Paris in Spring

‘April in Paris, chestnuts in blossom, holiday tables under the trees …’ Which is your favourite version of the classic jazz song? Thelonious Monk’s? Charlie Parker’s? Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong’s? Frank Sinatra’s? There’s a cute anecdote about how April in Paris came into being, in Art Buchwald’s book Paris. For many years, the columnist […]

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March is the month of spring — or, in French, le printemps, a word derived from the Latin for ‘first time.’ Because, in France, it’s the time to put the past year behind you, to start afresh. And in Paris, it’s an especially poignant moment, as the first cherry blossoms burst from bare branches, a […]

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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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