Movies, books, and cafes in Paris

And the trailer for a new show set in the Hotel de Beauvais (from earlier this week).

Well, the weather has certainly changed in Paris. It’s cold, it’s raining, and the summer picnic baskets have been packed away until next year.

It was good while it lasted :)

Time to head inside (…to private mansions?), to turn on the TV (…for shows about Paris?) and to cozy up with a cup of coffee (…in a new Paris cafe?). All this to come in this week’s newsletter, let’s do it!

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So this week on the show I shared the story of how I got into the Hotel de Beauvais, one of the most beautiful private mansions in the city.

A couple of you reached out to say it looked familiar - and indeed, it appears this hotel particulier is the setting in a new Apple TV show called La Maison.

Here’s the trailer, you can get a few glimpses.

It’s always fun to see Paris as the backdrop on new TV shows. In recent years, I’ve spied film crews making Emily in Paris, Franklin (with Michael Douglas), and The New Look. This city is practically a movie set, it’s no surprise Paris is cropping up on everyone’s TVs so often.

Speaking of movies, I’m really happy to say our recent filming of the podcast episodes appears to have found an audience, and that there are now 15,000 YouTube subscribers! Thank you! (We even put this week’s podcast on YouTube complete with clips from inside that stunning mansion - watch it here).

So. 15,000, huh? Well, I’m a man of my word, I’ll now set about organizing a 15 hour live YouTube stream (wait… no! 1.5 hours!!!). I was thinking it could be fun to show just how many big and famous monuments you can see in a 90 minute walk. I bet I could tick off ten.

Not subscribed? Jump aboard on YouTube now. There are 622 videos there about Paris. Surely something for you to see :)

Next week on the podcast it’ll be a tour guide sharing what he considers to be the most fitting thing to find in each of the 20 arrondissements. We just finished recording it now. The idea is, for example, that the 8th district is a business/posh part of town, so his recommendation was a museum owned by a fabulously wealthy couple who collected art. And so on. I think you’ll love it.

Elsewhere, I’ve been busy updating my PDF guide to the city to be ready for 2025. I’ve been focusing on cafes lately and have found some astonishingly good new ones. Next week I’ll share five of my favourite new ones with Patreon members and Substack members.

[An important reminder: Membership on Patreon and Substack is the same thing, just on different platforms. You get the same access to all the new bonus content, access to the FB members group, and that good, tingly feeling of supporting a creative project. The only difference is Patreon members can unlock the full back catalogue on the Patreon website, Substack is only new stuff].

Back to the cafes: Here’s a taste of one that I visited this week. It’s in the ninth arrondissement. This will be on my list next week :)

Lastly, we announced on the Earful Tower’s Book Club (only on Facebook) that October’s book will be Paris Lost and Found by Scott Carpenter. He will be on hand to discuss his book at the end of the month. We’ve already given away ten copies to members, now it’s up to the rest of you to get it and read it! It’s the number one book in Amazon’s Travel Writing section right now, really cool to know many of you helped make that happen!

Join the book club here, it’s free, it’ll be fun, and there are lots of like-minded book-loving Francophiles to meet.

Have a lovely weekend.

Oliver