Paris. Two days alone | Париж: одна два дня — Лафайет, Карнавале, Бальзак и круассаны.

I bought tickets to Paris — just a few days in early November. Every now and then I really need to travel alone: to gather my thoughts before the New Year rush and reset a little (as much as you can in Paris).

This time: Paris. A city I’ve visited more than once — but somehow never “with love.” Let’s see how it goes now.

In this episode:
🥐 the real croissant from the corner boulangerie with a line outside (and yes, it’s wildly different from what you get outside France)
🍰 a pastry side question: what do the French call Napoleon?
🚲 Paris feeling noticeably more bike-friendly than the last time I was here
✨ aimless walks through backstreets in the center — the best kind of Paris
🏛️ Art Deco everywhere: Folies Bergère, Le Rex, and “more Art Deco to the Art Deco gods”
🖼️ a crowd mystery: what’s so tempting about the Jacquemart-André Museum?
🧣 a time-travel moment: the thin scarves Parisian women wore 20 years ago… and still do
🌤️ “Paris has so little sky” — tall buildings, narrow streets, and lots of looking up
🥖 the three pillars of French public dining: boulangerie, pâtisserie, brasserie
🇫🇷 French words coming back to me after 20 years — like the streets are speaking and I can understand them
🍂 the smell of dry autumn leaves (so different from rainy Helsinki)
📚 Balzac on the plane: “The French, Painted by Themselves. Parisian Women” — grisettes, ladies of good tone, and 19th-century social observations
🌳 a Finn in Paris goes… to the “forest”: Bois de Boulogne (and why are there so many runners in the middle of a workday?)
🏛️ Fondation Louis Vuitton — art support + temporary exhibitions, and a long line of Vuitton fans
🎧 my favorite French-history listening companion: Arzamas (Paris of the Musketeers, Paris of Sartre/Godard/Brigitte Bardot, everyday Paris, plus Chagall, Larionov, food, and more)
🍽️ Bouillon Julien: historic “workers’ canteen” vibes, surprisingly modest prices, escargots, meat with potatoes, and half a liter of Merlot for €8
🍮 a dessert experiment I couldn’t decode (next time: crème au chocolat)
🛍️ Galeries Lafayette: yes, I went for the toilet (FYI it’s on the 6th floor), plus the dome photo podium, leopard-print “Balzac,” and fashion sticker shock
👗 Bash & Maje nostalgia, a floor of second-hand shops, and blouses for €200
🌿 Art Nouveau thoughts: once beloved, now strangely alien — like it arrived from space and vanished again
🧠 a personal story about Jean Tinguely, a childhood memory from a Moscow exhibition, and how his work keeps showing up (especially in Stockholm)
🏛️ Musée Carnavalet (Paris History Museum) in Le Marais: a calm, “upper-middle” neighborhood vibe, French mid-range brands, free entry, maps of Paris through the ages, old shop signs, and a courtyard statue of the Sun King
🎈 the hot-air balloon craze and how it shaped objects and design in 18th-century France
🍷 and finally: every city has a “Hemingway” bar that swears he drank there… but in Paris, where he supposedly drank most seriously, I still haven’t found one. How is that possible?

If you like wandering without a strict plan — when the city chooses the theme — welcome 🤍
Tell me in the comments: is your Paris about museums, food, or backstreets?

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