Louise

ON SNOWSHOES IN VOSGES

2008-12-08T13:16:00Z

”Can you keep up?”, David asks with his back at me. He is already scaling a steep knoll covered with thick dunes of powder snow. Wandering along as if he was just going to empty the mail box. But then again he is a professional, he does this for a living.
I’m stuck in a fence, leaning on the top of a fir tree while I’m trying to make my left foot to do what I want it to do.

We are on snowshoes – off-piste – at Lac Blanc in the French Vosges-mountains. It’s only been three hours since I got off the train in Alsace and the total range of my life experiences have already been broadened considerably. Because when you think about it, what do you really know about snow until you have tried to walk in it with two miniature snowboards strapped onto your boots?

I must admit right away that it’s actually not that difficult. Snowshoes are for everybody and you don’t need to attend courses or learn plough techniques. You pay 10 Euros a day to rent the snowshoes and the sticks and then you are ready to go – ready to go uphill, that is! But the feeling, well it’s different. To lift the planks with every step. Without ever being able to slide. It is simply a hike with weights strapped to your feet. You get strong thighs!

I went on the trip out of curiosity because the French newspapers are filled with stories about snowshoes. Approximately 50 centimeters long and weighing one kilo, they have become the hottest thing in France. Like a whole new sport that within a few years has overtaken both cross country skiing and snowboarding and today is the second biggest winter sport after alpine skiing.

”It’s become so popular because everybody can do it and because it doesn’t require any training”, David Clar explains, as we trot by an elderly married couple who look like they are in their late 60s. The kind of super energetic people that probably live until they are 90 while still rushing up to 1,200 meter’s altitude with rosy cheeks and low cholesterol levels. The perfect pr for snowshoes. David Clar is a snowshoe instructor at Lac Blanc and he looks like a man who is happy with his business. Because while it was almost embarrassing to walk on snowshoes 15 years go, there are now approximately to million French people who have taken to the sport and a lot of them go to the Vosges in Alsace. Another kind of esprit, as you would say in French: More of a hiking atmosphere and fewer sunglasses with reflexes.

We wander upwards, through the forest, over the animal fence, across the cross country slopes, which we are careful not to mess up. The sky is deep blue and it’s -8 degrees Celsius. This sunlight treatment should be prescribed for everyone with a winter depression, because how hard can life be when the snow creaks under the spikes and the sky gets so in your face?

Now and then he stops, my guide. Pokes at an animal trail. ”That was a rabbit”. And he explains about the rare yellow flowers that now look like dried out mummies, and points to a hill-side – in 1,5 kilometer’s altitude – where the German and French fought it out during World War II. It strikes me that I’ve never seen the mountains this way. That I’ve always used the slopes but never spotted the squirrel scurrying up the tree.

130,000 pairs of snowshoes are sold in France every year. This compares to only 50.00 pairs of cross country skis. Snowshoes have become an industry, and a small factory near Annecy that previously only produced 1,000 snowshoes a year now spits out one snowshoe a minute.

The tourist industry has also seized the opportunity to take advantage of the new trend and in the Vosges they aim directly at the ”foot-soldiers”. They create special slopes for the snowshoes so the hikers don’t collide with the skiers and the most lazy of them can walk on plain tracks. The latter really provokes the enthusiasts. They find it ridiculous to walk on snowshoes in places where you might as well walk in ordinary boots. But the skiing stations welcome all new fans, even the lazy ones.

If it’s your first time on snowshoes you will naturally want to book a guide or sign up for a group trip. Two hours cost 18 Euros and 38 for an entire day. However I must warn you: Only people who are really fit should do the whole day, because after one afternoon and the following morning’s off-piste hike with yellow plastic snowshoes I’m as well kneaded as a French sourdough.

Maybe I’ll never become as fanatic as the folks that book night hikes with David with head lamps and warm coffee in the thermos. However, I admit that it’s fun and I suddenly understand what they are talking about; the others we meet. The nice creaking sound of the snow being stepped on. And the magical moment in the dusk where the sun fades and you duck in between the firs on the way down to Auberge Le Blancrupt in 1,120 meter’s altitude to sip hot grog by the fireplace.

It would be too pretentious to call it after-skiing in the original sense of the word, because here at Lac Blanc the snowsuits aren’t necessarily from last season, or the one before that, for that matter, and if it’s crowded you must share at table with the local police force who isn’t likely to have caught a pickpocket the last several weeks. But the atmosphere is nice. And healthy. The people who come here are more interested in looking at the nature than looking at themselves.

UNADULTERATED LUXURY IN CHAMONIX

2008-11-20T10:27:00Z

There are skiing hotels of the normal kind. In fake wood, with felt on the floor. And a persistent, unmistakable scent of wet dog. Most often, they come combined with a bus ride of unimpressive quality, and you may call me a snob, but I just can’t have it.

Photo: Philippe Schaff

And then there are real winter hotels. Chalets built in massive timber, with a flaming log in the fireplace and a big bowl of nuts and apples waiting when you come in from the cold. This is what it is like at Hameau Albert 1er in Chamonix. This is where Pierre Carrier and his wife Martine reside as the fourth generation of hoteliers, and he has clearly maintained his great grandfather, Francois-Joseph’s standards. Because not only does his restaurant command two stars in the Guide Michelin, he has also rebuilt the hotel in a particularly remarkable way.

Pierre Carrier has simply bought three old alpine farms, torn them down and reconstructed them piece by piece in the hotel’s garden right in the centre of Chamonix town, so today you can either live in the hotel proper or in “La Ferme” – the farmhouse.

Photo: Philippe Schaff

We booked the latter option for a long weekend and got three days of unadulterated luxury with a private terrace and a direct view of the Mont Blanc. A “chambre spacieuse” entirely in wood with groovy orange-colored designer chairs, a Bang and Olufsen TV and personal velour slippers. A romantic lair and the perfect point of departure for a proper skiing holiday. Or for a pure chill out holiday, for that matter. Cause even if you don’t fancy skiing, you will surely enjoy staying in the old chalets, where any kids you may have brought along can sleep in authentic alcoves, and where a resident cosmetologist in the cellars beauty salon offers facials, massages and lymph drainage every afternoon after ski.

“This is just totally, perversely decadent” as my husband joyfully noted as we lay in the steaming pool after a full day’s driving from Paris and took in the Mont Blanc. While the other guests were lying in chaiselongues under the palms inside, we were swimming in the garden where people walked around in caps and big sweaters. Neither of us wanted to spoil the experience by thinking about the heating bill, or indeed our own bill. Because the deal was that we would rather spend three days in real luxury than a week in a prefabricated winter hotel. And we never regretted it.

Many hotels and tourist destinations currently try to attach a story to their product. Because smart marketing guys have told them that story-telling is a profitable strategy. Unfortunately, this often results in boring anecdotes about the places’ mediocre origin.

Photo: Philippe Schaff

But in the case of Hameau Albert 1er, the story is so authentic that even the most trendy branding people couldn’t ask for more.

Pierre Carrier can thus trace his ancestry in Chamonix back to the 17th century. Generations of peasants were ploughing the meagre mountain land until alpinism kicked in and the first tourists emerged. Then they changed tracks and threw themselves into this new business.

When the railroad arrived in 1902, Pierre Carrier’s great-grandfather opened a boarding house, and it is this modest “railroad boarding house” which since has been refined and renamed Albert 1er after the Belgian king, who was an accomplished mountaineer and a frequent visitor in Chamonix.
Since Pierre Carrier’s return to the hotel in 1979, it has been showered with honors and awards to the extent that the owner today has two stars in the fastidious Guide Michelin.

They are well deserved, because the restaurant at Albert 1er is exactly as gastronomically elegant as you can expect at this level. Try for instance a “century menu”, which offers duck foie gras en confit with pickled peaches and cranberry caramel, filet of lavaret from Lake Geneva with cepe, langoustine with pine nuts and a black raddish remoulade, and of course a selection of French cheeses and fine chocolate biscuits with honey-roasted figs.

All of it served in the cozy restaurant with wooden walls and waiters who know the 20,000 wines in the cellar as if they were old friends.

Today, the fifth generation of the Carrier family has already been enrolled to take over, and generation number six is on its way. The owner’s daughter, Perrine, has married the cook – and number two man in the kitchen – Pierre Maillet, and a new member of the family is just around the corner. With a good eye for business opportunities, the family has opened a less pretentious restaurant – La Maison Carrier – in connection with La Ferme, where you can sit in low-ceilinged, traditional rooms with heavy wooden tables, stone floors and a huge fireplace for rotating suckling pigs and watch the chef juggle the cheese fondue. Order it! It is totally traditional with rich, melted cheese in the copper casserole and big chunks of bread for dipping. To me, on a cold winter day, this beats any sophisticated Michelin-menu. And you can always save some room for an Irish coffee down at the Irish pub in the town later in the evening.

Because even though Hameau Albert 1er is a beautiful pocket of luxury, we should not isolate ourselves from the world outside. And Chamonix may not be, architecturally speaking, the most beautiful alpine station, but it still has all the charm that you get when you have plenty of pure air, smooching, after ski and happy Italians weekending in a valley surrounded by tall mountains and perfect weather.

This place simply has the perfect mix of class and good creperies, French families with many children and black Porsches on Swiss plates. And of course plenty of tanned skiing daredevils. But still without too much felt carpeting and wet dog scent!

HAMEAU ALBERT 1ER, 38 route du Bouchet, 74402 Chamonix

Go further: In the other end of the scale - read about Homeboy Ski's life as ski-bum in Chamonix here.

BED & BREAKFAST IN PARIS

2008-11-15T14:14:00Z

We thought it was a purely English phenomenon. However, Bed & Breakfast has become at huge hit in France, yes even in Paris, where Parisians hire out rooms and serve homemade jam for breakfast. Vi took the grand tour and found both luxury, four-poster beds and funny people.

At home with Jean-Luc

Behind a small carved oak door in rue Charlot, in a 17th century town house right at the centre of Le Marais. You ring the door bell at Marchand, and when you’ve scaled the curved staircase it feels like you are visiting a boarding house for artists in provincial France.

Here are large windows overlooking the street and detached beams. Luscious parquet flooring, a wonderful old fireplace, a painting of an ancestor and green leather furniture of the worn out kind filled with colorful pillows. Plus, obviously, a bulky library, a gold mirror and a piano.

This is where Jean-Luc and Denise Marchand live with their three grown-up children. Until recently Jean-Luc was a businessman in the financial sector. Educated at New York University’s Stern School of Business and with a global career in the large consultant firms. But suddenly he felt fed up with plane trips and the train ride to the City in London, and at the age of 50 he quit his job and opened a Bed & Breakfast at his home address. He never regretted the decision.

The three rooms are almost always booked and Jean-Luc clearly thrives in the role as host. He likes to get up early to buy croissants for the guests and his plentiful breakfast has already been mentioned in The Sunday Times. Jean-Luc produces the honey himself at his country house in Perigord and the jam is homemade by Mrs. Denise. She is a psychotherapist and owns a practice in town.

The three rooms are located on the first floor and have a private entrance, private bathroom and lots of fine details. Like a sink, carved in dark grey granite and placed on top of a big heavy oak log.

The most beautiful room is the Enclos des Templiers - named after the fortress built by the Templars in the Marais in the thirteenth century. In this room there are terracotta floors, detached beams and a view of the small inner courtyard typical of Paris’ closely built historical center.

Rates for a room: 125 € a night for two people.

Denise & Jean-Luc Marchand, 63, rue Charlot, 75003 Paris.
www.bonne-nuit-paris.com

In the pink house at Montparnasse

Marie-Martine is a former travel journalist and Michel is a painter. The couple inhabits the two top floors of a pink brick building close to Montparnasse and here – in the Maison Hippolyte – they hire out one of their rooms: 30 square meters with a private entrance and bathroom, equipped with a French iron bed, a paint-stripped country style cupboard and the light streaming in from the big windows.

The couple has traveled extensively and they have stayed at tons of Bed & Breakfasts. Perhaps as a result of this, they have been able to create exactly the home-like, cozy nerve, which is the whole point of private accommodation. The breakfast alone is worth the stay. Freshly baked baguette, homemade cakes, Marie-Martine’s home made jam, juice, yoghurt, apple compote and steaming hot tea from the Palais des Thés.

The room offers a fine view of the street life and in the evening of the Eiffel Tower, which sparkles with 20,000 light bulbs every whole hour.

The price is almost touching: 85 € a night for two – including the brilliant breakfast. But make reservations well in advance, because Marie-Martine and Michel have already been mentioned in both French and foreign medias, so their one room is in demand.

La Maison Hippolyte, 27, rue Hippolyte-Maindron, 75014 Paris.

High standards in the biscuit factory

It was an old dream that last year inspired Marie Funke and her husband to buy the manager’s residence close connected to an old biscuit factory in the 13th arrondissement.

Marie Funke, who had worked in the hotel business for 20 years, wanted to create an exclusive Bed & Breakfast where she could spoil her guests while having more time to spend with her children. She succeeded.

La Villa Paris is high class through and through. Four spacious rooms with trendy English wallpaper, flat screen TVs and designer lamps that light up when you turn the base.

At Marie Funke’s, the breakfast is served in the salon. All the guests sit together around the big table and in no time the conversation ripples across the table while Mrs Funke discretely tiptoes around with extra raisin buns for all.

She has named her four rooms Opera, Concorde, Bastille and Champs-Elysées. They’re all comfortable, but if you are on a honeymoon then go for the Champs-Elysées, which has a huge marble bathroom with a jacuzzi.

The one thing you could possibly wish was different is the location, because Paris’ 13th arrondissement is normally not known for its charm. However, Marie’s Chambre d’Hotes is actually rather nicely located by a small square and taking the high standard of the rooms into account, the price is very reasonable: 135 to 160 € a night for at double room.

La Villa Paris, 33, rue de la Fontaine à Mulard, 75013 Paris.

Find more hotels in Paris

BLACK BEANS AND IMPROVISED DANCING

2008-10-18T21:59:00Z

Brazilian Favela Chic is one of the funniest dancing spots in Paris right now and especially nice if you’ve started with a dinner in the restaurant and felt the spontaneous atmosphere grow.

At 10 pm the place is packed. You are benched by long tables, thrown in amidst a bunch of happy people. The last time we were there, we had an Arabian film maker and his date, a German-Bolivian girl, next to us on one side, and on our other side sat an archetypical Parisian girl and a handsome black guy wearing Armani and flip flops.

Photo by Alexdecarvalho

It’s extremely hip, but very bohemian and refreshingly uncomplicated. The interior is retro, almost old school: Orange and polka dotted wallpaper, a large open kitchen with a Virgin Mary figurine by the stove and a dancing corner painted grass-green, where people have to make room between the DJ’s table and a white leather couch from the 80s.

The music is cheerful and with a distinct inspiration from black music: soul, funk and jazz. After the last service close to midnight, it seems people just can’t sit still anymore and in a somewhat improvised manner, the thirtysomethings, the student, a couple of famous actors and a few foreigners start mixing on the dance floor.

If you are dining there, try the Feijoada, a Brazilian stew with black beans, smoked pork and bayberry that has simmered a whole day and is served with rice, kale and manioc.

Favela Chic, 18, rue de Faubourg-du-Temple, 11. arr. Metro: République

By Louise Sandager, extract from the travel guide PARIS mon amour!, published by Gyldendal.

LIFE IN A SPANISH CHEESE BAR

2008-10-05T21:58:00Z

Call us cheesy, but momondo has gone crazy for coagulated milk. We've given our writers the mission of uncovering 'le meilleur fromage' in Paris, 'il migliore formaggio' in Rome, the stinkiest cheeses in New York and the hands-down best cheeses in London, Brussels and Madrid. So grab yourself some bread and wine and join us on this tour of the best cheese shops in Europe.

Madrid

Some women are shopaholics, others just alcoholics. Karin in London calls herself a hotelaholic, because she has an exaggerated penchant for luxury accommodation. I’m a cheesaholic. One of those people who always has at least three and not seldom six different cheeses in my cheese safe among which you will always find minimum one goat and one sheep.

I like all kind of cheese except from at certain Danish one called Old Ole’s old father, a perversion, which has matured for several years before it’s served with jelly, lard and rum!

But apart from this one, I am ready to travel quite far to get a good cheese, so in Madrid, of course, I took a taxi to get west of the centre, searching for ‘Cuenllas’, a delicatessen in Calle de Ferraz, famous for its cheeses.

The taxi driver thought I was nuts, as the trip was more expensive than the cheese I was going to buy. An even more nuts, when we found the shop closed and he had to bring me all the way back again. Without Le Queso Manchego I was so much longing for.

Living in France I am spoiled with cheeses and used to boutiques so specialised that people in there would kill you, if you asked for anything else but products related to milk.

In Spain, however, cheese is often sold in the same shop as ham and meat. So I found my black skinned Manchego in Museo del Jamon, side by side with Mortadella, Chorizo and olive sausages.

Museo del Jamon is not a ham museum, but a blend of delicatessen and café. Big dried hams are suspended on hooks from the ceiling, and Spanish housewives negotiate about the best Ibérico, while workmen in overalls and oily fingers are snacking at the zinc desk.

I had an assortment of olives, anchovies and cuttlefish while waiting for the shop assistant to finish with a black dressed Spanish widow who apparently wanted to be sure she had the best quality of Bellota (Ham from a pig eating only acorn).

The guy next to me tried to entertain me about the greatness of Real Madrid. Unfortunately my Spanish was not good enough to understand the details, but at least for the cheese I understood I had to try the Queso Picos de Europa. It’s a blue cheese, which has been wrapped in chestnut leaves and matured in caves in Picos de Europa. It was good, I admit, but almost too blue. Then I liked the Pedroches much better, a sheep cheese from near Cordoba. Not to talk about the Idiazabel, also a sheep cheese, but from the Basque country, with a smoky taste and perfumed aroma.

I liked it – not only the cheese, but the whole atmosphere – so much that I tried several of the Museo’s branches in the city. Coming from Paris where cheese-buying is a serious affair; it was so much funnier here. When the old lady, without a tooth in her mouth, stuffed herself with soft, fresh goat cheese while filling in her lotto coupons. And the local plumber took a pause from his work, drinking draught beer and eating salami at the bar, discussing soccer with the waiter.

Try the shop in Carrera de San Jeronimo 6, just next to the famous restaurant Lhardy. And don’t forget to taste the Gran Casar. It looks like callous skin at the outside, but it’s soft and delicate inside; slightly salt and a little bitter. 25 euros the kilo.

COCKTAILS ON THE ROOFTOP

2008-10-01T13:41:00Z

Many people hate them. Find them too anonymous, too cold, too much transit. I love them; hotel bars. I can sit there for hours, observing people, who are meeting, coming, kissing, and leaving.

I always imagine who they are, the other guests. The one over there, for instance. The guy with the blue suit and the girlfriend, is he happy? Or the woman in the corner, who obviously hides something. But what?

In Madrid I have found the perfect hotel bar. At Hotel de Las Letras, they have a sensationally good rooftop terrace with teak all over, plants, flowers and deep white sofas. Like a deck of a luxury yacht on the 7th floor.

In the summertime the bar opens in the early evening and is full within an hour. Which it deserves, of course, but what is not at all obvious, as it doesn’t make much noise of itself.

You have to know it’s there. I had read about it in a small newspaper article praising the Madrilène summer night, and when I arrived for the first time, I had to find the way on my own as nobody seemed to bother about the barguests.

I passed the empty reception, which was remarkable small and unimpressive for a four-star design hotel, found an elevator somewhere inside and ascended while passing several poems and fragments of literature, printed all over the walls.

Finally I found a small door and dived into the sky, where a handsome young waiter nursed the guests and served well shaken cocktails on the roof.

I once saw an art installation at the Cartier foundation for modern art in Paris. An artist had installed a video camera in an airport and then filmed passengers saying goodbye, coming back, people crying, embracing, laughing. By joy or despair. The video was part of an exhibition on love and it made a big impact on me. Because it was a concentrate of so many human feelings in one little spot.

Hotel bars have the same atmosphere. As most guests are far away from home, somehow detached from their daily life and identity. They are in transit, act differently and I like watching them. The writer’s privilege, you could say.

In general, Hotel de las Letras is a good place for a writer. Or for any poem-lover og literature-snob. Not only because the rooms are decorated with quotes from the book and arts world, but mostly because the hotel has a library with a good selection of modern authors and a soft corner sofa to enjoy it in.

The only thing I like less, is the one everybody else praises, namely the fact that Hotel de las Letras is situated on Calle Gran Via, one of the biggest and – in my eyes – more boring streets in Madrid. But okay, that’s a minor fault to a good hotel. And counterbalanced by the fact that the wild and avant-garde Chueca-district is just in the backyard.

HOTEL DE LAS LETRAS; Calle Grand Via 11; Madrid

Go further: Find more hotels in Madrid here.

RIDING ON THE SPANISH MOVIDA

2008-09-30T13:45:00Z

Living in Paris is a state of mind. Every day is a mix of beauty, stress, good food, arrogance, traffic jams, films noir and the ever-flirting Frenchmen. It does something to the soul. The whole nerve system, I have discovered, is on chronic alert. Because the city, on the one hand so generous, is on the other hand so exhausting, so omnivorous. Coming from this setting to Madrid, I realized how the Spanish capital made me change mode. How I suddenly relaxed, how I let down my guard, how it was easy and uncomplicated to interact with other people.

In Madrid everybody seems to have enough time. It’s among the fastest growing cities in Europe, as my colleague David tells me, and yet the Madrileños are so unstressed. They have the time to be kind and even the time to make fun - very unusual for somebody used to grumbling Parisians.

The whole city exudes a human surplus. From the guy dressed up as a devil who scared the hell out of me, when he jumped from a house and landed just in front of me with his black eyes and pointed ears, to the waiter at the trendy restaurant, La Musa Latina, who took out 15 minutes of his life on a fully booked evening to explain the whole philosophy of the Spanish kitchen.

I don’t normally believe in sociological generalizations, and it would be too easy to state that all Madrileños are happy. Of course not, but it struck me how the Spanish are optimistic, planning for the future. How they have wishes, ideas and visions, while the French, for the time being, are stuck in a national malaise and nostalgia, still longing for the past.

A guidebook, a cleverer one, suggests that the Spanish are still celebrating democracy. That the death of Franco and his fascist dictatorship 33 years ago set off an explosion of creativity and cultural innovation that has lasted ever since.

I don’t know if this is the explanation, the famous movida. But I know that the rhythm of Madrid is so welcoming that I could easily settle here. The lazy waking up, the long afternoons in the shadow of the plane trees, the tapas, the night life and the women’s right to have broad hips. The hot chocolate in the morning, the experimental architecture popping up all over, and the continuing offer of a quick catholic confession with a mild old monk to forgive most human errors.

I came back from there and knew that Madrid just had to be among our highlighted momondo cities in the future. It’s unfair that sparkling Barcelona gets all the publicity because this city really deserves a visit. Or maybe even a longer stay…

DIPLOMATS' WIVES AND PINK DILDOS

2008-09-27T13:00:00Z

Is it normal for the travel editor to recommend a sex toy shop? Maybe not, but the guidebook, Un Grand Weekend à Madrid – French of course – gave me an alibi to go to La Belle Isabelle, and frankly, this was an experience.

Coming from Paris, where most sex toy shops are located at Pigalle and surrounded by a cheap and unappetizing atmosphere – I have never been tempted to drop in – this was differently elegant. A tiny boudoir with rose coloured wallpaper and yummy pictures of Dita von Teese, the pin-up who has made striptease an art. Not more than 15 square meters, but packed with sexy accessories – and people. Or, should I say, women. Because that is actually, what makes this shop so different. It is clearly designed to attract a female clientele, and is therefore less aggressive and more glamourous.

Here, eroticism is staged in small still-life arrangements with masks, silk corsets, long gloves, handcuffs (but tiny ones, I guess you can unlock them yourself, if he throws away the keys!) feathers and ultra-tiny strings with leopard-spots.

Of course, the shop also has a wide range of clitoris-ticklers, black bath-ducks with built-in vibrators and love-balls. Not to mention the stock of dildos. It was extensive, but without including the classic skin-coloured plastic-enlargements, the later being much too anatomic for La Belle Isabelle. Here the dildos are pink and turquoise, mint-green and golden; so aesthetically correct that they could appear in a coffee-table book showing Scandinavian design.

The little sex den is squeezed in between a sandwich bar and a vegetable shop in Corredera Alta de San Pablo 3, a narrow and popular shopping street in the old and picturesque Malasana district. And what is the most exceptional is that the clients enter and leave with out any hang-ups, as if they had just bought a cauliflower and two litres of milk.

While I was there, the shop was packed with women who were studying, touching, and smelling to find the right gear. A lady who looked like a diplomat’s wife with hair slides was discussing the functioning of a bright red silicone penis with the shop assistant. And another one, a tall woman who reminded me of a much sexier version of the gentle English teacher we had in high school, was buying a whole basket full of accessories, including a purple-coloured vibrator that was – of course – done up in rose tissue paper.

The only one seeming shy in here was a well-dressed man in his forties. He was the only man, and I never figured out what he was looking for. He waited for more than an hour, until everybody – including myself – had left the shop. So either he had some really naughty wishes, or he was simply, in the old-fashioned way, in love with the shop assistant.

A PERFECT HIDEOUT

2008-09-04T08:18:00Z

I still don’t get it. After twelve years in Paris, how come I never discovered this place? I, who thought I knew the city so well that I published a guide to its secrets. Me, the one who combed the capital to find the best restaurants and tried the first 37 different versions of foie gras,,,I had never even heard about Chez Léna et Mimile. And that, I recognize now, was an error. So if I ever again write a guide to my city, I promise, this restaurant will be in it.

I only found it, because my morning paper, le Figaro, wrote about it. Le Figaro which is dreadfully conservative and wimpish when it comes to its political reportage, always making PR for the president, but which I still keep on buying because it has such brilliant restaurant reviews. Especially in its two weekend magazines.

It was here I recently found a guide to the most beautiful Parisian terraces and the reviewer wrote about Léna et Mimile as if he had eaten a picture of Michelangelo. So of course I booked instantly and invited my journalist colleague Pia.

She is one of those people who have a genetic instinct for good places and an address book worthy of publishing. But not even she had heard about this resto which is hidden on a corner in a narrow, paved street at the back side of the Panthéon.

We got the best table at the terrace which is stuck to the house as a balcony on the second floor. It’s blooming with flowers and overlooking a little place in the middle of this 5th arrondissement, which was once a real student quarter, but nowadays one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in Paris.

The students can’t afford the rents anymore and have to live far away or – at best – in a maid’s room under the roofs, while the nouveau riche and the most fortunate part of French bourgeoisie have taken over the Sorbonne district (often paying more than 8,000 euros per square metre).

Never mind, that’s a sociological regret. The quarter is still hyper-charming and that Thursday I got one of my best afternoons this summer. Léna et Mimile is driven by Christelle and Marie-Martine, who have transformed this former, 70 year-old family restaurant into a high class bistro.

The kitchen is still simple but full of personality and imagination. I had cold aubergine mousse for an entrée and Pia had the ‘Tartare de courgettes with fromage blanc et caramel de vin rosé’.

That was followed by a carpaccio, so immense that it could have also fed her husband and two adult (& always-hungry) sons. I had the scallops with a super tasty emulsion of small shrimps.

At 2 p.m. the restaurant was full of businessmen in impeccable suits, girlfriends like us, and good looking guys in their forties who were taking out women that were certainly not their wives. But that’s also a part of Paris, and Léna and Mimile, I would say, is a perfect hideout.

Chez Léna et Mimile; 32, rue Tournefort, 75005 Paris

SPANISH SIESTA IN AN ODD DESIGN

2008-09-01T14:12:00Z

Normally I always prefer an old-style hotel. You know, one full of high-flying stucco, heavy fireplaces and Louis XVI furniture.

But Madrid is not normal. Or at least to at Scandinavian-born paleface living on the border of rainy Normandy, Madrid in high summer, 36 degrees’ Celsius, is not normal at all.

So I went deliberately for at cool design hotel with even cooler air-conditioning. A minimalist, four-star with freshly ironed bed linen and a king size bathroom worthy of a coffee table-book.

I got it at Vincci Soho, and I wasn’t disappointed, even though – admittedly – the design part was a little far-fetched: Shredded tinfoil looking like old Christmas decorations glittering in glass bottles and hundreds of silver butterflies fastened to the wall-paper. Not exactly my vision of chic design. But what a luxury to enter the ice-cold room, aesthetically cleared of everything besides a huge bed, two armchairs and free candy at the mini bar.

I was just lying there in the end of the afternoon with my swollen feet, exhausted by heat and too much good art at theThyssen-Bornemisza Museum a few blocks away. Now I understand why the Spanish hide for siesta all afternoon. It should be a human right, and in Madrid the only way to recover before night (when the city really wakes up).

I truly enjoyed this hotel, and even though the so-called design seems a little tired and the fake blonde cleaning lady sees it as her right to yell out all details of her life – in Spanish – at 7:30 in the morning just outside my room, I still recommend it.

Not many hotels could boast a better address. Vincci Soho is placed right in the epicentre of the Spanish capital, and the hotel’s terrace bar, wedged between two buildings, is such a cosy little pocket. To start the night here, after a long, cool bath, I felt happiness close by. Sipping a Tinto de Verano, a wonderful *** mix of red wine and lemonade, life couldn’t be much easier. And it doesn’t hurt the design that the neighbour of the bar is hanging her washing out of the window.

Plaza Santa Ana

For winter-goers, however, the bar might be less charming. The interior part of it is totally sexless – so stripped of life that even the Wallpaper guide, who normally praises a shaven design, says it lacks atmosphere. But okay, that’s a minor fault for a hotel situated 200 steps away from the bars and tabernas at Plaza Santa Ana and with the nightlife in Calle de las Huertas right in the backyard. With an address like this, nobody is obliged to stay in the hotel bar. But Vincci Soho is nice to come home to – and cool to wake up in.

Vincci Soho; C/ Prado 18

NIGHT WITH A BLIND WAITER

2008-08-28T07:40:00Z

This will never be my regular haunt. But it’s so odd that it’s still worth a night. I was here for the first time recently when the editor of my old newspaper asked me to write an article on sense-challenging places in Paris. (Editors can be odd too, you know).

So a Sunday night I found myself diving into the dark at the blacked out restaurant 'Dans le Noir'. I had heard about this establishment for months, but hadn’t had the courage to try it.

Now I was picked up by Hamid, a blind waiter, and guided into the dark. And saying dark, I really mean dark. Not only night or twilight, but black, blind nothing.

I heard voices, lots of voices, but was unable to say how many people were in there.

"Don’t rise without calling me, and do not stick out your knife and fork, you’ll just hurt somebody," Hamid warned.

I felt isolated in my blindness, couldn’t even call a friend, as I was forced to leave my mobile phone at the entrance.

Then my other senses started waking up. Suddenly I could smell salt-water fish and ginger from the kitchen, a certain oriental perfume from a woman out there in the dark. And I could hear. Things I never used to notice. Love, grudge, angry spouses and panic from the woman close to me. The dark, I figured out, reveals the voices – and all the unsaid stuff.

Dans le Noir was created five years ago by Edouard de Broglie and Etienne Boisrond, and the two guys had to finance the project themselves, as no investors wanted to put money into a restaurant where the food is invisible and the guests need to call a blind waiter to go to the toilet. But of course – knowing Parisian irrationality – the restaurant was immediately a success and the two guys became frontrunners of a new trend.

I had 'Menu Surprise', and as I couldn’t force myself to put something into the mouth I hadn’t seen, I used my hands. Forgot all my mother’s good education and tuck ten fingers in the sauce to pick up something I later detected as scallops.

"You don’t need to yell", Hamid said somewhere in the dark, and it wasn’t the last time that night he had to shush the guests. Because instinctively, when people can’t see each other, they think they have to speak louder.

"That’s my knee. You are touching my knee, a woman shouted on the edge of hysteria." Apparently somebody took advantage of the obscurity.

I had my main dish. It turned out to be veal with cucumber in coconut milk and ravioli with truffles and parmesan cheese. But, admitted, that I didn’t figure out before later, when the lady in the bar told me. (It’s quite hard to trace a cucumber when it’s disguised in coconut and darkness).

For desert I had bananas flambé with a spiced puff pastry, but half into it I had to leave. Suddenly it just got too much, kind of claustrophobic. So I called for Hamid, who said he was used to women getting unstable in the dark.

Probably I won’t go back. I like seeing too much. But the editor got his story, and yes, I got my senses challenged. Not to talk about my nerves. So try it, if you dare.

Dans le Noir; 51, rue Quincampoix, Paris

THE LITTLE BLACK DRESS

2008-08-16T04:02:00Z

Last summer, I discovered this shop by accident. It was a stuffy day in July and I had lots of places to check out for this guide. But I needed a break and seeked for shadow in the Jardin du Palais Royal. It’s a hidden oasis right across the street from the Louvre, so it’s actually located in the middle of the tourist center. But it’s mostly locals who walk through.

Balding men playing pétanque and cool stockbrokers who come for a quick sandwich break in the sun. Under the arches, you will find small old-fashioned shops that will give you the illusion you’re on the set of a French movie from the 50’s. There are shops solely dedicated to musical boxes, tin soldiers and medallions. For an amount of 16,70 Euros, you can acquire an order from the Resistance. And if you enter l’Oriental, you can have your Dunhill pipe cleaned for 12 Euros.

I found myself standing in front of a shop simply called ‘La Petite Robe Noire’ – the little black dress - which is an essential piece of clothing when you live and work in Paris. Even on a small budget, you will always look great in a black dress, and that’s all you’ll find at “La Petite Robe Noire”.

Half of the dresses are vintage models from Chanel, Balmain and Dior and the other half are from the collection by the owner, Didier Ludots. The prices start at 150 Euros, and there is great stuff to be found between the dark red lampshades and the crystal chandelier. The pretty tailor girl is also taking care of the customers.

If you need more than a black dress, cross the gardens and pay a visit to the other shop owned by Didier Ludot. Here you’ll find vintage haute couture, such as an Hermès bag from the 1920’s or a sublime pink Balenciaga evening gown with dyed ostrich feathers.

La Petite Robe Noire, 125, Galerie de Valois, Jardin du Palais Royal, 1. arr. Metro: Palais-Royal

By Louise Sandager, extract from the travel guide PARIS mon amour!, published by Gyldendal.

LITTLE MARCEL'S

2008-07-28T08:03:00Z

A true Parisian atmosphere ought to be easy to find in Paris. Nevertheless, you’ll easily end up in one of the many bars and brasseries that offer the cliché of a waiter with a moustache and Edith Piaf on the speakers. But don’t fall into these tacky traps. Spend a little extra time to find a place that has the right atmosphere. Like Le Petit Marcel: Flowered tiles and mirrors on the walls, small tables squeezed in together, wooden benches - everything you instinctively associate with Paris. But in a modern, authentic version where young people hang out and the local business men check out the sports results in l’Equipe. You’ll pay 2 Euros for a cup of coffee and 3,80 Euros for a Kronenbourg beer.

It’s one of the several places that I have discovered and where I go for a break. Because I don’t want to go to the wrong place when I need a quick cup of coffee. Here, I can sit and watch life in rue Rambuteau. And if ’m hungry, I’ll order their onion soup.

Le Petit Marcel, 65, rue Rambuteau, 4. arr. Metro : Rambuteau

By Louise Sandager, extract from her her travel guide PARIS mon amour!, published by Gyldendal.

MY MORNING COFFEE SPOT

2008-07-03T07:51:00Z

Chez Prune by the Canal Saint-Martin is among the places I associate with a very specific time in my life: The three years I was a correspondent for the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende.

I lived in the building across from it, on the other side of the canal, and I was expected to have read the morning papers before 1 pm when they called from the international editor’s office. So every morning I nipped over the arched bridge, bought three or four papers at the newsagent and took a seat by one of the small round tables at Prune.

A simple place with bass chairs and broken op mosaics on the floor, but with an honest feel that appeals equally to the old workmen, who still drink their first daily pastis at the bar, and the newcomers in the neighborhood, the advertising crowd who just settle for a coffee before they rush off to the metro.

In this spot, I’ve read columns of French domestic matters while trying to figure out what was worth reporting home. In this spot, I’ve hung out with Tove, my Danish friend from the 6th floor who was stationed for a textile company from Jutland, and right here was where I sought temporary refuge when my neighbor Francois, the assistant film director, had his mistress over. She was one of France’s most famous actresses and arrived to the flat with huge black Dior sun glasses, which presumably should make her less recognizable. When they made love I had to take a walk, because Francois’ bed was placed right on the other side of my wall from my desk and the diva’s screams were so loud that I couldn’t concentrate on my political analyses for the newspaper. Luckily, the affair only lasted at couple of months.

In summer time Chez Prune has a lovely outdoor service on the sidewalk with a direct view of the canal and- it must be said – the cars that rush by on the quay. They are open until two in the morning and the place is always worth to stop by for at drink or a cup of coffee. However, the food is not that interesting and drop the wine, it’s drab.

Chez Prune, 71, quai de Valmy, 10. arr. Metro: République or Jaques Bonsergent.

By Louise Sandager, extract from the travel guide PARIS mon amour!, published by Gyldendal.

HAPPINESS IN THE SPA

2008-06-26T15:16:00Z

Paris has loads of public baths. Both luxurious spas and Arabian hammams. Here is a handful of Momondo-writer Louise Sandager’s personal favorites.

Mint tea and bath slippers

One of the best bath houses is Les Bains du Marais in rue des Blanc-Manteaux. When you walk into the lobby, you immediately feel yourself thrown into a gentleman’s study in colonial North Africa. Here there are thick, old Moroccan wooden panels, palm trees and tall glass cupboards with lotions and soaps rich in vitamins.

In the subterranean hammam you are equipped with a pair of well-fitting bath slippers and after five minutes you have forgotten all about parking problems and the early morning rush. Here you move lazily between the steam bath and the rest lounge, which is at bit cooler. If you pass by then book an appointment with Jama. A little, chubby Moroccan lady in a bathing suit, who is full of vitality. She’s in charge of gommage, the scrub, where the dead skin is rubbed of and every single infiltration is massaged away with a heavy brush. You are even rubbed between the toes and behind the ears.

Afterwards, there is steaming hot mint tea in the tea salon, where the neighborhood’s gays, artists and communication workers enjoy a healthy lunch amidst ladies in bath robes, saving their spa trip for the men’s only day.

Les Bains du Marais, 31, rue Blancs Manteaux. Metro: Rambuteau.

Happiness at Chunwa

Recently I had been working my garden for en entire weekend and my whole body was aching. I thought about going to Ronald, the American - and quite handsome - shiatsu-masseur at the elegant institute Carita in rue Faubourg Saint-Honoré. He has previously straightened me out.But then it so happened that I read about Les Portes de Bacopa. A big luxury flat on one of Paris’ most fashionable addresses. Transformed into a wellness-cave where stressed Parisians can take a time-out from there hectic lives.

I went there a Tuesday afternoon. Two floors op the wide staircase, where Madam Evelyne received me, as if I was a long awaited guest. Inside, behind the heavy door, I landed in the middle of the set for one of those French movies about Indo-China in the 50s. There was low Asian furniture, palm trees, birds’ chirping and a scent of Oriental incense.

In advance I had chosen my Massage Volupté, which in French means something like sensual enjoyment, and I didn’t regret it for at minute. As a stroke of good luck I got the young Korean Chunwa as my masseuse. She has recently been praised in the most flattering terms in a spa-supplement in the big, snobbish Parisian newspaper Le Figaro and honestly: It was an hour and a half of sheer pampering.

I lay there on a bed of luscious terry cloth, the floor covered with rose petals, while Chunwa kneaded every inch of my body. She’s a trained cosmetologist and has since, from her employer, received additional massage-training at private schools in Paris.

Les Portes de Bacopa, 45, avenue George V. Metro: George V.

100 euros for the cellulite

If you’re looking for real luxury, then try Espace Payot in rue Pierre Charron in the 8. arrondissement. It has in just a short time – and deservedly – become one of the hottest public baths in town.

1.200 square metres with everything a tired body can dream of. Here there’s a hammam and sauna, bubbling spa, hairdresser, manicure, pedicure and of course loads of masseurs ready to knead the muscles. For an additional 100 euros you can even have your cellulite rubbed.

It’s all first class surroundings and aesthetic and all that. But still, I think it’s almost comical when you have to pick from a menu whether you want to lie on crystals, have a spinal manipulation or be rolled in vanilla oil. Somehow, it feels slightly over the top. But luxurious none the less, of course.

Espace Payot, 62 rue Pierre Charron. Metro: George V.