Photo Essay

We've all seen 'those' Paris photos: The unmistakable landmarks, the fancy cafés and the wide boulevards. And although I truly adore all these features of the stunning French capital, I've always longed to see another Paris -- to look beyond the picture-perfect façades of ornamental balconies and beyond what first-time visitors see of Paris. For my visit to Paris last month, I booked a hostel located near Place de la République which turned out to be the perfect location to explore an entirely different kind of Paris: Canal Saint-Martin. To be honest, until recently, I didn't even know that Paris had [...]

Usually I never sleep in when I’m visiting a city for only a few days, because I just don’t want to waste any of my precious time sleeping. But still, I rarely leave my hostel before 9 am (which I still consider somewhat early!). On my June visit to Paris however, I arrived in the City of Lights at 5.30 am in the morning. Obviously, I couldn’t check into my hostel this early so I had no other choice but to go out and explore Paris while it was slowly waking up on that beautiful warm June morning. Sideways were [...]