Boulevard bliss
With Ryanair return tickets to Paris-Beauvais now costing less than a dinner for two, why not go Christmas shopping in Paris? Start in the very centre of the capital, at the Carrousel du Louvre (entrance in the rue de Rivoli) underground shopping centre. If you're starved for culture, you can combine it with a trip to the world's finest art gallery, without getting cold or wet.
The Louvre museum shops offer a huge selection of art books, CD-Roms, posters, scarves and shawls, reproduction jewellery and sculpture. Na- ture et Decouvertes (equipment for young scientists, ethnic and ecological artefacts) is popular with children. Fashionable clothing stores in the Carrousel include Esprit and Adolfo Dominguez. If you get hungry, at least three cafes and restaurants provide a selection of French and foreign cuisine at reasonable prices.
The first arrondissement has a plethora of luxurious if expensive hotels which also put you within easy walking distance of the Printemps and Galeries Lafayette department stores and the Tuileries Gardens. A comfortable, unpretentious hotel almost across the street from the Carrousel du Louvre (in the rue de l'Echelle) is the Nor- mandy, which is offering a Christmas special of a single or double room for £130 per night. Around the corner in the rue St Roch, the tiny Auberge de l'Hautil, run by Jean-Pierre, serves excellent home cooking in a noisy and smoky but friendly setting at very cheap prices.
A few blocks down the rue du Faubourg St Honore is one of the trendiest shops in Paris, called Colette. Its water bar serves 60 kinds of water (including Ballygowan £3 per litre). Merchandise ranges from designer ballpoint pens to Emilio Pucci silk underwear to Gucci jackets and Nike sneakers. I don't like the stairs that look like a cheese grater and the throbbing, piped-in music, but everything sold in Colette is guaranteed dernier cri.
Colette shoppers would be likely to stay at the hotel costes. The interior was designed by the famous decorator Jacques Garcia to look like a 19th- century Italian bordello. It is definitely the place to be seen - along with Madonna, Johnny Depp and Jean-Paul Belmondo. Rooms at the costes start at £210.
