Dreaming of France -- Five Nights in Paris

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Even in a scaled-back Christmas, there's room for books. My husband gave me a book called Five Nights in Paris: After Dark in the City of Light by John Baxter. It's a guidebook to nightlife in Paris.

I have to admit that our evenings in Paris mostly consist of eating very late dinners and walking the streets of Paris in hopes that a 1920s car will appear and pick us up, like in Midnight in Paris. We also occasionally go to concerts, like a fabulous one in Sainte Chapelle. Saint Chapelle by day is breathtaking.

This photo of Sainte Chapelle is from Paris Digest.

When people ask me what they should see in Paris, I tell them to go to the second floor of Saint Chapelle and stand in the blue light. The stained glass windows stretch tall and sparkle the floor with their colors. But in the evenings, on the first floor, if you're lucky, there might be a concert of beautifully crafted violins and cellos played by musicians dressed in black. The lights in the chapel are not turned on, but instead candles flicker along the wall sconces. And the music soars wonderfully once bow is put to strings.
Other than that, my Paris nightlife is fairly limited, so I look forward to reading this book for some other entertainment ideas.
After nine initial stories, the book is broken down into the five senses, like "Blues in the Night," "Proposing a Toast," "Skin-Deep," "Gardens of the Night" and "Frenzy and Darkness." The titles are intriguing and I'm sure that they'll make me long for Paris even more.

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