Written by Sarah Moriarity for VINGT :

The eclectic bar-restaurant, La Conserverie, at 35 bis rue du Sentier in the second arrondissement, serves some of the best cocktails in the city. This is big praise for a place has only been in business for four months and is keeping a death-defyingly low profile. As well as a selection of classic cocktails, La Conserverie’s menu boasts a series of original recipes invented by the bar’s Paris-born bartender, Tim. Our cocktail of choice is the DuMaurier – a mixture of rum, fresh lemon juice, champagne and whole raspberries, served with gasified sugar (rock candy) on the side. “You place a little bit of rock candy on your tongue and then take a sip,” explains Tim. “I created this cocktail specifically for that candy,” he adds. The result is a literal taste explosion as the sugar pops and fuses with the drink in your mouth.

“I hope that people will return for the drinks”, says Tim. With innovative original recipes that embrace a litany of different ingredients such as Bird Tongue spice, sake and white balsamic vinegar there is no doubt that they will. Along with the cocktails, La Conserverie has welcoming, international staff, a full food menu and a relaxed atmosphere, making it the perfect place to catch up with friends or even to have a quiet, taste bud-popping drink by yourself.  Cocktails are priced between €12 and €14.

The atmophere is one of all the art (literature, painting, music) that surrounded him and influenced him . You will see important letters, paintings and drawings from famous artists borrowed from important museums around the world.

Musée de la vie romantique, 16 Rue Chaptal, 75009 Paris, M° Blanche
You can just have a stroll to the museum from the Montmartre Studio Loft.

A young woman, B., looks for her twin sister Rose who is missing. That’s the start for a look into the not so known intimistic parts of Paris taken by the camera of Bettina Rheims and written by Serge Bramly.

Hunderd photos and a movie tell the voyage at the heart of Paris between the wars. The mysterieus serie is divided in 13 episode in which you can find not so known decors of Paris. Over hunderd models and comidians did work with them such as Monica Bellucci, Valérie Lemercier, Anna Mouglalis, Naomi Campbell, Charlotte Rampling, Jean-Pierre Kalfon..

BnF / Richelieu ,58 rue de Richelieu, 75002 Paris, M° Bourse-Palais Royale

This manifestation is organised for the year France-Russie 2010

Opéra Garnier, 9, Rue Scribe , 75009 Paris, M° Opéra

Every day 10-17h and in function of the openingshours of the Palais Garnier.

Close to Rue Oberkampf, in the heart of the 11th arrondisment, The International Bar is something of a revelation for the local Parisian live music scene. It hosts two bands a night, every night of the week, completely free of charge with relatively cheap drinks and a laid back atmosphere. The music runs the gamut from rock, electro, folk, pop and world.

The crowd is as eclectic as the music styles but is becoming increasingly popular with young dressed down hipsters, students and ex-pats. Most come for the 4 euro pints at happy hour (finishing at 9pm) and stay on for the free live music. The bar stays open until 2am during the week and until 4am on the weekends. After the bands finish, DJ’s play an eclectic mix of everything from Prince to Joy Division to Lauren Hill.
The space accommodates two separate bars each with their own ambiance. The ground floor bar is warmly lit with rough concrete flooring and simple furnishings. Stencil art and posters hang on the walls along with video projections and abstract sculptures lending it the feel of a messy artist’s studio or co-location. The downstairs bar is a 200+ capacity band room with a low ceiling and the ubiquitous sticky carpets and dark corners that typifies rock’n'roll.
The drink selection includes cocktails and tap beers as well as a couple of decent wines. For snacks, the upstairs bar also does a nice trade in hotdogs and will serve up free popcorn and chips/crisps during happy hour.

From Champs-Elysee to Montmartre there is no shortage of expensive clubs and bars with DJ’s spinning the latest dance music for an increasingly bovine audience but if you feel more in the mood to enjoy a beer, catch up with friends and see a local French band then head down to The International Bar.

Out of the text by Joel Ma

The International Bar,5/7 Rue Moret,75011, Paris, M°: Menilmentant, Parmentier, Rue St Maur

Aside from the renowned pieces, this exhibition covers the lesser-known works by Delacroix, which includes copies of the Old Masters Raphael and Rubens, illustrations on works of Shakespeare and George Sand, paintings on religious subjects, savage wildlife, as well as glimpses of the Moroccan livelihood and the natural landscapes of Valmont the artist observed during his travel, which are rarely shown in public. These specially selected pieces are presented alongside borrowed works from Musée du Louvre and other public collections, thus offering a comprehensive view on the development of the Delacroix’s artistic maneuver and revealing his source of inspiration. A majority of the exhibited works will return to the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York after the exhibition, of which Karen B. Cohen is an honorary trustee.

Musée national Eugène Delacroix, 6 ,rue de Furstenberg, 75 006 Paris, M° Saint-Germain
Open every day except for Tuesdays from 9.30pm to 5pm.

Musée Bourdelle, 18, rue Antoine Bourdelle,75015 Paris,M° : Montparnasse – Bienvenüe / Falguière

Open from Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 6pm until March 14, 2010.

The sense of smell can stir-up potent memories. Certain aromas allow to relive an infinite array of events, as they transport us to different places and times where memories interact with imagination and fantasy.

Paris, apart from being an elegant city par excellence, is the capital of perfume. While there are thousands of ways to experience this unique place which combines flavors and fragances, it’s the city of Grasse where the finest aromas can be found.

But at Rue Scribe, near the Garnier Opéra House, in an old theater, a museum/boutique reveals infinite secrets and curiosities about the manufactering of fragances. Upon crossing through the doorway, one can admire all the distillation stages involved in the elaboration of the different aromas until discovering the marvelous collection of objects linked with perfume making.  Perfume as it’s known today became a liquid in the late XIV century after having originally been a solid.

With a familiar spirit and the hand crafted values that it represents, Fragonard has succeeded in crossing borders to make the sense of smell a uniquely pleasant experience. There are also free guided tours.

Fragonard, 9, Rue Scribe, 75009 Paris, M° Opéra

Musée du Luxembourg will also be renovating from Jan 2010 until 2011.

Although its location inside Forum des Halles is not the most desirable, Forum des Images is the gem of this underground maze. Nowhere else will you find such an enormously varied film agenda including 1920s silent film, contemporary art house cinema and everything in between. There is a strong emphasis on the French cinema tradition with regular screenings of films by the French masters of cinema such as Marcel Carné, Louis Malle, Jean Luc Godard and Jean Renoir.  They even offer the delightful ‘Menu Court’ – showings of short films at 1.15pm every day for €1 designed to fit into your lunch break.

However, Forum des Images is not just a great cinema. The frequency of master classes, cinema lessons and debates are what make it so unique to Paris. The master classes are open to anyone with a ticket and have included highly influential members of the film community such as Claude Chabrol and Gérard Depardieu. Forum’s biggest coup to date is the master class by Francis Ford Coppola. Fear not that tickets for this event were sold out in a few hours. Isabelle Hupert, star of some of the most astonishing French films of the last decade such as La Pianiste and Ma Mère, will also be taking a master class .

If you’re feeling especially invigorated by this grand array of cinematic education then you can even hop next door to the Bibliotèque de Cinéma François Truffaut and have a look at some of the 17,000 books about film.

Forum des Images , 101 Porte Berger, 75001 Paris, M° Les Halles – Châtelet