Bonjour and ca va?!
What an extraordinary week I have had and if you follow me on Facebook you’ll know I spent a couple of days in Paris as I’ve been posting some of my photos of daily life in the city. I never fail to be moved by the beauty of Paris, the history that permeates every street, the architecture that makes your heart soar. But, I also love how daily life goes on, seeing little old ladies buying plants to put on their balconies from a shop next to the Louvre for instance.
I was there to visit the first Paris Beaux Arts Fair, held at the Caroussel du Louvre, the one which features in the closing scene of the Da Vinci code as the secret location for the Holy Grail, buried under the inverse pyramid! It’s a very swanky shopping centre with all the big name shops and the perfect place to hold an art fair where the objets are aimed at a wide audience of buyers and collectors. Art from antiquities right up to the 21st Century is up for sale ranging from a few hundred Euros upwards (many thousands) and if you missed it this year, it will be on at the beginning of April next year and is the perfect place to seek a very special gift or a real piece of history from France. Or just to see some amazing art in private collections from Renoir to Cezanne to modern artists and comics, furniture, chandeliers, jewellery… sigh.
You’d think that was enough excitement for one week wouldn’t you but no, more was to come.
You may know by now that I live in the “sticks”, in the middle of nowhere in the tip of northern France, Pas de Calais. So you, like me, may have been surprised to find that the car park of the little cinema in the town of St Pol sur Ternoise, not far from where I live, was completely chocablock full up on Thursday night. The film that was showing was “The Theory of Everything”, the one with Eddie Redmayne playing the part of Stephen Hawking and for which he has won an Oscar and several more awards.
You may have been even more surprised to enter, find the cinema completely full up and Jane Hawking, first wife of Stephen Hawking who wrote the brilliant book of her memoirs on which the film is based, welcoming cinema goers to the showing! She had invited friends and neighbours; yes she too has a home in this part of France, to view the film alongside the paying public and introduced it, and then ended it with a questions and answer session!
Sometimes you’re the pigeon soaring high and sometimes you’re the statue the pigeon is sitting on (!) – this week I feel like the pigeon…
Wishing you all a very bon weekend and a very Happy Easter
Bisous from France
Janine
Editor
Top Features this week
Where to find the best baguette in Paris – it’s official, they’ve been judged!
Ten Reasons to visit Troyes in photos – it is such a picturesque, quaint and lively town, one visit and you are hooked!
Easter in France – every year around 13000 tonnes of chocolate eggs, bells, chickens and bunnies are sold for Easter! Check out how Easter in France is celebrated, not with bunnies but with bells!
Some of the best chocolate shops in Paris – Five of my favourites, but this is only one list, there’s more to come!
History of chocolate in France – chocolate celebrates its 400th birthday in France this year (apparently!) – it all goes back to Louis XIII…
Enjoy a nibble of a little madeleine cake flavoured with pistachios, warm from the oven, dipped in chocolate sorbet they are so delicious – a great recipe from French chef Daniel Galmiche…
Finally a massive merci beaucoups for all your comments, likes and shares on Facebook, RTs and shares on Twitter
