The We Love Paris Thread.

Ah, Paris!

I love Paris, but tbh I have zero interest in visiting all these "tourist guide" places you mention like Brasserie Lipp, Café Flore and so on. I visit Paris regularly for theatre and simply try to find a nice-looking place near whatever theatre I am. There's a stretch of great "terraces" along Boulevard Haussmann/Poissonnière between the Galeries Lafayette and Porte Saint-Denis not far from some of Paris' smaller musical theatre places like the Casino de Paris and Le Palace.

The Marais has recently become a super-trendy hipster area but still has a nice buzz going. I ate in a nice place in Rue Vieille du Temple before seeing 42nd Street at the Châtelet last winter. Further north the 10th arrondissement around Place de la Republique and the Canal Saint Martin is also very hip and has great places. I more or less accidentally stumbled across a nice Mauritian restaurant there, where we could re-live our memories of a holiday on Mauritius with the right food, the bol renversée. Similarly we visited the Café Breizh (in the Marais) for Galettes Completes with Cider, our favorite food during a holiday in Brittany.

I did a guided tour of the Palais Garnier to get inside. Since I tend to see musicals in Paris, I never have the time to see an opera as well, but this sufficed for me.

What I'd definitely do is going out to Versailles to visit the Sun King's Chateau and a bit further out Chateau Fontainebleau, another magnificent pile with tons of history. I'm a history geek, so I like historical places and museums like the medieval Musée de Cluny.

There are tons and tons of good books set in Paris - you could go with the true classics like Victor Hugo's "Notre Dame de Paris" or more contemporary novels. I quite liked "Queen of the Night" by Alexander Chee - the plot was clunky at times (the writer mentions in his notes that he tried to emulate the plot of The Magic Flute) but it was still an interesting story set in mid-late-19th century Paris and since you seem to like opera, it should be right down your alley.

There's Irene Nemirovsky's "Suite Francaise" of course and if you want some chunks of French history, there's nothing like Maurice Druon's "Les Rois Maudits" saga. One book I really enjoyed recently was Pierre Lemaitre's "Au revoir là-haut" which won the Prix Goncourt (I'm sure it's available in English too) which mostly takes place in Paris after WWI. Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle is partly set in Paris and Versailles too, and Edward Rutherfurd, who wrote a biography of London also wrote one of Paris. Which I haven't read, but the London one was decent, so it may be worth it.

I don't really read thrillers so much, if you want Paris and thrillers, I would look no further than the fantastic French TV-series Engrenages (Spiral in English) which is on BBC4 regularly and available as DVD box sets as well. Naturally there are also oodles of French movies set in Paris.If you want something sober to counterbalance the twee stuff like Amelie, there's Mathieu Kassovitz' "La Haine", now 20 years old, but sadly still as valid today as then. And if you want something twee again after that, there's always "Paris je t'aime".

The Musee d'Orsay is excellent if you love Impressionism as I do. Just edges it over the Louvre Palace!

Shame they have taken the fencing away where lovers attached their padlock.

The Eiffel Tower has no business being beautiful, on paper it should be down right ugly, but it is gorgeous, especially at night time on the hour a special light share goes off and it is amazing when it is lit up to mark a special occasion.

The Palace or Versailles is a good day out and easy to get to on the RNR.

See the theatre that does a English production are doing Singin in the Rain this Christmas.