🇫🇷 💌 The Paris Love Letter #153

THIS WEEK, BRIEFLY NOT IN PARIS
Train Tripping to Bordeaux

We cheated this week. We left Paris.

Saturday morning, we boarded a TGV at Montparnasse, and two hours later, we were in Bordeaux, meeting friends for the weekend. Two hours. That's shorter than some commutes, and it deposits you in a completely different world.

The best description I've found for Bordeaux is this: imagine Paris had a child with the south of France. The architecture is unmistakably familiar, grand stone façades, wide avenues, that same Haussmannian bone structure, but the pace is different. Slower. Slightly warmer. The Mediterranean isn't far, and you can feel it.

We walked everywhere. The city is genuinely walkable in a way that rewards wandering without a plan. The parks were beautiful, the restaurants were excellent without the theater that sometimes comes with eating out in Paris, and the whole trip had a pleasantly loose quality. We stayed one night, came back Sunday evening, and somehow it felt like we'd been gone a week.

That's the magic of a good short trip. It compresses time in the best possible way.

If you've been looking for a reason to leave Paris for a weekend, Bordeaux is one of the easiest answers. The train does the work in two hours. Bordeaux does the rest.

Linking You to Paris

➡️ 32 of the best hotels in Paris for 2026: The Times rounds up Paris hotels across a wide range of styles and price points, from intimate neighborhood spots to the city's most storied grand dames, with the argument that the best ones stay with you long after you leave.

➡️ How to Plan a Day Trip to the Palace of Versailles: Travel + Leisure traces Versailles from its origins as a hunting lodge to a UNESCO World Heritage site, noting that only three kings ever lived there before the French Revolution ended the monarchy entirely.

➡️ Nikos Aliagas's tender photo exhibition at the Musée de l'Homme: Sortiraparis reports on a new photo exhibition by French TV host Nikos Aliagas at the Musée de l'Homme, where intimate portraits of elderly subjects are paired with scientific data on aging and longevity, running through January 2027.

➡️ Meet the African Diaspora Chefs Transforming Paris’s Food Scene: Vogue reports that African cuisine in Paris has historically been confined to community restaurants and street food, but a new generation of Afro-descendant chefs is now integrating African flavors into the French bistronomy and fine dining scene.

➡️ How to Spend Three Perfect Days in Paris: Condé Nast Traveler taps TABLE co-founder Alice Moireau for her personal list of Paris hotels, restaurants, and experiences, leaning on a local insider rather than the usual editorial roundup.

VISITING PARIS
Paris Is Also a Departure Point

One of the things that surprises people most about living in Paris is how easy it is to leave.

That sounds like a complaint. It isn't. What I mean is that Paris sits at the center of one of the best train networks in the world, and once you understand that, the city stops being just a destination and starts feeling like a home base for something much larger.

The TGV, France's high-speed rail system, has been quietly redefining what it means to travel in this country since the 1980s. The numbers are almost absurd when you see them laid out. Bordeaux is two hours away. Lyon is two hours. Marseille is three. Brussels is ninety minutes. London is two and a half hours through the Channel Tunnel, no flying required.

We did exactly this last weekend. Saturday morning from Gare Montparnasse, two hours south, and suddenly we were walking the wide stone streets of Bordeaux in the sunshine, meeting friends, eating well, feeling entirely elsewhere. We came back Sunday evening. It felt like we'd been gone a week.

If you are planning a trip to Paris and you haven't thought about building in a day trip or a quick overnight somewhere else, I'd encourage you to reconsider your itinerary. Here are a few places worth putting on your radar, all reachable by train from central Paris.

🚆 Where can you go from Paris?

• Bordeaux 2 hours. Wine, walkable streets, relaxed southern energy

• Lyon 2 hours. France's food capital, stunning old town

• Lille 1 hour. Flemish architecture, great food, gateway to Belgium

• Rennes 1.5 hours. Medieval city, gateway to Brittany

• Saint-Malo 3 hours. Walled port city, dramatic coastline, exceptional seafood

• Strasbourg 2.5 hours. Alsatian architecture, Christmas markets, German border charm

• Marseille 3 hours. Raw, sun-drenched, the Mediterranean at its most alive

• Geneva 3 hours. Alpine scenery on the train, Switzerland in a day

• Brussels 1.5 hours. Beer, chocolate, Art Nouveau architecture

• London 2.5 hours. Through the Channel Tunnel, no flying required

Tickets are cheapest when booked in advance. The main platform for French routes is SNCF Connect. For London, book through Eurostar directly.

Paris will still be here when you get back. That's the other thing about it. It's an excellent city to return to.

Our friend, the Mystery Parisian, loves this city as deeply as anyone I've met. Once, he told me that the best thing about living in Paris is leaving it. Because then you get to return to Paris, which is a wonderful experience. I've been thinking about that ever since.

FRENCH PHRASE OF THE WEEK
"Le Dépaysement"

The Phrase: "Le dépaysement" Phonetic: [deh-pay-iz-mohn]

Literally: "De-country-ment." A removal from your usual environment.

The Context: There is no English equivalent, which is part of why the French seem to experience travel differently. Dépaysement describes that feeling of being fully elsewhere, disoriented in the best possible way, unmoored from your routines, your habits, your usual self. It is not homesickness. It is the opposite. It is the particular pleasure of being somewhere that is not home.

How to use it:

• The Weekend Escape: Two hours on a train and suddenly you are eating duck confit in the sun in Bordeaux with nowhere to be. Pure dépaysement.

• The Neighborhood You Never Visit: You finally wander into the 19th on a Sunday morning and it feels like a completely different city. A small dépaysement, but still.

• The Moment It Hits You: You are sitting at a café table, no one knows you, the language around you sounds like music, and you realize you have completely forgotten what day it is back home. That is dépaysement doing its work.

How I Found This Word: We spent last weekend in Bordeaux, just two hours from Paris by train, one night, back by Sunday evening. And yet somehow it felt like we had been gone for a week. That compression of time, that sense of full arrival somewhere else, has a name in French. Of course it does.

FRENCH SONG OF THE WEEK
La Caravane Passe - T'as la Touche Manouche

La Caravane Passe is one of those bands that's hard to categorize, which is probably why they're worth knowing. Based in France, they blend Balkan brass, gypsy swing, and a kind of traveling carnival energy that feels like it belongs on a movie soundtrack. The name, "the caravan passes," tells you everything about their spirit.

"T'as la Touche Manouche" is infectious and a little wild, the kind of song that makes you want to be moving somewhere. Perfect for a weekend on a train heading south.