Paris History

Cherries have a long and juicy history in Paris, going right back to the Ancient Roman era. After conquering the future City of Light in 52BC, those high-living Romans imported fancy new architecture, customs, fashions and food. Markets began to sell luscious orchard fruits, with cherries — which the Romans had brought back from Asia […]

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If you ever find yourself in Paris during Fashion Week, you don’t need a front row invitation or a backstage pass to be part of the stylish action — you can feel the energy simply when walking the streets, where you’ll invariably come across gaggles of gleaming-skinned models, stylists and Instagrammers dressed to les neufs, […]

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Like the perfect pas de deux, ballet and opera have been in sync in Paris since 1669, when the Sun King Louis XIV — who fancied himself as a gifted dancer as much as a benevolent patron of the arts — founded the Académie d’Opéra. Ballet was originally performed as an entr’acte during an operatic […]

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For a proudly republican country, France sure loves its traditionally religious holidays. Take, for instance, La Chandeleur — or, Candlemas — which falls on February 2nd, forty days after Christmas. Thing is, these Christian holidays are deeply embedded into the cultural fabric of France because so many go back to ancient times, being reworkings of […]

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