My Life in Paris and Travels Around France
Paris is a wonderful place to celebrate Valentine’s Day no matter if you’re celebrating with a partner, a group of friends, family, or just yourself. My perfect Valentine’s Day in Paris looks a lot like a perfect day in Paris in February. So whether you’re celebrating love or just love for Paris, read on to see how I’d spend the day.
This week’s Five Friday Finds from France includes two cultural items, two food and drink items, and one future shopping and cultural event. If you know me, this sounds about right. I’m feeling pretty good about my museum count being at two for the first week of February – I need to keep up the pace. This week’s Five Friday Finds from France, in chronological order:
Hôtel de Lauzun is one of those mythical places you hear about in Paris – stunning, filled to the brim with history including former residents like Baudelaire, and almost impossible to get into and see. From the outside it looks like just about any other hôtel particulier on Île Saint-Louis, except for the wonderfully ornate dolphin-shaped gutters. But even then, there really isn’t an indication of how spectacular it is inside.
One of the must-see expositions in Paris right now is Da Vinci at the Musée du Louvre. The exposition opened October 24th 2019 and runs through February 24th 2020. The year 2019 marked the 500th anniversary of Da Vinci’s death in Amboise in the Loire Valley. The exposition contains a mix of drawings, manuscripts, notebooks, sculptures, and paintings.
Yesterday Romain surprised me with the best early Christmas gift ever: a behind-the-scenes, top to bottom private tour of the Palais Garnier Opéra House. Palais Garnier is my favorite building in Paris, so to discover it in such an up close and personal way felt like a beyond unimaginable dream.