Beginning in June and throughout the summer months you can enjoy every type of art - dance, music, cinema, theater, cabaret, even circus – at this summer festival. Each neighborhood participates in this fun, open-air event.

Some examples of venues and events include a dance performance in the Tuileries Garden for 15 €, Jazz at the Arènes de Montmartre for 15 €, classical piano in the Luxembourg Garden which is free.

Mariage Frères

Stepping into Mariage Frères in the Marais district is like stepping back in time, with the dark walls lined with various teas, the hanging scales and the white gloved waiters. The first thing you notice is the wonderful odors of tea in the air. They have a tea menu which includes approximately 500 teas, so there is surely one you will enjoy. The food is usually very good as well, especially the pastries. Very attentive service, but a bit cramped. Be sure to buy some tea on your way out. (No particular dress code here).

This is another one of those “gastro bistros” that seem to be popping up all over Paris. Run by famous French chef Yves Camdeborde (formerly of La Régalade and Crillon) and his wife. The location, very near the Odéon metro stop in the Saint Germain-des-Près neighborhood, is ideal for tourists and residents alike. The food is exactly what you are looking for if you want to eat as the French eat: foie gras, beef, lamb, and excellent desserts.

One of the more unique aspects to this neighborhood bistro is the menu: for approximately 40 € you eat from a prix fixe menu, but you have no choice in what you are served. You get what they have prepared that day, much like you would at a friend’s home. But I doubt many people go away disappointed! Le Comptoir has a superb reputation and it is best to reserve months in advance if you hope to dine there.

À la carte lunch averages about $36 and dinner, when they pull out the tablecloths, is about $48, prix fixe.

The Britannique is a lovely, small hotel that guests rave about and return to year after year. The location is just about as perfect as it could be. Located just across the river from the Ile de la Cité on the Right Bank (first arrondissement), it is within walking distance to most of Paris’s greatest attractions including the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, Notre Dame, the Sainte Chapelle and the Pompidou Center.

The hospitality of the hotel is what impresses the most. The staff is professional, friendly and certainly aims to please. English is spoken so there are no worries about communication. The spacious rooms, which are decorated in warm creams and dark reds, are kept spotlessly clean by the housekeeping staff. The soundproofed windows in each room would never lead you to believe that you are in the center of one of the world’s capital cities. If you would like a balcony, ask for one on one of the upper floors.

The Orangerie Reopens!

May 17, 2006, marks the grand re-opening date of the Orangerie Museum (4 years behind schedule!).

The former orange grove in the Tuileries Gardens has been housing Monet’s famous “Nympheas” (”Water Lilies”) since 1927. The paintings are permanently fixed on the oval walls of the building, so any renovation or demolition had to occur around the paintings themselves.

Six years and $36 million after renovations started, the Orangerie is a new and improved home for the famous paintings: the second story has been destroyed in order to allow natural light to bathe the Nympheas in the light they craved. It is a brighter, more open space, but still is home to many Cezannes, Renoirs, Picassos, Modiglianis, Mattises and some of the best of Chaim Soutine.