Being a vegetarian is more than being in good health or eating healthy, being a vegetarian is an outlook on life. Morrissey put it well during his time in The Smiths: Meat is Murder. And more and more people adapt to this food trend, for reasons which are ideological and health ones. Among the benefits of vegetarianism there’s a large quantity and variety of vitamins, carbohydrates, fats as well as mineral salts and water. Also, unlike meat, vegetables make intestinal work a lot lighter, avoiding infections as well as other pains. Vegetables, if they’re balanced, can be equivalent to many dishes which contain meat.

Of course that before opting for a vegetarian diet, it’s important to consult a nutritionist, who can give good clear advice on the type of food which is convenient for you. To stop eating meat, pure salads and prepared vegetables isn’t enough. Each body has its different food needs, energy requirements and it’s important to know how to eat according to our body.

If you’re already a vegetarian or you simply want to experiment the best of vegetarian dishes in Paris, you just have to visit these restaurants which are the best ones you’ll find in the City of Light.

Le Grenier de Nôtre-Dame opened its doors in 1978. Since then, it’s served the best vegetarian and macrobiotic food. Maybe the quality of its dishes are in the fact that they’ve always had the same chef. The service in this restaurant is helpful and careful, and they always have fresh dishes with seasonal vegetables, different menus and options which are pretty affordable and the quality of a service and style shaped by their experience which has spanned over twenty years. If you want to experiment the healthiest and most stylish in macrobiotic food, this place is for you. They’re open 365 days a year.

Only a few steps away from the Bastille metro stop, the Grand Appetit restaurant is another important place to sample the best vegetarian food in Paris. With a warm and cozy atmosphere, Grand Appetit offers affordable prices, delicious miso soups and different dishes made out of organic cereals and fresh or cooked vegetables.

If you’re in Montmartre, another place you can’t miss out on is Grain de Folle. This small restaurant is among the most attractive and charming ones you’ll find in Paris. Sometimes it’s already full, but if you wait at the door, a few surprises await inside. The dishes are different, some are traditional, but the service is warm and the place is also very friendly. The prices are more than reasonable considering it’s in Montmartre, and you’ll be able to enjoy fresh food made from seasonal vegetables, as well as macrobiotic products.

Alexa Ray

The best thing to do is to rent apartments in Paris and enjoy these restaurants as well as the vibrant culture life that this city offers. The vegetarian offering is also broad, so nothing better than exploring the city and carry on discovering the best vegetarian cuisine.

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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The Chinese literature has plenty of rare books. One of the most special books appeared in Beijing in 1922 under the title The story of the mad knight. Signed by writter and scholar of the Confucian classics Lin Shu, it was the first Chinese translation of the famous book by Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote de la Mancha, which sought legitimacy doubly contrasted to the conditions of Spanish literature at the beginning of the modern novel in the West. It turns out that the text of Lin Shu immediately became one of the major events in the history of literary translation in China.

It wasn’t the first translation of a classic of European literature by Lin Shu, who was a great literature innovator and the responsible for stopping the neglecting judgment as minor trivial and insignificant literary genre that novels were having in China. Indeed, Lin Shu was also the author, among others, of the Chinese versions of David Copperfield (the famous English sinologist and member of the Bloomsbury circle of Arthur Waley, who was responsible for the best pages of Dickens written in Chinese by Lin Shu), Robinson Crusoe Defoe, Gulliver’s Travels, Montesquieu’s Persian Letters or Study in Scarlet by Conan Doyle.

All the above, perhaps could help us to understand better the meaning of the word author and the scope of Waley’s words, by paying due attention to the working method of Lin Shu, e.g. in his translation of Don Quixote, even though he never learnt any foreign language.

Chen Jialin, his assistant, every afternoon came to Shu´s house and told him one of the episodes of the book. Once gone, Shu Lin sat to write his own version of the book. The Argentinean writer Ricardo Piglia suggested that a translation of this text would make it difficult to appreciate the beauty of Shu Lin´s idea.

As unique working method began with the Lady of the Camellias, book that he bounced back to life. For a long time after the death of his wife, Lin Shu fell into the deepest depression. That terrible and desperate state of disrepair only became better when his friend Shouchang Wang arrived from France and told him about the novel by Dumas. The story fascinated him so much that he asked Shouchang to tell him the whole story. After that Lin felt the need to translate it into Chinese.

This is how the story of Alexandre Dumas, son of Marguerite Gautier, not only saved the life of Lin Shu, but also in an indirect way radically changed forever the history of the Chinese literature.

Paul Oilzum

Thinking that perhaps we find it challenging to be in front of his tomb at the most beautiful, romantic and monumental Montmartre Cemetery (37 Avenue Samson), you will not regret to visit it when you rent apartments in Paris

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Translated by: Hans
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At one point of the memorable interview with the program A fondo in the Spanish television in the seventies of the twentieth century, the Argentine writer Julio Cortazar attempts to illustrate his peculiar relationship to the world of fantasy evoking an episode of childhood, “one of my sadness as a child”, to use his beautiful words.

He was around twelve years old when, after having felt absolutely fascinated by the unique Jules Verne’s The secret of Wilhelm Storitz decided to lend it to a classmate, lover of literature like him, urging him to read it immediately in the intimate conviction that he was handing out a ticket to an unknown continent that would amaze him. Hence his astonishment and dismay when the partner contemptuously returned it days later with the remark that he had not liked because of finding it too fantastic.

The book, unusually in Verne’s novels, was not a scientific advance, but treated the issue of the invisible man, years before H.G. Wells made him popular. But this assumption, the existence of an Invisible Man, Cortazar never thought of considering it fantastic, but quite the contrary “perfectly possible in the circumstances of the book”. The partner’s reaction allowed him to understand in a not entirely rational way, and not without some regret, that his notion of the fantastic differed from the rest of the people around him, as it did not conflict at all with his concept of reality. Saying it in another way, he discovered that “I moved naturally into the realm of the fantastic not distinguishing too much from what is real, that is, fantastic things happening in books or them happening to me in life were facts that I assumed without protest and without fuss and I found already wrapped in a social system where that’s a scandal and one is immediately reduced rationally by saying, well, it’s a fluke, a coincidence, there is an exception …”

Therefore it will not be too strange perhaps the subsequent Cortazar’s interest in the pataphysical things and the fact that, decades later, he translated Marcel Ayme (1902-1967) into Spanish, one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century French fantastic literature. Although, as perhaps could not be otherwise, there are notable exceptions to the rule, in almost all his stories the fantastic premise appears already on the front lines. Such is the case of the story of a man who only exists on alternate days (Le temps mort), the woman who has the power of ubiquity (Les Sabines), or his most famous short story, Le Passe-Muraille, whose protagonist discovers that he has “the extraordinary gift of crossing walls easily”. His name is Dutilleul and in Paris he is a true cult figure. In the Marcel Ayme square of Montmartre, behind the Sacré-Coeur, there is a splendid sculpture showing him doing just that.

Paul Oilzum

When renting apartments in Paris do not ignore the fantastic side of the city life and come to visit it.

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Translated by: Maria
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One of the most beautiful neighbourhoods of Paris is the Latin Quarter. Contrary to what people may think, this is not a Spanish, Portuguese or Brazilian neighbourhood. There are all kinds of people, but many are students and teachers coming from schools or other cultural institutions. The Latin Quarter is a famous area, full of lively bars, restaurants, old book shops and second hand clothes stores. After a visit to the beautiful Notre Dame Cathedral, you can reach the Latin Quarter through one of the bridges crossing the Seine River: Au Pont Doble, Petit Pont or Pont Saint-Michel.

The Latin Quarter owes its name to the language that once was spoken in this area of Paris – when it was an exclusive area of the Sorbonne and the College of France. Anyone would be fascinated with the famous church of St-Julien le pauvre, one of the three oldest churches in Paris. This is also a meeting point for pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. In addition, it was also a meeting point for students at the Sorbonne during the Middle Ages.

Crossing Saint-Jacques street there is the famous St. Severin Church. This is not one of the best-known tourist routes in Paris, but it is one of the most extraordinary examples of religious architecture that dates back towards the end of the fifteenth century. It is of an extravagant gothic style. Inside, the spirals and the lights that come from the mosaic windows give it an incredible force.

Another major attraction is the Cluny Museum. Built on the ancient Roman baths, it was used as a hotel to receive the monks who came from Cluny, in Borgogna. Today, the hotel is one of the most important examples of civil construction of the city: it hosts the Gallic and Roman ruins and a medieval art and craft works collection. Though it may seem impossible to believe, this museum was a strong rival to the Louvre colossus.

In this neighbourhood, not far from the Sorbonne, it is the distinguished Pantheon, which is a symbol of the revolutionary Paris. A renowned National Temple, illustrious figures like Rosseau and Mirabeau have been buried there.

What are you waiting for? Rent Apartments in Paris and enjoy a great holiday in the city of lights and discover its charming Latin quarter.

If you wish to visit the most picturesque and bohemian Paris and the streets where the film Amélie was filmed, you have to go to Montmartre! Formerly called Mons Martyrium (‘Mount of Martyrs’), it is the highest natural place in Paris and the most visited. There is the famous Basilica Sacré Coeur, where you’ll have an impressive view of all Paris. This huge building built in limestone (which has the peculiararity of bleaching in air and rain water), is crowned by a large dome and surrounded by seven chapels. Inside the basilica there is the largest mosaic in the world, representing the Sacred Heart of Jesus and covering an area of 475 m2.

But this is not the only charm of Montmartre, known as the birthplace of Impressionists and intellectuals; Montmartre was home from the middle of the XIX of artists such as Johan Jongkind and Camille Pissarro. To feel the inspiration of these artists you should visit the Bateau Lavoir, a squalid block of buildings that is famous because at the turn of the 20th century a group of outstanding artists lived and rented artistic studios there. Notable painters that once lived there or used to meet there were; Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Paco Durri, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Steinlen and Van Gogh.

At each bend, square or cobbled street, you can meet with artists in the middle of their latest creation. For example, in the famous Place du Tertre, painters and cartoonists draw you a portrait in only 5 minutes. You can have a drink in legendary cabarets such as Le Chat Noir (The Black Cat) or taverns like Le Lapin Agile (The Agile Rabbit).

To break free from the long and tiring climb of the Sacred Heart (about 300 steps); opt for the funicular, the only one in the whole of Paris. This is the preferred means of ascent by residents and tourists. Well known, it appears especially in many movies, in famous paintings and literature.

Do you want to create your own your outfits or simply want to select a piece of cloth? A single address: rue Saint Pierre! Located at the foot of the Butte Montmartre, Saint Pierre is the Mecca of the sale of fabric. There are many signs, including the oldest and best known the Marché Saint Pierre, offering a wide selection of fabrics of all types and prices to make your clothes or buy the latest haute couture fabric. This place is popular with Parisians, tourists and especially by the professionals of cinema, fashion designers and interior designers.

Finally, a curiosity that you can not afford to miss: the vineyard of the Montmartre. Yes, there is wine in Montmartre! It extracts about 1,500 bottles during the harvest in October and makes for a very popular festival. The next edition of the Fête des Vendanges de Montmartre will take place from 7th to 11th October 2009, 5 days of partying, dancing, wine tasting and gastronomy.

Do you want to soak up the true Parisian spirit of life? Do you want to discover the soul of the city of lights? Then do not hesitate a second and rent apartments in Paris which are not expensive and which will also enable you to visit this beautiful part of the city of lights even better.