24 August, 2006

Paris - Inspection Trip - by Jill

Well, the summer is almost over and I’ve been working on the new Paris site between trips down to Positano and up to Umbria. I’ve been very fortunate to have had help from my daughter Ava who is a confirmed Francophile at 18 years and thank goodness she speaks pretty good French, so she is accompanying me on this trip to help out and do all the talking, we even managed a trip up to Montmartre which was gorgeous and some very kind Australian tourists too this rather fab photo of us in this wonderful local cafe


Our project for this trip was to photograph all of the apartments for the site and eat well .... We were very lucky to be staying in the apartment Francs Bourgeois in the Marais, I mentioned in my last blog, you know the one with the famous blue walls and the incredible location - right opposite Muji - and a few steps from Chez Marianne. I forced Ava into sitting for a shot against those fabulous walls too, irresistable backdrop.


Not only is the interior of this property sensational, but also the common areas are incredible, each time I opened the heavy door from the street to enter the apartment, all passers by stopped to look in as even for Paris the courtyard is looked upon as something special. The courtyard is so wonderfully manicured and as we entered the entrance hall there was the strong perfume of beeswax from the wooden staircase and banisters, all quite magnificent!





We photographed all of the apartments in a few days, there are going to 12 apartments to begin with and we will add to this slowly just a we did with Italy-Accom, handpicking the apartments as we go, this is a great start though as the quality of the properties we saw was really superb, we have some cute little inexpensive studios, like St. Sauveur in the Montorguiel area and a specious 3 bedroom apartment just off the Champs Elysees called Bassano that I am sure would not disappoint even our most fussy clients in search of Luxury accom in Paris. All in all, I think we have a great cross section of sizes, there should be something to suit the needs for all of our clients, couples, families and groups traveling, so I look forward to getting back to Rome and launching the site at the end of September.