Paris

For decades – if not centuries – Paris has been regarded as the world capital of gastronomy, fashion, luxury and the art of living. And yet it remains one of the most beautiful and fascinating cities in the world, with a history, heritage and cultural offering of a richness rarely equalled. What other city can offer its visitors such architectural unity? so many great museums? such beautiful views of its river? such a concentration of restaurants and exceptional monuments? Without lapsing into chauvinism, of which there is no room for suspicion, Paris must be recognised for its immense qualities.

But what about the faults? It’s easy to think that Paris is suffering the same fate as Venice, gradually losing its inhabitants to ever-higher rents and turning itself into a museum city. But this simplistic vision, peddled by some unfortunate Cassandras, is more than ever contradicted by the facts and the reality of the city. Since the end of the 2000s, the capital has been living up to the dynamism of London and Berlin, with a proliferation of new hotels and restaurants, innovative transport projects, the Olympic Games in 2024 and, above all, an explosion in the number of leisure and lifestyle initiatives.

Brasseries with unfriendly waiters? Replaced by creative neobistros, inventive street food and ambitious nouvelle cuisine. Dusty cafés? Transformed into trendy coffee shops by inspired baristas. Aging hotels in the historic centre? Renovated as boutique hotels or hotels with spas that have nothing to envy the best European addresses. And even the Parisian nightlife scene, once thought dead and buried, is looking more vigorous than ever under the impetus of electro collectives, who are multiplying their most exciting projects, not to mention the speakeasies and rooftops successfully imported from New York, London and Barcelona.

Clearly, Paris has never been as seductive as it is today.