Ahh, Paris. The restaurants, museums, and attractions are all wonderful – but come summer it often feels like you may have to stand in line just to get a glimpse of a painting or a seat at a café. However, there’s no need to give up on your dream of a relaxing Paris summer sojourn: we have the insider track on the less visited sites and neighborhoods -- the kind Parisians only tell their friends about.
Chateau de Vaux le Vicomte (or “Vaux” as its current owners call it), is the greatest chateau you’ve never heard of. Its gardens, by the same landscape designer as Versailles – André Le Nôtre – both predate, and out-great, the gardens at the better-known palace, which Le Nôtre designed later in the 1600s. The 1,200 acres of greenery here seem to roll endlessly past the 26 ponds and water features and sculpted hedges, and into the charming French countryside. And while you can see the gardens and chateau during the day, as you can at Versailles, there’s one fantastic insider difference here: on summer Saturday evenings, you can dine under the stars in the light of 2,000 candles and then watch fireworks light up the summer sky. So why have you never heard of Vaux, less than an hour outside of Paris? Well, it has something to do with King Louis XIV throwing Vaux’s owner, his finance minister Nicolas Fouquet, in prison for life due to his suspicions of embezzlement (true) and treason (untrue). The best place to hear the fascinating tale? In the gardens with a glass of bubbly on the champagne terrace; which, happily, you won’t have to share with beaucoup tourists.
Since the 17th century, the elegant sculpted hedgerows and palatial architecture of the Palais Royale have attracted royalty, and then nobility, looking for a respite from the busy Parisian streets. Today, you can take their lead and take respite from bustling department stores such as Galeries Lafayette to shop in the chic boutiques that line the lovely park – among them you’ll find trend setters such as Stella McCartney and “only here” shops such as Didier Ludot for vintage couture and the elegant Serge Lutens perfumery.
Sure, the d’Orsay has Picasso, Monet, and Renoir, but on a recent spring weekend it also had hundreds of museum aficionados spilling down the stairs waiting to enter. At the Marmottan Monet, it’s an entirely different story, with art lovers in the know venturing to the former home of the Duke of Valmy, where the largest collection of works by Monet in the world, donated by the great painter’s son, are permanently on display. The walls here are also decked with master works by Manet, Pissaro, Sisley, and Renoir --- all patients (along with Monet) of Dr. Georges de Bellio, who bequeathed his private, and very personal, collection to the museum. Unless there’s a special exhibit being held, the museum is usually relatively unfilled, with the crowds heading to the better-known, and way more crowded, museums.
There are exciting things afoot in Parisian dining, but they’re not happening in the cafés of St Germain, the former playground of the hot and hip. Instead, head up, up and away to the lofty heights of Belleville in the 11th arrondisment, past the Opera, past the Bastille, to find the trendiest eateries, and clientele, in the city. Here, chic young things carrying motorcycle helmets, goateed hipsters, artists, and trend-setters line up for cutting edge bites at bijoux spots such as Septime and it’s new sister down the street, Clamato, where artfully arranged small plates reign and the prices are a fraction of what you’d pay at more established neighborhoods. Grab a glass of wine at one of the bars in the neighborhood where you can watch the artsy neighborhood, sans tourists, unfold in front of you.
Although the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries may be the most recognizable woven works in town, the Musée Cluny doesn’t have the most extensive collection of these sorts of masterpieces. That honor goes to the magnificent works at the Gobelins Tapestry Gallery, where full-wall size weavings filled with incredible detail and depth fill room after room of the 17th century building. You won’t believe these aren’t oil paintings until you get up close and see the silken threads that may have taken as long as 4 years for half a dozen experts to weave. Best of all, even on a weekend afternoon, you can often have a gallery all to yourself – you’ll never look at tapestries, or Parisian museums, quite the same way again.