Oh, Place Vendôme, thou art so fancy but so cold, and barren. It’s best to appreciate you from the comfort of a bicycle seat, circling your central column several times like some fertility ritual giving alms at yet another phallic French monument (French architects did not spare the rod when they reconstructed the city and one supposes that the 1800s were a kind of zenith for straight things pointing ~oh, so unsubtly~ at the sky…) while gazing over at the Ritz and…the beautiful lamp posts? And then heading over to the nearby Rue Saint-Honoré and the Palais Royal for a cozier (but still luxe) shopping and dining experience. Resist the blitz of press urging you to visit the Ritz’ new pâtisserie—we found it to be overly touristy and unwelcoming. Aside from the PR machine buzz, the lines are long, the seating is poorly planned and we found the staff (at least on the day we dared visit) to be incredibly rude, even by Paris standards.
Some Place Vendôme overshare: Once, when strolling the glittery window displays in this jewelry mecca whilst on a Tinder (first!) date, le monsieur tried to buy a diamond bracelet for your dear Editor-in-Mischief, which her therapist took as a Very Bad Sign. (He claimed to be affiliated with Sarkozy and there were lots of reasons why it all didn’t work out but mostly one gets kicked out of Antifa, it is said, if they accept something from Van Cleef & Arpels on the first date…) Instead nip around the corner to one of our favorite coffee shops — Café Nuances — for a ~totally lit~ rose latte…ça déchire…
