Helen Stokes
Light Cycles
A Scintillating Night Walk
“Light Cycles,” an often-breathtaking immersive night walk in the park, uses sound and light to evoke the beauty of the living world and takes full advantage of the varied features of La Villette, Paris’s largest park, designed by architect Bernard … Read More
Rue Notre Dame de Nazareth
A Flâneur Discovers a Changing Paris Street
I was born and bred in Yorkshire’s Rhubarb Triangle, so when a friend told me that renowned French pâtissier Philippe Conticini had made a fancy rhubarb tart for springtime, I had to try it. The closest shop was at 31, … Read More
La Mode Retrouvée: Les Robes Trésors de la Comtesse Greffulhe
Living the Good Life, Posing for Proust
“God, what a bore it is to have to dress up and go out when one would ever so much rather stay at home,” the Duchess de Guermantes says ingenuously in Marcel Proust’s novel A la Recherche du Temps Perdu … Read More
Boulevard Macdonald
Urban Mutation in Paris: Birth of a Shiny New Quarter A lone banker on his cellphone in the glass bridge between buildings. Anyone who remembers Boulevard Macdonald as it was a few years ago might want to pay a visit now … Read More
Little-known Gardens
Summer Parking The new Parc Clichy Batignolles is a huge success in park-starved Paris. The promenade plantée, an elevated park built on top of the Viaduc des Arts along the Avenue Daumesnil in Paris, is now a familiar part of … Read More