Amiens is a city in northern France, divided by the Somme river. It’s known for the Gothic Amiens Cathedral and nearby medieval belfry. Shops and cafes line the Quartier St.-Leu’s narrow streets. Floating market gardens (“hortillonnages”) dot the city’s canals. The Musée de Picardie shows art and antiquities spanning centuries. Nearby, the Maison de Jules Verne is a museum where the science fiction author once lived.
Tag Archives: France
Rooftop Views: Galeries Lafayette In Paris (4K)
A spectacular view over Paris from the 8th floor of Galeries Lafayette Paris Haussmann. You may be lucky enough to marvel over a splendid sunset along with a number of photographers and influencers.
Opéra Garnier, the Eiffel Tower, Sacré Cœur, Notre Dame: all these monuments can be seen from the rooftop of our main store, the immense glass skylight behind you is no other than the store’s revered dome.
Celebrity Culture: History Of The Côte d’Azur, France
The Côte d’Azur stands for glamour and luxury, for film festivals and stars, for yachts and villas. The most famous personalities of the last century met here. The Côte owes its unique mythos to their loves and passions.
The Côte d’Azur boasts a breathtakingly gorgeous landscape. But its mythos is more than the sum of it beautiful parts. The whole world associates the narrow coastal strip on the French Mediterranean coast with sun, stars and scandals. In Saint Tropez, a former fishing town, a new and newly sensual art of living was popularized thanks to the young Brigitte Bardot.
On the eastern part of the coast, Oscar winner Grace Kelly conquered the principality of Monaco with her marriage to Prince Rainier. The matchmaker? The Greek shipowner Aristotle Onassis, who wanted to burnish the dwarf state’s image. One of the most glamorous film festivals in the world was established in Cannes. After that, it seemed everyone came to the Côte. At the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes, the paths of the famous crossed again and again.
For 150 years the hotel has been home to artists, queens and kings, divas and stars. Since 1969, the hotel has been owned by the German industrialist family Oetker. Maja Oetker describes her personal memories of the past 50 years. To this day, the Côte d’Azur has lost none of its appeal. It is more than just a place: it is an entire mythos.
Political Review: Russia’s ‘Rotten Army’, Macron’s Challenge, Culture Wars
A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, how rotten is Russia’s army? France’s re-elected president prepares for a tough second term (10:30) and a struggle over artistic freedom suggests a better way out of the culture wars (15:25).
Prettiest French Villages: Saint Paul de Vence (4K)
Saint-Paul de Vence (also called simply, Saint Paul) lies near Nice, between Cagnes-sur-Mer and Vence. St-Paul is a medieval village, and today it is a real mecca for artists, who have been coming here since 1920. Among others, Picasso, Dufy, Matisse, and Marc Chagall have stayed here and created their works. Chagall lived in St-Paul for 19 years and is buried in the local cemetery (on the right after entering the cemetery).
The village has also hosted world cinema stars, including Greta Garbo, Sophia Loren, and Catherine Deneuve. The artists usually spent the night in a hotel and restaurant called the Colombe d’Or, which is located in front of the walls of the old town. Apparently, the most famous of them paid for their stay in kind, leaving their works for the owner.
Exhibition Tours: Musée National Picasso-Paris
This exhibition celebrates the addition of nine masterpieces to the French national collections – six paintings, two sculptures and a sketchbook – via the country’s gifts-in-lieu scheme, which was introduced on 31 December 1968, allowing inheritance tax to be paid in kind. This unique acquisition mode is key to the very identity of Musée Picasso, which was founded in 1979 specifically to house the donation made by Pablo Picasso under this system.
Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France.
Views: Guardians Of The River Seine In Paris, France
The River Seine is the beating heart of Paris. The banks of the river attract 8 million visitors each year, making it one of the busiest places in the French capital. We meet those who take care of the Seine seven days a week, from the technicians checking water quality to members of the river patrol, who respond to emergency call-outs and use radar to explore the river’s depths.
Reviews: The Week In Art
This week, now that the pro-European centrist Emmanuel Macron has defeated the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in the French presidential election, we speak to Anaël Pigeat, editor-at-large at The Art Newspaper France, about the Macron government’s cultural record so far and what we can expect from his second term.
Tate Britain has opened an exhibition of work by the late 19th- and early 20th-century British painter Walter Sickert; we take a tour of the show with one of its curators, Thomas Kennedy. And in this episode’s Work of the Week, The Art Newspaper’s associate editor, Tom Seymour, talks to Dan Leers of the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, US, about A workman lifts a drum from a boiling lye solution, March 1944, a photograph in the museum’s new exhibition, Gordon Parks in Pittsburgh, 1944/1946.
Walter Sickert, Tate Britain, London, until 18 September; Petit Palais, Paris, 14 October-29 January 2023.
Gordon Parks in Pittsburgh, 1944/1946, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, 30 April-7 August.
Views: The Most Beautiful Passages & Arcades In Paris
Built for the most part in the 19th century, these arcades covered with glass roofs, created by piercing through other buildings, are a typically Parisian architectural feature. Most of them now house shops, tearooms and restaurants. There are around 20 of them in Paris in the vicinity of the Grands Boulevards.
One of the oldest, the Passage des Panoramas, dates from 1799. It is home to the Théâtre des Variétés, inaugurated in 1807 and still providing entertainment. Each arcade has its own character. Passage Brady, commonly known as Little India, houses numerous Indian, Pakistan, Mauritian and Reunion shops. The Passage Verdeau houses numerous antique dealers. As for the Passage du Caire – the longest and the narrowest in the capital (more than 360 metres long) – it has a large concentration of wholesalers in ready-to-wear clothing as well as other clothes manufacturers.
Galerie Vivienne next door to the Palais-Royal is one of the most iconic covered passages. The nearby Galerie Véro-Dodat has many upmarket shops, like Christian Louboutin’s workshop-boutique. Passage du Grand-Cerf, a 12-metre-high structure made of metal and wrought iron, is one of the most spectacular arcades in Paris.
The Galerie Vivienne is one of the covered passages of Paris, France, located in the 2nd arrondissement. It is 176 metres long and 3 metres wide. The gallery has been registered as a historical monument since 7 July 1974.
Morning News: French Presidential Debate, NATO-Finland, Venice Biennale
We discuss the French presidential election debate. Plus: Finnish MPs on Nato membership, an update from the Venice Biennale and the latest theatre news.
