Exquisite flat decorated by a genius designer. Every item and furnishing is intriguing and visually compelling. The atmosphere created is quite simply breathtaking. Not a flat for modernists seeking empty, sterile white spaces or Bauhaus austerity. It is a functioning home though and personal items will be encountered. It is a happy and eminently comfortable shangri-la. A decorator’s paradise. A perfect escape.
Outside is a gritty world of contrast. Inelegant, in places seedy, and at night, downright mean. The darker side of a bygone generation’s played-out fantasies. Read up and know what you are getting into. This isn’t Disneyland or the Louvre. So of course I liked it. Not everyone will.
Up the hill things improve into charming cliches and bistros, presided over by Montmartre’s cathedral. Down towards the river the city buttons up and becomes respectable as the Galleries Lafayette announce the return of high fashion shopping and people watching. But when you leave your door, remember, you’re in Pigalle.