Helen Hickey

It is so clichéd, but a trip to Mr Eiffel’s tower does tend to enjoy pole position on bucket lists of places to visit in Paris. I’ve just ticked it off mine with close friends visiting from India. The Eiffel Tower dominates the Champ de Mars gardens and attracts close to 7 million visitors each year. These were our fourth set of visitors in a guest-fest of six-sets of visitors in six weeks; heaps of fun if not exhausting. And as much as I’d like to believe our new found popul

NYC’s skyline taken from on Top of the Rock at Rockefeller Centre I have read it is every Parisians’ dream to live in New York City. Equally, most New Yorkers I know have a penchant for anything French, particularly Paris, the epicentre of chicness and culture. Given the mutual adoration between these city folk, our relocation to Paris earlier this year stands a good chance of being a harmonious one. I am, of course, delighted to have landed here, and am firmly within the hea

I’ve just read Olivier Magny’s ‘Stuff Parisians Like’, written by the young French sommelier and owner of the successful Ô Chateau wine bar in Paris, in a bid to appear au fait (knowledgeable) about the joie du vivre here in the leafy banlieues (suburbs) of Paris. The French is coming along nicely too, n’est-ce pas? His delightfully flippant book is based on the wine buff’s former blog, and I suspect largely written for an American audience given the references to “Les (stupi

What is the feeling among the gay community now? A typical cafe scene in Le Marais which enjoys a history as rich as a Boudin Noir sausage, a story of rages to riches as it transformed itself from marshland (marais is French for marsh) to the haunt of Parisians royals, and in recent times the trendy gay capital of Paris. This is the question that whirled around my mind as I soaked up the undeniably hip scene under a brilliant blue sky in Le Marais, the gay capital of Paris. S

May kicks off the start of the silly season of endless holidays in France. It’s called the month of ‘les ponts’ (French for bridges), which alludes to the skillful way workers take time off in between May bank holidays and the weekends. Off with the beret hats, hello dark sunglasses and spiffy sandals. Parisians are smiling (it’s official): spring is in full swing and their much beloved month of May est arrivé! This dreamy month is truly blessed with bank holidays offering th