“We’ll always have Paris...”

Established in 1903, Angelina has been serving tea and other gourmet delights to Parisians and foreign visitors for over a century! Here in 2012, it is still a must see place for those who enjoy the best that Paris has to offer. Once known as Rumpelmayers, this Belle Époque salon de thé is set in a frescoes-and-gilded-mirrors décor enclosing closely set cloth-covered marble-topped tables set for Parisian ladies & blue-jeaned tourists who are treated equally in these rich surroundings. Though busy serving a full house, the service is usually very good and friendly. The waiting lines can be long depending on the time you come, but they do move quickly…

Whether you stop in for tea or their famous hot chocolate or maybe a mille-feuilles or their equally famous Mont-Blanc, you will be in Heaven. The hot chocolat l’Africain (6.90€) is a thick dark chocolate served in a pot for one with a side of fresh whipped cream, not overly sweet but perfection when mixed together. Coupled with the Mont-Blanc pastry (6.70€), a meringue base piled with chestnut purée & whipped cream, your senses will be overwhelmed ! Angelina also serves delicious salads, quiches, desserts and the like. Famed French writer Marcel Proust, who loved their madeleines, declared they could transport him back to childhood… Isn’t nice to fall into a sugar coma sometimes?

'Angelina' is open every day from 9 am till 7pm. 226, rue de Rivoli - 75001 Paris (métro: Concorde)

Ever wondered how many precious mornings you’ve lost, lazing around in bed on week-ends? We’ve found a real good reason to drag ourselves out of the sheets: the Vanves flea market on Saturday and sunday mornings. It is amazing and inspiring. There are so many hidden treasures to be found here, an exciting place that will capture your imagination.. 380 stall holders await you: furniture, trinkets, paintings, time pieces, jewelry, militaria, fabric, kitchenware, photography, music, and curios. It’s the place to visit for flea market enthusiasts. Be the weather sunny or rainy, its merchants, all professionals, will welcome you and offer you their lucky finds of the week!

Vanves is quite straightforward and easy to navigate: it’s two long blocks with open stands. Things are fairly priced and the vendors are open to bargaining. You can find just about everything here, from the many regions of France as well as elsewhere – not surprising given the international character of Paris. Another plus about Vanves is the excellent food market nearby on the Boulevard de Brune with a great selection of fresh products, rotisserie chickens, mouth watering fish and smelly cheeses… But suddenly it’s 1pm, and everyone packs up and takes off to the melody of an old piano somewhere. You could go on with your day wearing your newly acquired vintage Ray-Bans or head back to bed. Your choice.

Rentals-paris.com contest winners enjoying a day's outing

This past November rentals-paris.com hosted our contest winners, Patricia and her close friend, for a week stay in one of our beautiful Ile de la Cite apartments. They are both big fans of Paris so it was an easy trip to organize.  We had so much fun going with them to some great restaurants and enjoying a wonderful French country village Attic Sale (Vide Grenier). There were lots of fun things to see and to buy there. It’s amazing what you can find in a French Attic….

We had our good friend, Kit, along with us too.  She enjoyed the experience and compared it to the markets she does in New York although the French countryside experience was definitely new for her.  One seller even offered her a nice French gift….

One of our Paris Fractional Onwership patrons enjoys a Vide Grenier...

Among the joys of spending time in Paris and throughout France, are the funky flea markets and Attic sales. All sorts of unexpected items are to be found in these markets. Always more fun than going to Walmart…

The Cirque d’hiver (winter circus), located at 110, rue Amelot (Paris 11th), has been an outstanding venue for circuses, exhibitions of dressage, musical concerts, and other events, including fashion shows! The theatre was designed by the architect Hittorff and opened by Emperor Napoleon III in December 1852 as the ‘Cirque Napoleon‘. The place was renamed Cirque d’hiver in 1870. The circus is a polygon, with Corinthian columns, giving the impression of an oval building enclosing the oval ring, surrounded by banked seating for spectators, like a small indoor Colosseum. This majestuous historical monument has to been seen to be believed!

Circuses are taken seriously in France: they are considered to be culture as performance art – including the performing animals. The Bouglione family have run a circus in this coliseum since the 1930′s. From now on until March 4th 2012, you can enjoy a new spectacular show complete with acrobatics, a flying trapeze, roarings lions and horseback riding in the center of Paris! The seats are comfortable and cosy and it’s a great place to keep children of all ages busy and spend an unforgettable holiday with your family in Paris… BEST WISHES TO YOU FOR A WONDERFUL 2012. And big thanks for your membership in our blogging community! From everyone at Rentals in Paris.

Cirque d'hiver - 110, rue Amelot - 75011 Paris ☎: +33 147 001 225

One of the world’s latest spectacles, The Cirque du Soleil, is now in Paris until January 8th 2012.  This year’s show, CORTEO, goes above and beyond their past shows and is definitely worth the evening…

The Cirque du Soleil comes from French Canada’s Quebec region and began in the 1980s.  A very theatrical spectacle, unlike the old Circus shows with animals and knife throwers, the show has taken the world by storm.  Les Échassiers de Baie-Saint-Paul (‘The Stiltwalkers of Baie-Saint-Paul’), a theater troupe founded by Gilles Ste-Croix, walked on stilts, juggled, danced, breathed fire and played music. These young entertainers, among whom was Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté, have now taken the world by storm, a sun storm….

The present show, CORTEO, is a wonderful escape from Paris winter gray skies. It is colorful, musical, it has a lot of action on a wide center stage (located in a mysterious space between heaven and earth) and it is absolutely entertaining… Come enjoy a Sunny Break this winter!

From the outside, the new Shangri-La hotel in Paris (located next to Paris’ landmark Trocadero) has a French Riviera flavour, with snappy green awnings against a limestone façade and palms on the balconies. On the inside, however, a 19th-century Parisian opulence sparkles — mahogany, silk, marble, fluffy couches and crystal chandeliers fill Paris‘ first new palace hotel in years. The organization perfectly restored the former home of the French imperial prince Roland Bonaparte, grand-nephew of Emperor Napoleon, taking such pains as to remove and rehabilitate the 1896 building’s original wood floors… We dined at the hotel’s flagship restaurant, The Shang Palace and had the rare opportunity to ask Cantonese Chef Frank Xu to cook us a ‘surprise’ menu.

The food was wonderful beyond belief (smoked bean curd skin filled with shredded vegetable, stir-fried pork with clams and chives, wok-fried snow beans with fried taro, rice in lotus leaf, crispy pumpkin puffs, sweetened egg-white almond cream with sesame ball etc.) with the 5 stars service of a Shangri-La, welcoming staff members and fair prices. Our dishes were very tasty, spicy and exotic. This restaurant will certainly become one of the best genuine Chinese restaurants in Paris… and it succeeds with panache! Paris’ Shang Palace brings the Shangri-La much closer to paradise. We will definitely visit them again for a Dim Sun lunch…

Boat tours in Paris have flourished since the 1940′s and the Compagnie des Bateaux Mouches is the oldest company operating boat tour. Les Bateaux Mouches are open excursion boats that provide visitors to Paris with a view of the city from along the Seine river. The name translates literally as “fly boats” (“fly” meaning the insect); however, the name comes from the fact that they were originally manufactured in boatyards situated in the Mouche area of Lyon! Today still, Les Bateaux Mouches is the most widely known operator – and the best – of the boats in Paris and most tours include a live or recorded commentary on the sights along the river.

A regular cruise lasts about one hour; many companies offer lunch and dinner cruises as well. The boats are equipped with lights to illuminate landmarks in the night. Since the Seine is centrally situated in Paris, a tour covers a great deal of the city (both the left bank and the right bank are visible from the boat). Passengers can see, among other sites, the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Eiffel Tower, the Pont Neuf, the Orsay Museum, the Alexander III Bridge, les Invalides (Napoleon‘s burial site), the Louvres Museum etc. How could you imagine a more idyllic and spectacular way to discover Paris‘ exquisite monuments, especially at night ? You can’t beat a cliché…

Les Bateaux Mouches - Port de l'Alma, 75008 Paris - +33 (0)142259610

The sunny days of summer are almost over and with them a need to get some exercise to get back in the swing of things! Luckily, Paris offers no fewer than 40 public swimming pools, with very flexible opening hours. Depending on the pool, you can sign in for swimming lessons, or use some of the facilities such as saunas, jacuzzis and cardio machines. Parisian pools are generally clean, comfortable and cheap. Entry prices vary according to the location and the facilities offered, but for around 2 to 6 €, you get an entry pass for a day. Visitors can also get a monthly or yearly subscriptions at attractive rates.

One of our favourite pools in Paris is the floating Joséphine Baker pool, named after the famous Parisian transplant. It benefits from a perfect location on the Seine river by the Quai Francois Mauriac (13th arrondissement). Paris’ first floating swimming pool measures 25 by 10 meters and has a sliding roof that opens up when the weather is fine (for 2.60€, get access to both pools, a sauna, a jacuzzi and a sundeck). We also love the central Pontoise pool, near Saint Germain des Près, with its late night openings on monday and friday until 11:45pm (entry for the day costs 3.70€). The pool, which measures 33 by 15 meters, was built in 1936 and its architecture is splendid; Juliette Binoche took a dip there in “Three Colours: Blue“. Don’t forget to bring a towel and your flip-flops!

Every summer the Seine riverbanks are transformed into seaside resort – with 6,000 tons of sand - offering relaxation and sporting activites for free! Once again, Paris Plages are bringing a holiday atmosphere of family and soft sand to the capital until August 21st. Parisians and tourists can stroll along one kilometre of the north bank of the Seine, comfortably settle into colourful deckchairs facing the river, enjoy a concert, watch a sporting event or sip the latest trendy cocktails in one of the many refreshment areas on the beach… It’s a dream!

They marked the history of art… The canvases of Claude Monet, Édouard Vuillard, Edgar Degas, Gustave Caillebotte and Jean Béraud now take over the Town Hall in Paris for an exceptional exhibition, until 30 July 2011 ! Now, the St Jean room of the Hôtel de Ville hosts the greatest Impressionist names, with paintings, pastels and drawings evoking Paris and its inhabitants at the turn of the century. This major, free exhibition is organised with the exceptional support of the Musée d’Orsay, the French reference on the 19th century and the Impressionist period…

Claude Monet - La Gare Saint Lazare, 1877.

Between 1848 and 1914, the new Paris was at the centre of artistic preoccupations. The Impressionists identified with the dynamic and eventful urban life, the boulevards, streets and bridges with their constant activity. In 1879, Édouard Manet was refused permission to decorate a room in the newly rebuilt Hôtel de Ville… One hundred and thirty years later, the City Hall in Paris is paying tribute to the artist’s dream: a selection of Impressionist works describing their vision of life are now on display in its majestic halls. You will also be able to discover architectural documents and models showing the new identity of the Paris of Napoleon III… Exceptional stuff!

Entrance: 5, rue de Lobau, 75004 Paris. Metro: Hotel de Ville (lines 1 and 7). Every day except Sundays and public holidays, from 10am to 7pm.