Gascony’s Château de Laubade celebrates the start of its annual Armagnac distillation with traditional Gascon cuisine, wine from the owners’ five other wine properties, and a drumming, tweeting, tooting Basque band.

How does it feel to view a scene as depicted through the eyes of an Impressionist Painter? To step into the colors and tones of a painting by Gustave Courbet, Eugene Boudin or Claude Monet? I was destined to find out and thus began my journey to the seaside town of Honfleur, a place of inspiration to artists and dreamers alike.

The French are famous for their sumptuous crème brûlées, fresh baguettes, and lingering late-night meals.  Notably, all of these signature elements are dietary sins in our American dietary culture.

I awakened one morning last July in a large, soft four-poster bed to the sound of almost complete silence. I climbed out from under my quilt and down a narrow staircase to the kitchen, heated some water on an old gas stove and took my coffee out to a stone terrace where I could see a tiny church up the lane under a shimmering blue sky. A neighbor’s dog barked nearby. A farmer rolled slowly by, dragging hay with his tractor.

What are the stores you must know about when visiting or living in Paris?  Check out our listing of 13 not to be missed shops from A to Z in the city of light.  Want to shop your way through the City of Light, voila:  Girls’ Guide to Paris shopping tour.

It is possible, even likely, to spend a fortune chasing memorable wine experiences in Paris. The trick is to enjoy yourself on a reasonable budget. It can be done, with even a splurge or two planned! But, no matter when you come, reserve first. And please remember that some places might be closed for part of August - but so many are open.

Moving to Paris! Whether you plan to move or relocate to Paris, or you have just moved to Paris, you'll have to deal with many practical things that may be overwhelming.

While every weekend year-round you can visit Paris’ two most famous flea markets at the Porte de Vanves and Porte de Clignancourt, following you’ll find a few French flea markets a bit more off the tourist path.  These “brocantes” - temporary traveling flea markets - are in town for a few days (or weeks) only with vendors bringing inventory from all over France, allowing you to cash in on special antique and bric-a-brac sales only a local would know about.  So mark your calendars and get ready, get set – it’s time to do some spring flea marketing in Paris! 

The day before this was written, I saw the Coen Brothers' new movie – A Simple Man – in a French movie house. I found it too, too Woody Allenesque, in that I laughed. I knew most of the German and Yiddish spoken (I was watching the VO, but a French version), understood most of the Jewish angst and religious rites, certainly knew the Manhattanite code words. However, when I left the theater, I wondered why I hadn’t walked out earlier. Simply put—it had only moments of humor, but hours of tsouris and years of pain. It was simple but more than anything, childlike, dim-witted and it lacked intelligence and common sense.

Considering they're Parisian, beyond pleased. Owner Jean-Guillaume Dufour who also launched Tontons 1 and 2 is always ready for a chat. “The client here is chez lui”, he insists.

May 1st is the twenty-second anniversary of my moving to Paris.  It’s hard to believe I’ve been here so long and how many things have changed—especially me. No matter how long anyone remains in a new country, no one assimilates one hundred percent. Scratch the surface, and invariably you’ll unearth a raw nerve.

A number of comments about restaurant reviews have set me to thinking about some issues which are more or less connected. Interaction between critics and those in the food business is an interesting one. They need one another. But it can be a love-hate relationship.

The two-bedroom vacation apartment on Rue du Temple resembles its owner and designer Chris Miller: classy, sophisticated, warm, welcoming. Like Chris, it is a graceful melange of cultures. The deluxe bathroom (spa tub and plush towels on a heated rack) and the sleek kitchen (all amenities) are positively New York, Chris's home town. The rambling living room and second bedroom  are enchantingly antique Paris, Chris's adoptive home for the past 20 years. The master bedroom's African motif reflects Chris's deeper heritage.

How many times have I heard the words, “It’s vacances scolaires.” And why does France appear to come to yet another halt? Perhaps that’s an intrinsic difference between the French and Americans. The French defend their right to take vacations and don’t appear to get bent out of shape.

It’s just an ordinary neighborhood for ordinary Parisians.  The one exception on this busy street is more than a dozen stores proclaiming déstockage and entrée libre—everyone’s welcome—even me.  In I go, passing under the name of an Italian designer, because amazingly I can’t quite make out the price on the label hanging off a scarf I like draped around a mannequin’s neck in the window.  About two steps in from the door I see a man coming toward me.  He is bulky, fair-haired, and blind with rage or something I do not know about and don’t want to.

Paris is a city full of endless entertainment possibilities from opera to art and jazz to rock.  No matter what flavour of entertainment you are seeking you are sure to find it in the City of Light! So, without further ado, here are some of the major highlights of Paris entertainment for the month of March.

Call it Fez or Fes, it's a great place to visit and only 2 hours 15 minutes from Orly Sud, Paris. Fez is the cultural and spiritual centre of Morocco and goes back to at least 790AD. It's the third largest city in Morocco after Casablanca and Rabat and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The largest of the two Medinas (walled cities within a city) is the world's largest car-free zone, but beware of the donkeys.

Between the giant gregarious mice of Disneyland, Claude Monet’s delicate rose gardens and Louis XVI’s sumptuous palace, there are plenty of attractions to keep you amused if, perish the thought, you need a break from the City of Light for a few hours.

A meeting of France’s notaries held recently in Paris was so full that many had to attend via video hook-up in the Geode. This was no ordinary convention. The president of the association rallied the troops against the onslaught by its #1 rivals: lawyers. Justice Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie spoke, saying lawyers would have limited authority. An idea was floated that notaires be allowed to open their capital to banks. Is this just an internal fight involving an obscure profession?