Hotel De La Paiva Brings Versailles to Paris
Have you ever wondered what life in Paris was like during France’s second Republic (1848 – 1852)? Tucked away on the world’s most famous boulevard is a magnificent private house offering visitors an immersive experience of 19th century Paris. But it’s not just any house, Hotel de la Païva was the home of one of Paris’ richest and most famous courtesans, and the story of how she acquired the house, and what she made of it, is quite incredible. Readers of Zola’s ‘Nana’ and ‘Lady of the Camellias’ by Alexandre Dumas Fils, will be familiar with the more commonplace version of the lives of Paris courtesans in the 1800s. During…
Life in an Old Queenslander
Queenslanders, as well as being the notoriously laid back inhabitants of Queensland, are buildings built using a type of architecture developed in the 1840s and they are unique to Queensland. They are magnificent and elegant old buildings and I am lucky enough to live in one at the moment. Let me show you around. Queenslanders are mostly residential buildings of timber construction. The two main factors influencing their development were the often overwhelmingly hot and humid sub-tropical Queensland climate and the ready availability of certain building materials. A classic characteristic of Queenslanders is that the building is raised off the ground, partly for ventilation and partly to protect the timber…
