Top choices - Paris e-guide: The Travel Guide with its Own Website - page 7

Morning Cinema
For more on Left Bank art-house cinemas, see p120
When the day dawns grey and cold or the rain begins to
fall, slip into a cinema and cosy up with a good film.
Chains such as the independent MK2 and the multi-
national UGC offer a reduced tariff for the first morning
session. Look for version originale (VO) of foreign films
if you don't want to suffer French-dubbed renderings.

vintage Piscine Butte-aux-Cailles (Map 21 A5), with its
outdoor pools fed by artesian wells. A morning dip here
is downright civilized.

Auction Action
Drouot Richelieu, 9 rue Drouot, 9ème, 01 48 00 20 20,
www.gazette-drouot.com
There's nothing quite like an auction to get the blood
pumping, and Drouot Richelieu (Map 4 F5) holds sales
Mon-Sat in 16 different salesrooms - enough to sate a
big bidding appetite. If you just like to look, auction
items go on view from 11am the day before. Expect
everything from Louis XV chairs to works by Matisse.

Cookery Courses
Ecole Ritz Escoffier, 38 rue Cambon, 1er, 01 43 16 30 50, www.
ritzparis.com; Promenades Gourmandes, 187 rue du Temple,
3ème, 01 48 04 56 84, www.promenadesgourmandes.com
Acquire a souvenir of French cuisine that lasts longer
than a wheel of Camembert - expertise! Cookery
classes with chef Paule Caillat at Promenades
Gourmandes (Map 11 C3) run 9am-3pm and include a
market tour, a hands-on class and a three-course lunch.
Alternatively, the illustrious Hotel Ritz's Ecole Escoffier
(Map 9 D2) holds Saturday morning introductory work-
shops, focusing on seasonal produce (9am-1pm).

Free Fashion Shows
No matter if you weren't on the invitation list for the
Paris fashion shows. The Galeries Lafayette (Map 9 D1)
parades the latest looks in a weekly 30-minute free
fashion show (11am Tue). Get there when the store
opens at 9:30am and admire the imposing glass dome
and Art Nouveau staircase in relative calm before giving
your credit card a thorough retail work-out.

Beauty Treatments
For more on beauty, see pp162-7
Beauty salons are brimful on Saturday mornings; that's
when serious working girls book their facials, manicures
and top-to-toe treatments. Join them to experience the
buzz, or opt for a leisurely weekday morning at a snazzy
salon with the ladies-who-lunch set, and sit back and
enjoy the cosseting.

Sunbathing and Swimming
Piscine Butte-aux-Cailles, 5 place Paul Verlaine, 13ème,
01 45 89 60 05
Come mid-July, the Seine goes seaside for a month as
palm trees, deck chairs, umbrellas, hammocks and vast
amounts of sand appear along a 3-km (2-mile) stretch of
the Right Bank, opposite Notre Dame. Every summer, a
couple of million people visit, so get there early if you
want some space to soak up the sun. There's even a
swimming pool. Serious swimmers may prefer the

Hot Tickets
Place de la Madeleine, 8ème (Map 9 C2);
Gare Montparnasse, 14ème (Map 19 B1)
Buy last-minute, cut-price theatre tickets for same-day
shows from one of Paris's two Kiosque Théâtres (open
daily). Savvy Parisian show-goers often choose this
option, as French theatres and some concert halls have
complicated booking systems - requests for tickets
sometimes have to be put in writing months in advance.