Paris in Autumn, the Season of the Rentrée

In Paris, the year does not begin in January. It begins with the rentrée. Parisians come back, galleries hang their new exhibitions, the theatres and the Opéra open their season, restaurants light up their dining rooms again. Autumn is when the city goes back to work, and that is exactly why it is so good to live in.

October light

Autumn in Paris is first of all a light: lower, more golden, catching the stone façades late in the afternoon. In the Luxembourg garden, the chestnut trees turn russet and the green chairs follow the sun. At the Palais-Royal, the lime alleys turn yellow beside the arcades, and the garden, already calm, becomes almost silent.

Autumn rain has its charm too. In the 2nd, the covered passages were built for it: you move from the Galerie Vivienne to the neighbouring shops without ever opening an umbrella.

A season of occasions

Autumn gathers much of the city's cultural life.

• · The European Heritage Days open, for one weekend, buildings that are usually closed to the public.
• · Fashion Week and the contemporary art fairs take over the city and fill the tables.
• · The Nuit Blanche offers a night of installations and trails across Paris.
• · The Montmartre grape harvest festival celebrates the vineyard on the Butte.
• · The Salon du Chocolat draws the sweet-toothed as winter approaches.

Their dates change every year: check them when you book, and our concierge can take care of it.

The Upper Marais, an autumn neighbourhood

If one neighbourhood had to be chosen for autumn, it would be the Upper Marais. This is the season of openings: the contemporary art galleries of the quarter launch their exhibitions, often on the same evening, and you walk from one to the next. The Musée Picasso, in the Hôtel Salé, and the Musée Carnavalet, which tells the story of Paris, are there for unhurried visits when it rains.

As the evenings grow cooler, you are glad to come home to an apartment with real living spaces: room to entertain, to cook, to let dinner run on.

At the table, in autumn

Autumn is also something you taste. The chestnut sellers return to the street corners. Bistros put mushrooms and game on the menu. French onion soup regains its reason for being. In November, the new wine arrives. And when the afternoon drags on, nothing beats a hot chocolate in a tea room, or in a kitchen of your own, since the apartment has a real one.

Saint-Germain and the Opéra, the other stages

On the Left Bank, Saint-Germain-des-Prés lives the autumn in its bookshops, its publishers and its cafés. On the Right Bank, the Opéra Garnier opens its season. You go out in the evening and walk home under trees that are changing colour.

Living the autumn

The season asks for little: a trench coat, a scarf, good shoes for wet cobblestones, and a place to come back to. Our apartments are in the collection; to choose your neighbourhood, see our neighbourhood guides or our calendar, season by season.

The ACT 3 Team