Mon Petit Paris

I've just spent nearly three fruitless hours trying to re-design my two blog pages - la frustration! I'm quite the dinosaur when it comes to techie-stuff. But I have clear ideas of what I want my blogs to look like and this ain't it [sigh]. So, I'm going to bite the bullet and see if I can hire someone to do it for me - any suggestions?

Anyway, about midway through my pitiful re-design attempts, I knew that I had to step away, take a breather. So I began to surf, browsing for a few Paris blogs to add to my favorites file. I'm pretty finiky so the pickings were slim. Then I stumbled across the most interesting site: My Little Paris.

My Little Paris is a blog dedicated to helping you add "a Parisian touch to your life. [Keeping] you up to date about everything that's happening in our city..." According to their 'About Us' section, the My Little Paris team consists of:

*Founder - Fany (she's got my dream job/life: she explores the streets of Paris and writes about it).

*Writers - Amandine and Catherine (love their writing style: informative, engaging and fun),

*Techie - Benjamin (lord I wish I had one!)

*Illustrator - Kanako (It was her gorgeous artwork that first caught my eye and encouraged me to explore their site. All of the images here are hers, no copyright infringement intended).

Small Luxuries: "Tipsy with a View"

My Little Paris is fresh, innovative and unique - in form and content. They cover the usual things one wants to know about Paris (Restaurants, Hotels, Beauty, Fashion, etc). But they do so from a wonderful perspective, with a wickedly delightful twist. For example:

Hotels: "Love Hotel"

Love Hotel, in their Hotel section, is an article about a new website that lists all the Parisian hotels that offer "luxurious rooms by the hour, at negotiated prices." The impression you're left with, after reading the article, is classy, luxurious and romantically-kinky. What an intriguing idea - a romantic hour or two with your honey in a fabulous hotel on the Champs Elysees. Romantically-kinky but not sleezy

- a girl's gotta love that!

My Little Paris also has some great sections that I have not seen on any other Paris blogs or Paris travel-sites. For example:

Beauty: "Merci Mademoiselle Zhang"



Merci Mademoiselle Zhang, in their Beauty section, is an article about a Chinese Massage Salon in the 15th: "With her, insomnia, anxiety, back ache, small, big, or growing pains tend to miraculously disappear. Her craft An authentic Chinese massage...At the end of the massage, she offers a precise diagnosis of your pain and a cup of Himalayan herbal tea." - I am so going there in September!

But there are sections that direct you to the things and places that are unusual and particularly Parisian:

Unique: "Lunch in a Parisian Apartment"

In a section appropriately titled: Unusual, Lunch in a Parisian Apartment is about a chef who turns her tiny apartment into an even tiner restaurant twice a week: "...she invites guests to test her recipes..." How fabulous is that?

Or

Small Luxuries: "New Year's in Paris Playlist"

In their Small Luxuries section, New Year's in Paris is a playlist with 14 Paris themed songs and the link so that you can download it. As soon as I'm finished with this post, I'm going to itunes to create my Mon Petit Paris playlist. I just hope that they offer more Paris-playlists soon. 

Le Meurice

So, what started out as a re-design session, and quickly became a study of la frustration, ended with a delightful discovery - My Little Paris. I've only just discovered this Parisian jewel, at the perfect time. I'm going to plumb the delightful depths of this 'site and really spice up my upcoming return to Paris. Do you think if I begged sweetly Fany would let me 'borrow' Benjamin?

*I deliberately did not give any specific details about any of the articles I've told you about. You need to go to My Little Paris for that. And you won't be sorry that you did ;-)

Vivre! Rire! Aimer!

Temple