We’re zigzagging through streets beside the Seine River, and despite the fact that I’ve lived in Paris for the best part of a decade, I feel as if I’m seeing it all anew.
Read MoreBeijingers have taken to social media to express support and solidarity with sister city Paris following a blaze which has destroyed much of the roof of the Notre Dame Cathedral. Paris and Beijing have been sister cities since 1997.
Read MoreI never considered not getting a bike and cycling in Beijing. What I didn’t expect was how enjoyable it would prove. Here’s why:
Read MoreAfter 2.5 months in China, and before going back to my hometown of Perth for the first time in almost 2 years I reflect on what ‘home’ means to me now.
Read MoreArticles about how to dress like/talk like/date like a Parisian are a dime-a-dozen, and mostly complete BS, so I was hesitant to take on this subject. Instead of listing what colors to wear and how to get that sexy french girl tousled hair that everybody seems to want, I’ve just described how I actually lived, when I was in Paris. Enjoy!
Read MoreWe are leaving Paris on Friday, and we gave everything away : an essay about moving, the emotional attachments we have with objects, and making a home.
Read MoreStudies have found that people who cycle are smarter, more sexually attractive and better at assembling furniture than those that don't.
Read MoreThe Crazy Horse Cabaret in Paris has been setting hearts a-racing for more than 60 years. I finally ticked it off my Paris bucket list and attended the sexy, witty and iconic show, writing all about it for Marque Magazine in Australia. Check it out...
Read MoreSarah is an American stand-up comedian who lives and works in Paris. I met her via my boyfriend, also a stand-up comedian on the scene. I was immediately imprssed by Sarah's energy and professionalism, and eager to talk to her about the comedy scene in Paris and her place in it.
Read MorePublished in לאשה Laisha Magazine, May 2016
Paris and it’s surrounds are perfect for family and couple bicycle rides. Enjoy these three fun routes and explore the City of Lights.
Read MoreThe Palace of Versailles, approximately 20km south-west of Paris is one of the most visited sites in Europe, and is on everybody's to-do list while in the City of Lights. It is an absolutely spectacular place, and one of my favourite sites in the Paris region, but it's not the kind of place you should just pitch up to and wing it.
Due to its size and popularity, a day in Versailles can easily descend into a disaster of long lines, bad timing, long walks in the dust and cancelled trains.
As a tour guide I've spent thousands of hours in the town and estate, and I firmly believe that preparation is the key. So read on, because I'm about to share as much advice as I can.
Read MoreWatching the Paris Marathon isn't easy, even for a local. I was rushed, unprepared and even had to take a cab at one point. *shame*
Yet loads of people come to Paris from out of town to watch, so with this in mind, I've designed the perfect user-friendly Ultimate Paris Marathon Spectator Route.
Read MoreThe silly, gif-ridden listicle that became my most-read post gets another lease on life!
Enriched with input and interviews from some of my many guide friends, this insider piece about being a "good tourist" has been reworked for The Washington Post.
Read MoreThere’s a world you don’t see. Under your feet. A dark, wet, scurrying world. A muddy, candle-lit, labyrinthine world. Of immeasurable interconnected tunnels, dislodged boulders, vaulting galleries. Private dens, stone-carved temples and sprayed artworks. A world of pit-pat drips and natural springs, sagging electrical wires and bones.
A burrowing, endless honeycomb of a world under the huge, light, airy city you walk through every day. And one evening, this girl fell down the rabbit hole.
Read MoreSpeaking French is not a simple matter of flicking a switch and carrying on with life. It is inextricably related to feelings of legitimacy, falsehood, belonging and alienation. It is associated with anger and frustration, inadequacy, stupidity, and triumph. It is related to who and what I am, my place in the world around me and a constant negotiation and re-negotiation of meaning, intention and power.
Read MorePublished in PRIMOLife Magazine, Autumn 2016
Le Rouge stands against the wall, taking up almost its whole length. He is smaller than I imagined, delicate even, built from acacia wood and painted a dark warm red. Le Rouge is only 17 years old, but belongs to a family that can trace its roots back to the middle ages. He has lived his whole life in France, but travels frequently to perform on lit stages.
Le Rouge is a harpsichord and we are going to get to know one another.
Read MoreSince when is Paris a place that needs to advertise? It’s one of the world’s top tourism destinations. However, 2015 was a shocker of a year for France, and understandably lots of people are have delayed or cancelled their Paris trips.
Here are my top five reasons for why you should come to Paris now.
Read MoreI’ve tried to write something about the attacks of November 13th for weeks. It never feels like the right time, or the right way. Still doesn’t. How can one possibly begin to put words to the enormous confusion of horror, pain, death, anger, grief, emotions, news reports, lack of sleep, tears that was it. How can one begin to describe something that you can’t touch, and which changed the very world in which you live, has coloured the way you see everything, and has made everything Before and After?
How can I, one among millions begin to even try? What right do I have to tell this story?
Like pushing magnets together, my words resist one another. The harder I push, the more violently they slip away into a messy pile on the other side of meaning.
Read MoreWelcome to "Hey You! Yes You", a new series in which I'll introduce you to a new marvelous person that I have encountered here on Earth, each with their own interesting story.
For the first ever post of I have chosen a friend of mine here in Paris, Ellen. Ellen is a seriously talented musician and singer, who has just finished recording a to-be-named new album.
By regularly coaxes the magic of unicorns out of her voice and into our ears on the Paris music scene. By day she works in one of the most beautiful places on earth: The Eiffel Tower. As a tour guide, and has been up the Tower more than a hundred times. Like, way more.
I thought it would be fun to ask her a few questions about what that is like.
Read MorePublished in PRIMOLife Magazine October 2015
It’s more than 40°C inside without a hit of a breeze, and I’m standing over a cauldron of bubbling broth, wrestling with what looks like a giant, hot tea-bag. Sweat pours off me as I press and squeeze the precious juices out of the sopping, heavy mass, labouring to get every last drop. My arms tremble with the fatigue. I need a beer.
And I’ll have to wait another eight weeks to get it.
Read MoreAnna Hartley is an Australian writer based in Paris.
