Summer 2026
The question shows up every June like it’s going to mean something. What is Fête de la Musique like in Paris? It never lands cleanly. It can’t. The festival is too wide, too fractured,…
At 9:37 p.m., the woman with the orange umbrella finally gives up. For twenty minutes she has tried to hold together a guided tour in front of Notre-Dame. Half the group stopped listening ten…
The Seine used to sit there like a dare. Tourist boats pushed through it from morning until night while visitors leaned over stone parapets with phones raised, trying to capture the same view millions…
By Tuesday morning, the first day of Paris Fashion Week, the sidewalks around Palais de Tokyo usually begin filling before the first official show starts. Most of Fashion Week happens outside the official events. Read more →
Observe Paris’ people in lobbies and les brasseries like a fly on the wall in a room marked don’t disturb.
Paris after dark is a different city. Streets that were busy by day go quiet, cafés hide secrets in their
corners, and neon signs illuminate alleys most visitors never notice. This section shows you where to
go to experience the city’s hidden rhythms after hours — in late night haunts, moonlit streets, and nightlife
neighborhoods buzzing with loud silences and whispered exclamations.
Travel writers often describe Paris at night as if the city becomes
a giant cocktail menu. That version of Paris exists. It is also crowded
with people trying to experience Paris, but a more interesting city
emerges after they leave. Read more →
For the first time since 1923, ordinary people could legally enter designated sections of the Seine reopening after 1923 ban and treat the river as something other than scenery. Would anyone actually want to swim there? Would the novelty wear off by the second summer? Would the reopening diminish Paris Plages, municipal pools, and the carefully constructed ecosystem of summer leisure that developed during the century when swimming remained prohibited? Read more →
Paris Diary 