During my first night at Le Royal Monceau - Raffles Paris in June, I noticed something was amiss. The large chair in the corner had been slightly repositioned, the curtains were drawn, and the bed looked tidier than I left it earlier that day.
05.10.2023 - 19:49 / cntraveler.com / North Africa
My relationship with France, much like that with the United States, started in the south and cautiously moved north. Originally from Atlanta, I’ve been in the New York area for the past decade. But even now, I’m still finding my footing—and with each stumble, taking time for myself in France has helped guide me.
In 2016, trying to get through college amid a tipping point of racial disharmony on campus, I wanted idyllic calm and fairytale adventures. I also craved newness, to touch ground in a land I’d only learned about through history classes. I found WorkAway, a platform that facilitates homestays and cultural exchanges, and connected with a family in Montboucher-Sur-Jabron, Provence, who needed an au pair to assist their daughter—in return, I would live in their home and dine on home-cooked meals. One static-filled Skype call later, I bought a plane ticket to Lyon using every dollar I had earned over the summer.
For ten weeks, I immersed myself in French life. I ate a persimmon for the first time, plucked straight off the tree. I learned that the French give silly names to their donkeys, reflecting their utility. (Ours was named Tartine, “Toast.”) I was taught how to ride a tandem bicycle alongside blooming lavender fields. Moreover, I collected moments that would serve as reprieve for my stateside self. Broad breaths. Feet in soil. Slow mornings.
That following summer, I found an internship further south in Marseille and got to experience another layer of the country—the influence of North Africa. My walk to work, peppered with skin tones akin to my own, was welcoming. Marseille, almost as close to Algiers as it is Paris, gave me a sense of ease I wanted to bottle and ship home.
Seven years later, I found myself adrift after leaving a job, and knew what I needed to do. I reached out to my WorkAway family, asking if they knew anyone who might be interested in swapping apartments with me for the fall. Anywhere in France would do. By the end of the day, they had connected me with M (who asked that we not use her name), their former au pair and a resident of Paris.
I prepped my own New York City apartment with sticky notes indicating where the paper towels were stocked, which window shouldn’t be opened, and to explain that the noise at 6 a.m. is pigeons and there’s no stopping them. A matter of hours later, my partner greeted her in Brooklyn with my keys, while her mother handed me hers outside an apartment in the 17th arrondissement.
An apartment swap in Paris allowed the writer to immerse herself in French life.
On the seventh floor, the place felt close enough to the Paris clouds that I could almost touch them, the living room and bedroom patterned with deep set sky lights. As for M, hints of her
During my first night at Le Royal Monceau - Raffles Paris in June, I noticed something was amiss. The large chair in the corner had been slightly repositioned, the curtains were drawn, and the bed looked tidier than I left it earlier that day.
On a steamy summer Monday in Paris’s 11th Arrondissement, the chef Rose Chalalai Singh, 43, is unloading a suitcase of cooking equipment at her new private dining space, Rose Kitchen. The kitchen is still in its final stages of refurbishment but, says Singh, “I can cook anywhere as long as there’s water and gas.”
France is on high security alert with top Paris tourist attractions evacuated over the weekend due to fears of a potential attack.
Here’s a sentence I never thought I’d write: bedbugs have taken over the city of Paris, and we are now faced with the prospect that the outbreak could travel overseas. The infestation began just before Paris Fashion Week (yes, these bugs have good taste), when reports broke of increased sightings of the insects in homes, cinemas, trains and even hospitals. Now, questions are being asked about the safety of traveling to and from Paris; what we can do to prevent the spread, and whether the critters are already settling in our mattresses. Below, we answer all your questions about travel and the bedbug spread.
Star Alliance unveiled a sleek new 14,000-square-foot lounge that's slated to open at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) on Friday.
There’s a new kid on the English Channel block as a new train company aims to launch high-speed service from London to Paris.
As Morocco continues its recovery from last month’s earthquake (which devastated many of the rural communities in the High Atlas Mountains), life in Marrakesh carries on largely uninterrupted, especially in the city’s economically vital tourism sector. That includes the opening of a clutch of new hotels, like Farasha Farmhouse, a four-room boutique property. Formerly an artist’s private retreat, Farasha, which lies 30 minutes outside of the city center, is the vision of Rosena and Fred Charmoy. The Marrakesh-based couple are the founders of Boutique Souk — a local high-end events company popular with visiting celebrities and fashion brands (their client list includes Chanel and Saint Laurent) — and are known for their theatrical, over-the-top parties and weddings. Farasha, though, is a more tranquil endeavor. “We loved the mountain views on both sides of the property,” says Rosena, referring to the Atlas and Jbilet ranges that appear to envelop the acres of olive groves and herb gardens. The two-story main building, which holds three suites and the soaring, open-plan common space, is complemented by a neighboring stand-alone cottage. To furnish the place, the Charmoys turned to local creative friends: floors are laid with custom tapestries from Beni Rugs; sculptures were installed by the Moroccan contemporary artist Amine El Gotaibi; and the book collection comes from the family estate of Diana Vreeland, the legendary former editor of Vogue, donated to the hotel by her son Freck, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Morocco. Food here is similarly considered, overseen by the chef Aniss Meski. The olive oil is made on-site, most vegetable dishes use the farm’s produce and a flock of chickens provides a daily supply of fresh eggs. And if the prospect of snagging one of only four guest rooms seems like a tall challenge, fear not: six more will be available to book starting next year.
Coming from New England, which is famous for its fall colours, I was disillusioned by the sheer multitude of brown, crumpled horse-chestnut leaves on display in Paris in autumn. So I began my quest for hints of gold, amber, russet and scarlet and have been richly rewarded.
A “widespread” increase of bedbugs has been reported in the French capital, prompting the government to pledge measures to “reassure and protect” the people. Clement Beaune, the French minister of transport, has said that he will hold a meeting this week to “take additional measures” to safeguard the public from the alleged increase in the number of insects.
In 2018, I packed up my New York City studio apartment and moved to Paris to be with the French guy I met on vacation two years earlier.
A multi-stop itinerary from London to Barcelona – via Paris and the Pyrenees – is a train lover’s dream.
After bedbug sightings on trains and cinemas in France, an expert is warning that the blood-sucking parasites could be hitching a ride to the UK on the Eurostar.