Le Petit Prince de Paris: A Latin Quarter Gem

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One of the truly great Parisian restaurants is Le Petit Prince de Paris, a quintessentially French hideaway located in the midst of a warren of tiny cobblestone streets in the city’s Latin Quarter just a stone’s throw from the Pantheon. The only LGBT restaurant on the city’s Left Bank, Le Petit Prince de Paris is housed in a site that has served as a tavern and restaurant since the year 1450. That ancient building provides the restaurant with much of its yesteryear charm, including exposed ceiling beams, pale stone walls, plush draperies, antique furnishings and dozens of candles and chandeliers. Continue Reading →

France Protects Booksellers from Amazon.com. Merci!

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While Amazon.com continues to put U.S. book stores out of business through its cut-rate prices and ruthless business tactics to destroy its competition, France has taken action to protect what it deems a vital part of the nation’s culture and heritage. A new law would ban Amazon from offering free shipping to all addresses in the nation, effectively eliminating one of the online seller’s biggest financial advantages. Government officials say the measure is needed to protect two key components of French culture–books and the proprietors that sell them. Continue Reading →

Spring Has Sprung at the Jardin des Plantes

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Springtime in Paris is simply glorious. All of the flowers in the city’s parks start to bloom, the trees start to blossom, those bone-chilling breezes off the Seine turn more pleasant than polar, and the Parisians who hunkered down for the winter suddenly seem incapable of staying inside one minute longer. A fantastic way to experience le printemps in the City of Light is by visiting one of Paris’s grand parks. For springtime sights, sounds and smells, I’m partial to the Jardin des Plantes, an enormous botanical garden in the Latin Quarter. Continue Reading →