HOURS IN PARIS
WHY IT’S GREAT
‘Paris is always a good idea,’ Audrey Hepburn once said and we couldn’t agree more. The capital of France is home to some of the best hotels, restaurants, bars and shops in the world.
WHEN YOU’RE THERE…
Get ready for an elegant trip. Kick off with Atelier des Lumières, a digital exhibition so cool it would be criminal to miss (you might recognise it from a scene in Netflix’s Emily In Paris). Isabel Marant, APC, Maje, Sandro, Ganni: all of the cool-girl labels are stocked at Galeries Lafayette, so it makes sense to check out the legendary department store while you’re in town. At dusk, walk to the middle of Pont Neuf, Paris’ oldest bridge, and capture the Seine and Eiffel Tower in one glorious shot, then ascend Montparnasse Tower to the observation deck and see the entire city lit up before your eyes. Paris has well and truly earned its nickname of la Ville Lumière, the City of Light.
EAT & DRINK
La Maison Rose, a pink-walled, greenshuttered corner restaurant in Montmartre, is Paris’ prettiest restaurant, no contest. Bag a table on the pavement, order the salmon in garlic saffron aioli, followed by cheesecake with seasonal fruits and bask in the glory of living your best Instagram life. Also visit Café de Flore, an art deco institution on the Boulevard SaintGermain, where artists and writers like Picasso and Simone de Beauvoir used to gather in the 1940s. It still attracts a strong people-watching crowd today, so order some wine and soak up the atmos.
WHERE TO STAY
Vice Versa (from £90 per night; Viceversahotel.com) has bedrooms based on the seven deadly sins, including wrath (black walls, spray paint-tagged artwork), greed (bank-note wallpaper) and, our favourite, gluttony, which has a round bed, macaroon cushions, a cupcake chair and pink walls. For something less in your face, book in at the white- and perspexfilled Kube Hotel (from £85 per night; Kubehotel-paris.com), which has its own ice bar, Ice Kube, running at a cool -10˚C.