistinguishable from the next. Then from there I went to beans—white haricot beans that are smooth and round and meaty. And from there, I thought of richness—the paintings, which led me to think of chunks of homemade garlic sausage and duck confit legs simmered in wild garlic and . . .”
“Stop!” Becky held up her hand. “I get the picture. The cassoulet mixes all kind of colors and textures with herbs and beans, just like the museum combines paintings and people.”
“Exactly!” At this rate, they’d start wearing matching stretch pants and pink T-shirts with Mother on one and Daughter on the other.
Here’s a recipe for cassoulet, a tasty recipe from southwest France, on Jo Cooks.
Mère et enfant sur fond vert, Musée d’Orsay
Becky is fascinated by the painting Mère et enfant sur fond vert by Mary Cassatt. Later in the novel, Genna pairs the painting with clafoutis, a delicious and simple fruit pudding suitable for serving to children.
Mère et enfant sur fond vert by Mary Cassatt from Musée d’Orsay
Great Clock at the Musée d’Orsay
Genna pairs the great clock that dominates the façade of the Musée d’Orsay with a classic French apple tart–a tarte aux pommes. This recipe for Apple Tart comes from My Parisian Kitchen.
The clock in theMusée d’Orsay
Make sure to buy tickets to visit the Musée d’Orsay in advance so you can skip the line-up. The museum is open from 9:30 am to 6 pm daily except Mondays.
Musée du Louvre
The Louvre is massive, over-crowded, expensive, and magnificent. The key to visiting the Louvre with ease is to focus on one or two areas at most. There’s a great deal of art in the Louvre, and while all of it is amazing, some pieces are more amazing than others.
In Love Among the Recipes, Genna pairs recipes with three different parts of the Louvre: the Denon wing, La Grande Odalisque by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and a charming terra cotta piece from the antiquities exhibits in the Sully wing.
Denon Wing
When you enter the pyramid and descend the escalator to the center of the Louvre, you’re faced with three wings: Sully, Richelieu, and Denon. Most visitors make a beeline for the Denon wing because that’s where some of the most famous artworks in the world are displayed, including the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. Unless you have a burning desire to stand in a massive crowd bristling with pickpockets so you can peer over the tops of heads to see a tiny, glass-enclosed painting on a single wall, I’d give Mona a miss. If you do want to see her, arrive early, or drop by just before the museum closes.
Instead, head for the far end of the Denon wing and work your way back. You’ll pass several remarkable pieces, including:
The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Autumn by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix, Public domain, via Wikipedia Commons
Saint John the Baptist by Leonardo da Vinci, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The rich, deep-red walls of the Denon wing inspire Genna to match it with a recipe for Shrimp-Stuffed Salmon. When she serves the dish at a party, the consequences are devastating–and a pivotal moment in Love Among the Recipes. Here’s a link to a recipe for a similar dish on Jamie Oliver’s website.
La Grande Odalisque by Ingres
Your stroll through the French masterpieces in the Denon wing also takes you past La Grande Odalisque by Ingres. The enigmatic image of the nude courtesan plays a prominent role in Love Among the Recipes. In one of the final scenes of the novel, Genna matches the painting with a recipe for tagine–a warm and spicy Moroccan dish of lamb cooked with apricots and nuts. This recipe for Tagine and Couscous comes from Easy Peasy Foodie.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Greek, Roman, and Egyptian Antiquities
While perusing the fabulous collection of antiquities in the Sully wing, Genna comes across a small terra-cotta carving depicting a row of bakers:
Genna trailed past glass cases brimming with cooking pots and spear tips, wrought gold bracelets and bronze helmets. Her attention was arrested by a roughly hewn terra-cotta piece showing a row of figures seated at a bench, kneading what appeared to be dough. Thanks to her progress in French class, she easily deciphered the description. The object represented bakers making bread. The preparation of food was rarely represented in art, and almost never in the art of antiquity. Genna tried to imagine the artisan who had sculpted the little piece and for what reason. It was neither well-formed nor beautiful. A child with Plasticine could have done better. But at over 2,500 years old, the piece was remarkable.
Take virtual tours of the Louvre. Make sure to buy tickets to visit the Louvre in advance so you can skip the line-up. The museum is open from 9 am to 6 pm daily except Tuesdays.
Quai Branly Museum
Also know as the Musée du Quai Branly Jacques Chirac, the Musée Quai Branly deserves a place on your Paris itinerary, particularly if you enjoy art and objects created by indigenous cultures from around the world. The collection is displayed in four distinct areas representing Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. Read more about the Musée du Quai Branly in my post Paris for Art Lovers: Cool Art Museums You May Not Know.
Genna visits the Branly with Becky, just after Becky inadvertently shares news of a seriously life-altering event. While prowling the dimly lit exhibits, Genna decides on a recipe for Chocolate Mousse. This one comes from My Parisian Kitchen.
Here’s what Genna writes:
No one who has gazed awestruck at an intricately carved exorcism mask from Sri Lanka or the complex geometric rugs woven by Berber tribeswomen could doubt that the objects on display in the Musée du Quai Branly represent human ingenuity in all its diverse glory. Intrepid visitors glide from the Congo to the Sahara, across India and around Polynesia, into the vast lands of Asia and on across the Pacific to the plains of North America and the secret jungles of Brazil. A delicately constructed chocolate mousse should explode with flavor with the same intensity so richly captured in the Branly’s dark passageways.
Display in the Africa area in the Musée Quai Branly
The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10:30 am to 7:00 pm (Thursdays until 10:00 pm). Get tickets in advance to avoid lines.
Situated in the trendy Marais district, the Musée Picasso is close to the apartment Marsha buys in Love Among the Recipes. When Marsha takes Genna to see the apartment, Genna is bowled over by its size and elegance, while poor Marsha is distraught.
Genna pairs a recipe for bouillabaisse, the classic Mediterranean fish stew, with the museum devoted to the work of Picasso, who was born in Málaga on Spain’s Mediterranean coast. Her decision to include bouillabaisse in her cookbook/guidebook prompts her to host a dinner party for the new friends she’s made in Paris. The events at this party lead to the climax of the novel.
The Picasso Museum is open Tuesday to Friday from 10.30 am to 6 pm and weekends from 9.30 am to 6 pm. The museum is popular, so buy tickets in advance.
When Genna visits the Musée Rodin, she is entranced by the many large and small versions of Rodin’s famous Kiss sculpture and by the sophisticated beauty of the museum and its grounds. She contemplates The Thinker, admires the sculptures in the sumptuously appointed chandeliered rooms, and comes up with crème brûlée to match with the museum. Here’s what she writes:
A silky crème brûlée topped with a sheen of caramelized sugar cracked open by one smart rap of the spoon made the perfect ending to a meal. It combined hard and soft together in one dish, like one of Rodin’s sculptures. The cold marble came alive with the heat generated by the two bodies wrapped around each other. What looked solid became malleable and alive.
The Musée Rodin is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10 am to 6:30 pm. Buy tickets in advance and skip the lines.
Pompidou Centre
The fourth floor of the Pompidou Centre houses an incredible collection of early-to-mid-20th-century modern art. It’s one of my husband Gregg’s favorite art museums. As a painter, he loves admiring the work of the artists who have inspired him–from Max Ernst to Matisse to Pollock.
Pompidou Centre is the most visited museum in Paris
Buy tickets to the Pompidou Centre in advance to avoid line-ups, open every day except Tuesdays from 11 am to 8 pm.
Stravinsky Fountain, Centre Pompidou
Adjacent to the Pompidou Centre is one of the most striking and fun fountains I’ve ever seen. Created by Niki de Saint Phalle, the Stravinsky fountain was a huge favorite with my daughter, Julia, when she was a child.
Immediately before her rose the whimsical Stravinsky Fountain—a favorite of her children on their family trip to Paris. Sixteen sculptures, including a treble clef, a pair of swollen red lips, and various brightly painted amorphous shapes, rotated, swiveled, and shot water at odd angles. Genna defied anyone to stand next to Niki de Saint Phalle’s extraordinary creation on a hot summer’s day and not smile.
The quirky, colorful cheeriness of the Stravinsky Fountain inspires Genna to pair it with a scrumptious fruit flan that she describes as: Slices of yellow peaches, green kiwis, and creamy white pears, glistening blueberries, and rosy-red strawberries and raspberries and cherries would be arranged in perfect spirals on top of a custard filling spread over a crunchy sugar crust, the whole creation bathed in a glaze of equal parts sherry and Cointreau.
The Jardin des Plantes in the 5th arrondissement is a marvelous place to spend an afternoon. If you enjoy prowling through natural history museums (as I do), then allocate a day to explore the Gallery of Evolution, the Gallery of Mineralogy and Geology, the Gallery of Paleontology and Comparative Anatomy, and the Gallery of Botany.
Le Jardin des Plantes is open from 7:30 am to 6:30 pm, with most of the galleries opening at 10 am.
Luxembourg Gardens
The Luxembourg Gardens holds a special place in the hearts of my family. We spent many happy hours at the awesome playground when our daughter was young, and in recent years have always enjoyed strolling through its shaded walkways and lounging by the round pool.
Genna also has very positive associations with the Luxembourg Gardens and goes there with her daughter, Becky. The variety of facilities within the gardens inspire Genna to create a recipe for pot-au-feu.
Fountain at the Luxembourg Gardens
Monet’s Garden at Giverny
An hour outside Paris is Giverny and the house that artist Claude Monet lived in for several decades. The garden he created–depicted in many of his paintings–attracts millions of visitors every year.
In Love Among the Recipes, Genna visits Giverny with Bill Turner. The first glimmer of romance is sparked amid the leafy green walkways and dreamy views of water-lily-studded ponds. While gazing over one of these ponds, Genna decides on a light and fluffy asparagus soufflé. This recipe comes from Simply Recipes.
One of the charming green bridges in Monet’s garden at Giverny
Parc Buttes Chaumont
This wonderful neighborhood park in the 19th arrondissement is the fifth largest park in Paris and almost completely bypassed by tourists. Wander several kilometers of pathways and admire the evocative Temple de la Sibylle perched on a cliff overlooking the lower garden.
In Love Among the Recipes, Genna pairs the park–a favorite with families–with a family-friendly recipe for Chicken & 40 Cloves of Garlic that she serves to an appreciative Monsieur Leblanc, her landlord. This version comes from Jo Cooks.
Temple de la Sibylle in Parc Buttes Chaumont
Parc de la Villette
This massive park, also in the 19th arrondissement, is full of interesting things to see and do. It’s home to one of the largest concentrations of cultural venues in Paris, including the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, Europe’s largest science museum; three major concert venues, including the Philharmonie de Paris; and La Géode, an Omnimax theater. Also in the park are ten themed gardens, including the Jardin du Dragon, along with 26 follies–large, bright red metal sculptures.
In Love Among the Recipes, Genna visits Parc de la Villette with Pierre Leblanc and later tells him she’s pairing the park with a Pork Terrine with Roasted Red Peppers and Hazelnuts. Here’s an excerpt from her conversation with Pierre:
“A layered terrine of pork pâté with roasted red peppers and a layer or two of nuts all pressed into a perfect rectangle. When you cut the terrine into thick slices, all the layers are exposed.”
“Like the structures of the park in nature.”
“Exactly!” Genna put down her fork and grinned at Pierre. “You are an amazing inspiration, Pierre. That’s the second good connection I’ve made, thanks to you.”
This delightful park in the 8th arrondissement contains a number of interesting follies, including a miniature ancient Egyptian pyramid, a Roman colonnade, antique statues, a pond full of water lilies, a Dutch windmill, a minaret, and an enchanted grotto. Far off the tourist path, the Parc Monceau is the perfect place for an after-lunch stroll.
The Paris Métro is efficient, fast, and cheap. You can’t beat it as the quickest way to cross the city when you don’t want to take a taxi driven by a French driver with a death wish. If you have more time to get where you’re going, take busses so that you can watch the passing parade of Parisian sights and people. But if you’re in a hurry, descend to the Métro, check your route on the illuminated maps, and enjoy the ride.
While waiting in the Métro, Genna is struck by its relationship to the humble pissaladière, a pizza-like flatbread criss-crossed with anchovies and studded with olives. This recipe comes from Serious Eats.
Île de la Cité
Before fire devastated Notre-Dame Cathedral in 2019, one of my favorite things to do on a warm evening was to stroll around the magical Île de la Cité. Repairs to the cathedral are progressing, but we likely won’t see the cathedral in all its floodlit glory for quite some time.
In Love Among the Recipes, Genna pairs Île de la Cité with Rainbow Trout as a result of a tip from the irascible but kind-hearted and seriously committed foodie, Monsieur Leblanc. The recipe is from Dinner with Julie.
Near the Île de la Cité on a chilly spring day
L’Opéra Bastille
I was fortunate to see a performance of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung at L’Opéra Bastille a few years ago. A remarkable structure, the opera house in the Place de la Bastille in the 12th arrondissement was inaugurated in 1989 and is the home of the Paris National Opera.
In Love Among the Recipes, Genna is inspired by the wrapped and layered exterior of the opera house to create a recipe for veal cutlets in parchment (Escalopes de veau en papillote).
L’Opéra Bastille
Les Halles
Back in the day (and as recently as 1971), Les Halles was Paris’s central fresh-food market. Now, the market is part of a massive underground shopping mall. Les Halles is usually an area I traverse through long tunnels when changing lines at the Châtelet–Les Halles Métro stop. It’s one of the largest underground stations in the world that connects three of five RER lines and five of the sixteen Métro lines.
Thanks once again to the refined palate of Monsieur Leblanc, Genna pairs Les Halles with a recipe for Rabbit in Mustard Sauce.
Plaza above Les Halles
Montmartre
Montmartre overlooks Paris atop a large hill in the 18th arrondisement. It’s dominated by the ice-cream-cone domes of the Basilica of the Sacré-Cœur and includes plenty of charming cafés and an artsy atmosphere. However, each time I’ve visited, the crowds have been intense and so I usually haven’t stayed long. On the other hand, the views across the Paris skyline from Sacré-Cœur are magnificent, and I do remember our daughter at the age of nine enjoying the carousel at the base of the basilica.
Basilica of the Sacré-Cœur with the carousel at its base
Place du Tertre in Montmartre
The Place du Tertre teems with sidewalk cafés, street artists, locals, and tourists. At the beginning of the 20th century, the area was home to many famous painters, including Picasso and Modigliani. The home and studio of Renoir and Suzanne Valadon are also nearby.
The lively and cheerful area is a perfect match for macarons–the crispy, chewy, gloriously colorful confections that take pride of place in every French patisserie. This recipe comes from Serious Eats.
Place du Tertre in Montmartre
Place de la Concorde
The busy Place de la Concorde symbolizes monumental Paris. Stand in the middle of it and you can see many of the most famous sites in Paris, from the giant Ferris wheel to the Egyptian obelisk to the Eiffel Tower in the distance. Genna chooses the elegant French cookies called madeleines to pair with the Place de la Concorde.
Place de la Concorde
Tuileries Gardens
After trudging through the Louvre in search of great art, nothing beats taking some “me” time in one of the metal chairs arranged around fountains in the Tuileries Gardens. The flower beds overflow with color, the crowds swish past, and all is right with the world.
In Love Among the Recipes, Genna and Bill relax in the Tuileries before heading across the river to the Right Bank and Bill’s posh hotel on the Rue Saint-Honoré. Before they leave the gardens, Genna matches the Tuileries Gardens with Salade Niçoise, a hearty salad brimming with fresh anchovies, hard-boiled eggs, green beans, tuna, tomatoes, and potatoes. As Genna says, “every bite is a new combination of salty and crunchy.” This recipe comes from Serious Eats.
Gregg relaxing in one of the metal chairs in the Tuileries Gardens
Versailles
Versailles, the sumptuous palace of French kings and queens, is worth the day trip from Paris, but arrive early to avoid the crowds! Tour the palace first and then spend the rest of your time wandering around the grounds. You can easily walk all day and not come close to exploring all 2,000-plus acres of what is considered the world’s largest royal domain.
I find the interior of Versailles too over the top and opulent for my taste, but it is worth seeing. I remember experiencing terrible claustrophobia trapped in a heaving mass of tourists in the famous Hall of Mirrors, which is why I suggest getting to the palace as soon as it opens. Outside the palace, the grounds and fountains are truly spectacular. Schedule your visit on a day when the fountains are playing. Check the Versailles website for times.
Genna visits Versailles with Pierre Leblanc, and together they come up with Caesar Salad as the perfect dish to pair with the royal residence. This recipe comes from Serious Eats.
Hall of Mirrors in Versailles
Book your tickets well in advance and skip the line for the Palace of Versailles. The Palace is open every day except Monday from 9 am.
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