Paris revival: Why your next stop should be the City of Light
By Steve McKenna
Paris' oldest museum, the Musee Carnavalet, looks better than ever after a four-year makeover.Credit: Cyrille Weiner
Already jammed with attractions for the bon viveur, Paris continues to add to its roster of visitor draws. Across the French capital, historic sites that were a little forlorn not so long ago are being revived in style, offering tourists and Parisians alike illuminating new perspectives of the City of Light.
Take Hotel de la Marine (www.hotel-de-la-marine.paris/en). Once a repository for French royal collections, then the naval ministry's headquarters for more than 200 years, it's one of two identical neoclassical palaces looming by Place de la Concorde, where motorists and cyclists rattle on the cobbles between Jardin des Tuileries and the Champs-Elysees. You can now block out the traffic noise and explore this 18th-century monument with the "Confidant", a headset that cleverly uses binaural technology producing 3D audio effects, and helps you navigate the lavishly-restored apartments and stately, gilded reception salons.
You'll hear about the characters who made their mark here, from kings and revolutionaries to jewel thieves, sailors and ace architects. The colonnaded facades of this building and the matching one next door (which houses the five-star Hotel de Crillon) were designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, who also masterminded Place Louis XV — the present Place de la Concorde. Step onto the loggia and you'll overlook a square that thronged with baying crowds during the French Revolution, when a bronze equestrian statue of Louis XV was hauled down and royals like King Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were among those guillotined.
Inside the restored Hotel de la Marine.Credit: Benjamin Gavaudo
A Grand Tour ticket at Hotel de la Marine, €17 ($27), also gives you access to the galleries of the Al Thani collection. These treasures, amassed by Qatar's ruling family, span 5000 years of civilisation and include a gilt-bronze bear sculpture from China's Han Dynasty, a Maya mask pendant and a jade wine cup of a Mughal emperor. Flanking the building's interior courtyard, incidentally, are two eateries (with terraces). Michelin-garlanded chef Jean-Francois Piege serves French Mediterranean-accented cuisine at Mimosa, while there's tropical-tinged decor and duck foie gras, caviar verrine and New England lobster rolls on the menu at Cafe Laperouse.
Stroll 20 minutes east via Jardin des Tuileries and you can nose around another revitalised central Parisian landmark, La Samaritaine (dfs.com/en/samaritaine). Dating to 1870, this prestigious department store closed in 2005, but has relaunched after an extensive refurbishment by owners LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton). The store's brushed-up art deco and art nouveau period features, including steel beams, bygone stairways and tiled mosaics, are complemented by a sleek new look by Tokyo-based architects SANAA, including a wavy, glass-fronted entrance on the Rue de Rivoli.
Drifting along La Samaritaine's scented aisles, you'll smell and eye an assortment of luxury branded goods (think Cartier, Chanel), plus stock from emerging Parisian fashionistas and concept stores to suit all budgets. Boutique de LouLou, for example, has quirky coffee-table books, candles, souvenirs and posters, and Maison Chateau Rouge sells vivid African-inspired rugs, pottery and T-shirts.
Beyond the retail therapy, you can browse art installations and photographs of La Samaritaine's revamp, watch and listen to vintage adverts — from the 1960s, '70s and '80s — on dial-up phones and retro TVs, and sample the store's gourmet food and drink options. These include boulangerie goodies by top French baker Eric Kayser, coffee from veteran Parisian roaster La Brulerie des Gobelins, as well as vegan fare, poke bowls and patisserie treats. On the fifth floor, beneath the store's gorgeous glass roof and peacock murals, Voyage is a plush dining spot and champagne and cocktail lounge-bar. So beautiful is the setting, many customers just pop up to take photographs.
Fancy a splurge? You can wine, dine, stay and be pampered at Cheval Blanc (chevalblanc.com), a new super-luxury hotel on the Pont-Neuf side of La Samaritaine, its art deco frontage facing the River Seine. Named after the LVMH-owned vineyard in France's Saint-Emilion wine region, the hotel has 72 rooms and suites, some with views across to the Notre-Dame cathedral and the Eiffel Tower. Rates from €1100 ($1738) a night. There's also a Dior spa, 30-metre swimming pool, cafe, bar, brasserie and seafood restaurant, plus Plenitude, a haute cuisine affair offering €395 tasting menus by Arnaud Donckele, who won three Michelin stars for his La Vague d'Or restaurant at the Cheval Blanc in St Tropez.
Another new five-star hotel is Madame Reve (madamereve.com/en), which has 82 rooms and suites, from around €400, tucked inside the historic Louvre Post Office, 10 minutes on foot from La Samaritaine and the Louvre museum itself. Also containing a wellness zone, Viennese-influenced cafe and Mediterranean and Japanese restaurants, the hotel is just one part of the renaissance of the vast 1880s post office building. When complete, this address will also have shops, offices, social housing, a nursery, police station, postal facilities and rooftop bar and garden.
Around the corner, Bourse de Commerce is another reborn venue (pinaultcollection.com/en/boursedecommerce). Japanese architect Tadao Ando has added a contemporary sheen to this domed former 18th-century commodities exchange, with billionaire French businessman Francois Pinault sharing his (mostly 20th and 21st century) private art collection, featuring stars like Bertrand Lavier, David Hammons, Jeff Koons and Cindy Sherman.
Moving into the Marais district, the Musee Carnavalet looks better than ever after a four-year makeover (carnavalet.paris.fr). Occupying two renaissance-era mansions, Paris' oldest museum has seen its gallery spaces extended and brightened up, with 80 new digital devices joining a raft of eclectic exhibits to trace episodes of the city's past. In the atmospheric vaulted basement, we delve into its origins as an Iron Age settlement for the Parisii tribe and its stint as the Roman colony of Lutetia, before roaming the other compelling galleries and reliving Paris' dramatic regal and revolutionary periods (and Belle Epoque, post-World War II and COVID-19-era times).
This labyrinthine, admission-free museum has so much to take in, but we particularly like the decorative street and shop signs from yesteryear, the scale models of Paris as it evolved and the sumptuously-furnished rooms flaunting interior design trends through the centuries. There are replicas of salons crafted by Charles Le Brun, a 17th-century painter who helped decorate the Palace of Versailles, and a breathtaking recreation of a fin-de-siecle Parisian jewellery boutique. The museum also has temporary, for-a-fee exhibitions — a recent one celebrated the genius of Marcel Proust on the 100th anniversary of his death. Refreshments, meanwhile, can be had at the cafe-restaurant (lesjardinsdolympe.com) by the museum's lovely courtyard garden. Alternatively, nearby, in the recently-revamped former bank offices of Credit Municipal, Griffon is a cosy stage for drinks, tapas, gigs and literary gatherings (griffon.paris).
Paris' thirst for regenerating heritage sites into multi-use cultural hubs has swept into other districts, with some venues being transformed as part of the mayor-backed Reinvent Paris program. In the 11th arrondissement, plans are afoot to turn an old electrical substation into Etoile Voltaire, a state-of-the-art cinema with a rooftop eatery and hangout. A few blocks away, L'atelier des Lumières is a digital arts space projecting sound-and-light shows of legendary artists in a 19th-century foundry (atelier-lumieres.com). Van Gogh, Dali and Gaudi have already had the high-tech treatment, while this year's headline exhibitions — until January, 2023 — will highlight the abstract art of Kandinsky and Cezanne's dreamy paintings of Provence.
Qatar, Etihad and Emirates fly to Paris from Sydney and Melbourne via Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai respectively.
COVID-19
From August 1, all COVID-19 travel restrictions to enter France have been lifted. No tests are required regardless of vaccination status.
Steve McKenna travelled at his own expense.
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