- See Balzac’s house
So I study English literature, and Balzac was this guy, who wrote some books and now I want to see his house. Google images says it looks like this:
Books and wooden furniture seems as good a reason to go somewhere as anywhere.
- Go to the flea markets
It just looks like the coolest thing ever. Where else can I buy bricabrac I do not want, need and isn’t even that good? It’s called a flea market and yet, I still want to go… did anyone say photo op?
- Visit the Arenes de Lutece (except, in French, there are acute accents on the ‘e’s’)
So this is real-life Roman arena. Cool huh? I want to have a picnic on the steps, which you can do, so I will be doing just that.
- Go to the Cafe de Flore because of the following:
The Cafe de Flore is one of Paris’ landmark destinations. Its history is rich, its clientele legendary: Ernest Hemingway, Truman Capote, Lawrence Durrel, Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, the usual subjects.
Yes, you heard correctly, Hemmingway and Satre have been there. Here it is:
- Footsie bar
Bar’s are really good. This bar is a play on the FTSE and drink prices go up or down according to demand. I don’t know if it’s my scene but it seems a good place to be on a budget and an inventive idea none the less. Just not sure if I buy into all this FTSE 100, capitalist, bankers crap, but I’m on holiday right? So I’ll do what I want. Besides, it looks pretty.
- Shakespeare and Co bookshop
I really like books. And I really like tea. I also really like bookshops. Tom & I watched Before Sunset the other day, and well, this featured. It’s pretty amazing. I just have to go. I’ll be honest, this is probably the place I want to go the most. I do however, have no idea why it’s in Paris, because it’s English speaking and George Whitman was English etc. But hey, maybe I’m just ignorant. Ignorant English person coming over and ready to learn! 
- Les Musee des Vampires
So my next module is on Dracula by Baum Stoker (in part) and well, there’s this museum and it’s on Vampires. I’m not sure if we’ll go because you have to book an appointment to see it, but still, cool right?
- Hotel De Sens
The building itself is not unimpressive, but basically - there’s a mother fucking cannonball lodged in the hotel! Apparently, the house was built between 1475 and 1519 and originally housed the arch bishops of Paris in the middle ages. Then Henri IV’s ex-wife moved in and now there’s a cannonball in it. For real, an actual cannonball. Stones taught me to flyyyyy…
- Le Caveau des Oubliettes
Yes, another bar. My actual self, actually translated that in my actual head. It means “The cave of the forgotten ones”, which is so apt for a bar which is in an actual dungeon, just a room down from a bar with a guillotine in it - yep, a real one. So morbid. But undeniably cool. Those French people were a bloody lot back in the day. Where else is better to party? 
- The Promenade Plantee
This my friends, is a park that’s grown around a suburban old railway track in the Bastille area of Paris… and it looks pretty. One has just got to approve of that play almost post-apolitical, futuristic, dystopian merge of the natural and the urban.
- Orphee
An antique musical instrument shop, need I actually say more?
- Belville Zoo Project
Just stumbled across a street art project in the Belville Zoo area. You have to love graffiti, you just do.
- Le Loir Dans La Theire
I don’t even need to talk about this, read the description, it’s Alice and Wonderland themed!
An Alice in Wonderland-themed café in the Marais (your go-to neighbourhood for cool bars and quirky boutiques), Le Loir dans la Théïere is named after the dormouse that gets dipped in the teapot at the Mad Hatter’s tea party.
With walls covered in vintage movie posters and mismatched chairs clustered around higgledy-piggledy tables, the retro-chic décor is a fine accompaniment to the delicious food. Tuck in to salads, quiches and amazing cakes like pistachio millefeuille and chocolate crumble.
In the words of well… myself, “I wanna play!”
So, I’m not sure we’ll do all this. But these are some pretty cool ‘off-beat’ ideas about where to go in Paris. If we do go to any of this stuff I will over the freaking moon. It’s all so ‘cool’, in a French way… so, en francais… c’est tres cool! Oh blimey I’m excited. A week and a half and we’re on our way. Whoop!
