They say that chocolate gives you a sensation of wellbeing that brings you close to the feeling of being in love – so the popular saying says-. Generally speaking, the consumption of sweets has always been an important factor on the every day meal table. As a dessert to accompany breakfast, lunch or dinner, chocolate always finds its path to ensure a happy ending to any meal.

They also say that chocolate can act as an antidepressant, or cheer you up a bit when things are not right. In fact, some components of cocoa, release chemicals into the brain that give you a feeling of comfort and tranquility.

And chocolate has many properties that make it beneficial for everyone, it also has a high energetic capacity intake. While cocoa is rather bitter by nature the normal preparation of chocolate is made with large amounts of sugar, which makes this deliciously sweet food a important source of calories for athletes or people who do a lot of physical work. Remember also that there is no pleasant winter if it isn’t  accompanied by a good tasty  bar of chocolate. Similarly, chocolate has antioxidant properties that help prevent cardiovascular problems and even cancer. These antioxidants are found in cocoa beans and the purest and darkest version of chocolate is the healthiest one,  the one that is far more bitter or with less content of milk is ideal. Milk possibly reduces the antioxidant power of this sweet, however, the dosage of chocolate should be low. Among other chocolate properties ,it has the ability to moisturize the skin and prevent wrinkles. Abusing chocolate of course , can be counterproductive if you have stomach problems or if you are overweight.

The Salon du Chocolat in Paris is without a doubt one of the most interesting events you may discover if you’re a chocolate lover. For five days, you will be exposed to the best chocolates in the world with many international exhibitors and an endless array of chocolate products. Similarly, there will be live performances and information about the history of chocolate, its various forms, colors and options, so go with your avialability of sugar intake empty  because there is no ending to what you will savour. Perhaps this activity may be a more romantic reason to visit the beautiful city of Paris and visit this exhibition of chocolates with your partner. They say that chocolate, in several of their combinations, has different erotic properties . Maybe a chocolate massage with your partner can revive the romance in the same way. For more information about this international exhibition of chocolates, visit the following website http://www.salonduchocolat.fr/

Alexa Ray

Nothing better than getting apartments in Paris and participate in this phenomenal show that will leave you more than a big chocolate smile on your face. Highly recommended.

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Translated by: Marc
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André Bazin, was founder of the famed magazine Cahiers du Cinéma in 1951 in Paris, and the author of a four-volume collection called Qu’est-ce que le cinemá? (1958-1962). In the opening essay of aforementioned work, he speaks about the psycho-analytical “complex” of the origin of the plastic arts; like a canvas or a statue which represents the brush strokes of men, it like a kind of embalming in order to conserve that which is inevitably destined to disappear.

And so therefore, the reproductive obsession of man represents a fight against time, and the fantasy of cheating death; “to artificially fixate on carnal appearances means to interfere with the flow of time, to redefine it in life… to save the being through appearances.”

This psychological desire of the artist to express themselves, and substitute the exterior world for its double – which photography does to perfection, not only satisfies this anxiety, but it adds to the objectivity and liberation of realism painting;

“In photography, we have a total and complete satisfaction of our appetite for illusion, through a mechanical reproduction of that which excludes man.”

But it would be cinema which would take these ideas to their final conclusions on the history of art, since, for all that photography contributes to art, it belongs to a particular era of reproduction. Cinema represents the existent – not only it’s superficial appearances but also its evolution.

For Bazin, Cinema and Reality share a very powerful link. Ontologically linked, with an existential relationship, and a profound continuity – cinema places itself by a world which becomes its replica and its extension. Therefore it not only adheres to a reality, or the represented, but it also participates in it. In fact, the origin of this means of expression comes primarily from the myth of “absolute realism”, precursors of which were Niepce, Muybridge and Lumiére.

One of the films which confirmed this psychological nature of cinema as the grounds of the evolution of “absolute realism” and the culmination of “ontological realism” was The Bicycle Thief (Vittorio de Sica, 1948). An Italian neo-realist film which approached reality in a greatly intense and rich way, it contained sequences which made the spectator, via the loose, and subtle perspective, decipher for themselves the secrets and essence of the work.

If realism has always been a basic necessity of all art forms, with modern cinema it was turned into a necessity which dissolved with life.

Bazin was rooted in truth and certainty, as his theories flourished with the advent of Cinema Verite, characterised by its employment of “light” (8 and 16mm) techniques in order to capture the reality from nearby – just as it is.

This signaled the democratization of cinema. That aspiration towards total “truth” – that obsession with capturing precisely what the eye sees, and making it within the reach of everybody. Coppola chimed in with this movement too, remarking that “…suddenly one, a fat girl from Ohio will be the new Mozart, and will make a beautiful film with the small camera which belongs to her father, and finally, what we call the “professionalism” of cinema will be destroyed and it will become an art form.”

Cinta Blanch

If you’re looking for apartments in Paris don’t miss out on the chance to experience some of the original Parisian cinema clubs, and watch films by François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and Claude Chabrol.

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Translated by: Poppy
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Big areas exist in every big city, such as the 16th Arrondissement in Paris, close to Trocadéro, which can be labelled neutral, undefined, lacking a precise identity and characteristic. They’re some sort of border neighbourhoods where everything seems to be pointless, where nothing of tourist attractive or architectonic landmarks seem to call out to the traveller. Actually, it’s in these neighbourhoods where the majority of the novels by the prestigious French writer Patrick Modiano take place. Modiano won the Goncourt Prize in 1984 with ‘Missing Person’, the French Academy Novel Award and the Pierre de Monaco Foundation Award for his whole work.

One of the things that’s attractive about these places is, precisely, the absence of things to visit. The lack of history or famousness gives them a very special quality which makes them, strangely enough, unique, namely the possibility to approach them with a strictly oneiric outlook, in the sense that it’s a lot easier to imagine things in them than in other neighbourhoods which carry the weight of history, which conditions in a considerable way the number and literary genre of any potential novels. They’re like a blank page which allows the constant invention and re-invention of identities and lives. It’s also no surprise the elevated number of people who, statistically, have tended to disappear in these neighbourhoods, like if under its seemingly normal appearance, strange forces and unique movements which are capable of swallowing people seem to operate, at least in the way that we knew them.

Modiano is one of those French writers that, at least since Baudelaire, have felt fascination in wandering without destination around the streets of Paris to reinvent reality and randomly find in them trails of real life, or at least unexpected accesses to other worlds where it’s possible to live in a dignified way. In this aspect, this extremely calm and careful man is a strange heir of the surrealist sensitivity and its most notable continuations, especially the theory and practice of the situationist urban drift.

Precisely, a quote by Guy Debord can be used as an entrance point and it’s in the origin of the name ‘In the café of lost youth’, one of his most moving and beautiful Parisian novels. Because it happens in all of his books, at some point in the less than 150 pages, another constant in all of his literary production, we know that we’re going to come across a garage, just like we know that the city will be the reflex of an interior labyrinth where people look for each other and the identities are shown as fragile and non-consistent artifacts, and that a prose of simple but incredibly precise appearance (just as precise as all the given information, with the aim that, in the same way as a painting by Magritte unfolds better on the oneiric aspect of narration, in the same way that it happens with the profusion of exact informations which are usually found in great lies) will conquer us with its outright and improbable lyricism.

Paul Oilzum

Don’t keep putting back the mysterious pleasure of reading them. Few things impulse us more than Modiano’s books to rent apartments in Paris so we can get lost in its streets in the labyrinths of memory and time.

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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The National Museum of the Middle Ages of Paris, or “Cluny Museum” is located in the heart of the Latin Quarter, across the street from Paul Painlevé 6, very near the Sorbonne subway stop. Located on two exceptional Parisian monuments: the Gallo-Roman baths and and the Abbots of Cluny Hotel (XV). This museum was initiated with Alexandre Du Sommerard collection, a passionate lover of the Middle Ages. These works allow you to explore in one place about fifteen centuries of art and history.

The hotel has 2 plants, separated in various galleries. Its interior layout, the size of the rooms, and  the frontal area maintains the original chapel outline .

On the ground floor you have the Gallo-Roman baths, with their respective showrooms or frigidarium, (these works are a testament to the Romanization of Gaul, with Gallic inscriptions) the monument known as the Pillar of Nautas and the representation of multiple currencies.

We also find fifteenth century painted alabaster, stained glass, tombstones and sculptures that represent different successive periods in the life of the cathedral of Paris in other rooms

The collection of ivories in the museum is next to the Louvre one of the two major Parisian collections. This very popular material, among the IV and XII centuries has a Romanesque room with stone and wood sculptures and capitals of the abbeys of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Sainte-Geneviève in Paris and Saint-Denis.

On the first floor it is worthy to mention the  rooms of paintings and sculptures of the late Middle Ages where panels and the Altarpiece of the Life of the Virgin is found The windows that surround us in different rooms evoke the material aspects of the time. One of the most important collections is found in The room of Gold with the Golden Hall Front Basel. The Chapel is a masterpiece of flamboyant Gothic.

We also have several rooms dedicated to the daily routines, such as the chair room of the Beauvais choir, the devotion room, domestic life area and the Hunting and Tournaments hall dedicated to War,

The Lady and the Unicorn Roundabout  is undoubtedly one of the most attractive sights for tourists, since you can see the wonderful tapestry that illustrate the 5 senses plus a sixth one:  the intellect or heart. These tapestries with   “milflores” (1000 flowers) background is admirable under low lighting, giving the impression that time passes slowly for  we are mesmerized watching the movement of light and shadow lost in a hypnotic state

The gardens of the museum, built unde rmedieval inspiration, opened in 2000, trying to merge the spirit of the museum without forgetting its location in middle downtown. It has a great patio, a terrace with a garden, and  beautiful garden where flowers that symbolize the virgin grow. The simple medicinal herb garden where sage, hyssop, mint,  etc grows  and the Garden of love, love being  evoked in a courteous and sensual way. The Children’s course offers games for kids while the small clearing in the center is reserved for those who want to take a break and rest . The forest of the unicorn and the tapestry of a thousand flowers was inspired by the tapestries

Ara

Take a trip to Paris and rent apartments in Paris and visit this wonderful museum, where not only their artifacts and collections, but the building itself, its gardens, its baths, its light, takes us back to the medieval ages

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Translated by: Marc
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Formerly, los property in France became property of the king or the lord of the jurisdiction. If a person found an object without an owner he had to declare it and hand it in to the lord of the land. This lordly right was abolished in 1791 after the arrival of the French Revolution, which a year before had declared that all property without an owner became property of the State.

In 1804, the Paris Police Prefecture requested its officers that they sent to its facilities all the lost property deposited in the police stations to centralize the service, but it wasn’t until 1850 when it began to be known by the general public. By then, it was located on rue du Harlay, next to the Palace de la Justice, and it received over 10,000 items per year. Finally, in 1939, the lost property service, called ‘found objects’ in French, moved to its current home, 36 rue Morillons, in the city’s 15th Arrondissement.

Today, this institution gathers over 140,000 items per year, which are deposited in the underground of the prefecture, where they’re classified adn archived awaiting the return to their owner. Those whose value doesn’t go over 100 euros, are kept for three months and the most valuable ones have a year to be claimed by their owner. After this time has passed, they get rid of them and the most curious ones become part of the micro museum created to such effect. Among the kept objects, some with over two centuries in age, we can find medals, a baby bottle, false teeth, an official jacket used in the 1914 annual march, shoes, a bride’s dress, a wheelchair… A real treasure collected by the police through the years.

The lost property has been used as a source of inspiration for artists. Paul Braffort, scientist and writer, proposes in one of his writings from 1958, to open at 36 rue Morillons a “service dedicated to the lost hearts, to those who have lost their head, their virtue, their honour…”. To the singer Daniel Darc, the fatal deadline to retrieve an object inspired him to create the love song ‘Un an et un jour’ (A year and a day). And the photographer Jérôme Eagland Conquy has published the book ‘Objéts trouvés à Paris’ (Objects found in Paris). It shows 160 photographs of the most peculiar objects in the museum, from a Swiss cuckoo clock, bagpipes, a crocodile’s skull found in the city’s metro and even a saxophone forgotten in a taxi in 2004.

For further info: http://prefecturedepolice.interieur.gouv.fr/La-prefecture-de-police/Objets-trouves/Le-service-des-objets-trouves

Elena Álvarez

Paris has an endless amount of nooks and crannies to explore – but if you are a curious traveler, and love to visit the places which are not in the guide books, you have to see this small and highly original museum. A perfect activity for when you rent apartments in Paris

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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