Travel & Hotspots

Pitstop Paris

You can really do this in a day

It will become an annual outing, a day of ‘going back and forth’ from Amsterdam to Paris with my beloved magazine mom Harriet Calo. In a state of utmost optimism, I said that taking the 06:17 train would be no problem at all. Not knowing that I had an event the night before with our friends from FavorFlav and also dined with Jetteke van Lexmond and all her intimates (yes, yes, Doutzen was there too).

When the alarm went off, I found the self-imposed time one of my less brilliant ideas, but hey, we would be standing at Gare du Nord at half past nine and Paris would be completely ours for a whole day.

Moral of this piece? That you should do this too. With your girlfriend/mother/partner/colleague or sister. If they can walk a bit briskly and want to know where May gets the Marni (or the Maje for that matter), they are Paris-in-a-day-proof. And here is my favorite route.

1. Take a taxi to Boulevard Saint Germain. Browse a bit at Sonia Rykiel and walk further (uptempo, you have no minute to lose) to Café de Flore. You can have a coffee there (know that Parisiennes sit inside and would rather die than be seen in the conservatory), but then especially quickly walk to the magazine kiosk on the corner. This has the finest collection of magazines and great coloring books (the ones with Vogue covers and Parisian scenes are my favorites) and postcards.

2. If you go left past Les Deux Magots and then take the second right, you will end up on Rue Jacob. Here you will find all beautiful boutiques, galleries, and especially Jérôme Dreyfuss (the man of the bags that all Parisian women carry) and the very first boutique of his wife Isabel Marant.

3. Turn left on Rue de Seine and you will see Café Palette, an old artists' café. You don't have to go there, but it's nice to casually and smoothly mention it.

4. Rue de Buci is my great love. Cozy restaurants, terraces, and a wonderful Taschen store. If you're smart, take your rolling suitcase with you, because these coffee table books are heavy heavy.

5. For lunch, La Société is our favorite. Same menu as at Costes and L’Avenue, but a bit less m’as tu vue (French for ‘see and be seen’) than the other two. Sitting outside = more smoking. I just had to say it.

“Bon voyage”

6. After lunch, walk via Rue de Rennes and then turn right at Rue de Sèvres to Le Bon Marché. To be honest, we found the department store a bit disappointing (what's with all the interior stuff suddenly between ‘our’ fashion floors, we were completely thrown off and couldn't find anything), but the épicerie makes up for everything. Especially now. Think six shelves with different types of water, seven racks with the most exclusive chocolate in those delicious French packages, 77 types of mustard, and even the bouillon cubes are festive. You can immediately toss some Mariage Frères tea into your cart and this way you will think back to your pitstop Paris several times a day.

7. Take a taxi to ‘the other side’, or the other side of the Seine, a.k.a. Rive Droite. You should know that Rive Gauche is the understated side of the river (so very much Jérôme and Isabel) and the right side, well, a bit more chichichanel and vavavuitton. Stroll past the big labels on Rue du Faubourg-Saint Honoré and turn diagonally across from Colette to Marché Saint-Honoré. After twenty-seven steps, you will find the vintage paradise on your left. But don’t tell anyone else, or I will have to lock you up.

8. If you are particularly well-dressed, you might try to make it to the bar of the Ritz that has finally reopened after a renovation of about four years. But I warned you; for sneakers and backpacks with cutouts for water bottles, the answer is a firm: non!

9. If you want to hit that ten kilometers on your heart app, walk to Palais-Royal and catch your breath on a bench there. Then score some likes for your Instagram, because it doesn’t get more picturesque than this spot.

10. Check your watch and realize that it takes a while to puff through the traffic to the station. Take your taxi a good hour before departure, then you still have time to grab an oyster at Terminus or to pick up some strong paracetamol with codeine at the pharmacy on the corner.

Bon voyage (and uh… good catch).