After romantic food, flowers, chocolate, why not romantic places? Venice would have its takers. I especially love it at this time of year when the pearly, watery light is reflected on damp pavements and it is easy to escape the crowds.
St Petersburg under a blanket of snow would look pretty, and one would want to dress, like Anna Karenina, in sumptuous Arctic fox furs or sables, I feel.
Rome, the Eternal City, is always on the list of “10 most...”, and the restaurant on the roof at the Hotel Eden, La Terrazza, one of the loveliest I have ever eaten in, has breathtaking views over the city.
I would have to add Seville, with its narrow whitewashed streets, the haunting sound of flamenco in the background and the scent of orange blossom everywhere. Gozo has been included on more than one list of romantic places to visit, because of Calypso and Odysseus, and, having had a sneak preview of the Valentine’s Day menu at Ta’ Frenċ (warm Valrhona chocolate cake with white chocolate ice-cream, anyone?) what better place to spend next weekend, without all the hassle of airports?
But for me the most romantic place in the world is still Paris. I say “still”, because Tom and I met there umpty years ago, went there for our honeymoon and return as often as we can to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, most recently just a few weeks ago for that umptieth wedding anniversary, which we celebrated by staying in our favourite small family-run hotel in the 14th and lunching in magnificence at Le Bristol the day we left Paris.
The tables in Le Bristol’s restaurant gastronomique are so generously spaced that you can be whatever you want to be: a business table, a romantic table, a family table, a tourist table, even a presidential table (yes, this is where Nicolas Sarkozy entertains outside the Elysée Palace).
And if they know in advance that it is a special occasion, they might, as they did for us, bake you a special cake. We had eaten there several times in the past, but none during Eric Fréchon’s tenure of the kitchen. It is easy to see why this restaurant has three Michelin stars.
Service and food were simply peerless. The 85€ lunch might sound expensive, but it was wonderful, and far more than the four courses one saw on the menu. In addition there were two services of amuse-bouche, including an oyster in seaweed jelly, which looked like a marble, a foie gras lollipop encased in spun sugar, and an egg shell filled with creamy egg and truffle.
After the cheese course came a pre-dessert of mango, mango jelly and yuzu lime sorbet, and after the desserts, which were like ethereal fairy food, came the petit four trolley, laden with home-made marshmallow, salt butter caramels, chocolate truffles, barley sugar twists, macarons and candied citron peel dipped in chocolate. For a special celebration I can think of no better table in Paris at the moment.
Over the years, we have stayed in every kind of establishment in Paris, it seems, from the cheapest and frankly seedy hotel, where rooms used to cost the equivalent of €1 today (don’t ask) to the impossibly grand Crillon, George V and Le Bristol.
Sometimes we were lucky enough to stay at the British Embassy, and last year we rented an apartment. But we have found a place we love, in the area we love, Hotel de la Paix on Boulevard Raspail, just southof where it crosses Boulevard Montparnasse.
A typical, tall narrow Parisian building, with a dressed stone facade, we always stay on the top floor in a room at the back overlooking rooftops and chimneys, away from the noise of the street.
The couple who own it, Monsieur et Madame Ferrero, have refurbished it in elegant and simple good taste. The beds are comfortable, the plumbing works, and the breakfast is much better than in most Paris hotels apart from the grandest.
Bread and croissants come from the boulangerie on the corner, orange juice is the real thing, coffee is hot and plentiful; what more could one want? Hotel Sainte Beuve in the street of the same name, a five-minute walk away, close by the Luxembourg Gardens, is also owned by the same people, and is charming – a three-star property, while Hotel de la Paix is two stars. At both places, the staff could not be nicer.
There are many secrets to a happy visit to Paris. One is to let it take you where it will. Do less rather than more. One museum, if you must, not three. Walk or better still, stroll, rather than take the metro. Instead of complaining about the cost of the two ‘grand crèmes et croissants’, do as the locals do, and spend an hour or so over it, rather than gulping it down and rushing off.
Whatever you are rushing off to will still be there. And try to forget about the Parisian reputation for rudeness. It is simply not true. They are among the most courteous citizens I have ever met. Unfortunately, they have to put up with some of the rudest tourists in the world.
A Parisian would never dream of starting a conversation, asking for directions, asking a question, without first proffering a greeting appropriate to the time of day. It is much more comfortable if one follows the French way of doing things, so on entering any establishment whether it is a bank, a bakery or doctor’s surgery waiting room, one says a general “Bonjour messieursdames” to the rest of the company.
What else will you like in the 14th arrondissement? Jean Paul Hevin chocolatier in rue Vavin has some of the most tempting treats in town. Nearby, and also with a branch on Boulevard Edgar Quinet is Amorino, the best gelateria to have come to Paris in a long time.
On Boulevard Montparnasse, you will find all the large welcoming brasseries made famous by the left-leaning literati, such as Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre – who are buried together in the Cimetière Montparnasse. They would set up their ‘HQ’ in La Coupole and spend the day writing or in deep discussion.
Across the street are La Rotonde and, our favourite, Le Select. We went there for coffee one morning some years ago, and when we returned the next day, they treated us like the regulars we have now become. Wines by the glass at the bar are very good, and the speciality of the house is a magnificent côte de boeuf for two.
L’Escale Litteraire at number 120 is an excellent place to shop for paperbacks as well as glossy coffee table books, and Petits Papier at 108 is for all things stationery, for those who still use pen and ink.
Tschann Librairie, 125 Boulevard Montparnasse, is one of my favourite bookshops anywhere, a place to spend hours rather than minutes. Next door is Chez Fernande at 127, a typical Montparnasse bistrot. Hugo Desnoyer, not far away, at 45 rue Boulard, off rue Daguerre, is the butcher who supplies the great and the good of the Paris restaurant scene, but if you can cope with the queues, he will also serve ordinary mortals.
Patisserie Dominique Saibron, at 77 Avenue General Leclerc, is reckoned to be among the best in Paris, and his millefeuille are already legendary. Further away from Boulevard Montparnasse, Avenue General Leclerc is a very good place for general and inexpensive shopping, with a branch of Monoprix, Sephora for cosmetics and perfumes, clothes and shoe shops, and a market at either end, one at Alesia and one in rue Daguerre.
Also not to be missed is the open-air market on Boulevard Edgar Quinet on Wednesday and Saturday morning. Further down Boulevard Raspail, towards the river, there is the Sunday organic market, which stretches down as far as Hotel Lutetia. The Brasserie Lutetia is the place to go for oysters and a bottle of Alsace Riesling. The Sonia Rykiel chocolate dessert is not to be missed.
If you carry on north, again towards the river, perhaps taking rue du Bac instead of Boulevard Raspail, and turn right on to Boulevard Saint Germain, you will come to Fragonard, one of my favourite French fragrance houses. Based in Grasse, this Paris outpost envelopes you in all the warmth and scents of Provence. Figuier fleur, mimosa, rose or lavender, in the end, one has to have a bit of everything as it is so difficult to choose.
Shopping in Paris is like that, I find, whether I am in a butcher, a patisserie, a hat shop or a chocolatier; everything is so beautifully displayed, that it is all exactly what one wants, needs, must have.
After all, it is Valentine’s Day. He should be thankful that I do not spend my time looking in jewellers’ windows.
What gave Paris its romantic image? When did it become romantic? Its history is one of street battles, from the French Revolution, through the Paris commune of 1807, the riots of 1968 to the weekend car-burnings in the high-rise cités which encircle Paris.
Perhaps it is Robert Doisneau’s atmospheric black and white 1950s photo of lovers embracing outside the Hotel de Ville in Paris? He always claimed to show the world as he would like it to be, and with Paris still suffering the after-effects of war-time occupation, perhaps he was representing the city as he would like it to be seen by the American readers of Life magazine. In that, he surely succeeded.
As was discovered many years later, however, the photograph was staged with hired actors, so for a more authentic experience visit the Rodin Museum in the Hotel Biron on rue de Varenne.
There you will see Rodin’s sublime sculpture, The Kiss. If you only see one work of art while you are in Paris, this is the one.