TRAVEL DIARY: ARTIST ALICE TOICH IN PARIS
Paris – the most romantic of cities – is where artist Alice Toich and her husband chose to spend their honeymoon.
LE MARAIS ARRONDISSEMENT My husband booked an eclectic artist’s atelier in Le Marais on Rue de Temple as a surprise for our honeymoon, and I’ve been asked about it so many times that I want to leave a link for the Airbnb listing right here in print. The neighbourhood made all the difference to our experience with its bustling cafés, bistros and streets, and our apartment was crammed with beautiful art and furniture, silken throws, ambercoloured glasses, clamshell spoons and well-fingered books on aesthetic. When we left, our host gave us my favourite Bordallo Pinheiro frog jug, which we used all the time in the apartment, as a spontaneous wedding gift. I use it every morning to make coffee.
MUSÉE D’ORSAY It’s my favourite museum, and one I always make time to visit in Paris. You’ll find it gleaming like a giant gem along the left bank of the Seine. This building doesn’t just house works of art – it is a work of art. Known for its impressive collection of French Impressionists, it has all my favourite Manet paintings on the top floor, ticking away behind the giant clock face that looks over Paris. While the collection is vast and I am always discovering new pieces to love, I can return to my favourite works with ease. And here is the real kicker: I can take friends and acquaintances there who don’t know much about art without them feeling overwhelmed.
LA MARINE BISTRO Two years ago, when I travelled to Paris for a weekend, a friend took me to La Marine – one of his favourite haunts along the Canal SaintMartin. It’s an unpretentiously elegant, quintessential French bistro, serving delicious food, crisp cocktails and endless glasses of wine behind the comfort of warm velvet curtains. If you love fish, I’d recommend the filet de bar (bass filet) in a creamy white sauce perfectly perfumed with white wine. That first time, I was told, “You cannot leave here without ending the meal with a plate of our profiteroles” (which, by the way, are stuffed with homemade vanilla ice cream and slathered in hot chocolate sauce) – and true as Trudeau, since that moment, I never have!
MARCHÉ AUX PUCES DE SAINT-OUEN One thing I love to do on a Sunday in Paris is head up to the north edge of the city ring for a meander through the Saint-Ouen antique district. There are shops that sparkle with a hundred crystal pendants whispering of the outlying châteaux pillaged in the French Revolution, and stores crammed ceiling-high with moth-eaten posters and books from La Belle Époque. The walkways snake past permanent stores specialising in haute antiques, and through a labyrinth of market fronts crammed with enough bric-a-brac of embroidered linen, ceramic vases, brass lamps, stuffed animals, costume jewellery, marble columns and silverware to supply endless coffers in your fantasy Parisian home. I always leave with something special. My last purchase was a 19thcentury plaster bust of a nun; it travelled home to Cape Town resting on my lap like a fragile babe.
MARCHÉ DES ENFANTS ROUGES I think picnics are the best way to enjoy a place, its food and the presence of loved ones. I adore picnics along the Seine or on a bench in one of the many city parks – or, in the case of a winter honeymoon, on our living-room floor, with a bottle of red by candlelight. We were lucky to stay close to the Marché des Enfants Rouges, which meant we could easily assemble a bounty of exotic French cheeses, fresh vegetables, crusty baguettes and good bottles of wine from the market and the small food shops that surround it. alice_angela_toich | alicetoich.com