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The Independent
3 days ago
- General
- The Independent
Hotel Pilgrim, Paris hotel review
Location On the northern side of the Latin Quarter, Hotel Pilgrim is a five-minute walk from the banks of the Seine. You won't have to walk much further to reach the likes of the Panthéon and Jardin des Plantes either. Set on the eastern edge of Paris' tourist hotspots, the hotel is located in an area that is great for hitting up a multitude of boulangeries and creperies, particularly on the nearby Rue Mouffetard. You will need to stretch your legs or hop on the Metro to reach the Eiffel Tower or Champs-Élysées, though. The vibe Airy and light, the hotel opts for minimalism to ensure guests and particularly families, can enjoy plenty of space for a city-centre stay. The bar/restaurant hits these notes too, with sofas that serve as much as general break-out spaces as somewhere to order a round of drinks, while the rooftop terrace is a spot to enjoy a quiet moment while admiring the view, due to the absence of a bar. Service Warm and helpful, the staff were happy to hold our bags after we arrived early and keep them a little longer on the last day while we enjoyed a final stroll along the Seine. Any questions we had were quickly answered with the staff always on hand at reception. Bed and bath The room was spacious, more so than one might expect for such a central location. The absence of any noise from the street, combined with the minimalist design, worked wonders on our stress levels, and the bathroom allowed for a deep sense of calm to prevail, with brass fittings and grey tones. A Smeg kettle for making coffee and a surprisingly wide array of herbal teas ranked among the elevated touches, along with a rotary telephone and comfy bathrobe. Food and drink The bar serves cocktails, herbal teas, soft drinks and its own signature iced tea, but prices are a little steep. It's a shame the seventh-floor terrace isn't utilised for drinks, however, there is a large outside area on the ground floor. Breakfast includes granola, cereals, cold meats and yoghurts. You will have to head out for dinner, but the Latin Quarter has you covered. Just drop a couple of streets back from the busy banks of the Seine and choose whichever restaurant takes your fancy. Facilities A pool, small gym and sauna are open to guests in the basement – a vital reprieve for those seeking a refreshing morning dip or those in need of a different kind of activity to amuse kids old and young. The room is a little echo-y, however, meaning even the smallest of voice boxes may hinder guests hoping to relax. Accessibility Rooms are available for disabled guests upon request. Pet policy Guests are allowed to bring one pet weighing up to 10 kg for €20 per night. Check in/out? Check-in from 3pm, check-out until 12pm. Family friendly? Yes. At a glance Best thing: A relaxing reprieve on the doorstep of the Seine, offering space and style for sightseers. Perfect for: Young families looking to capitalise on the balance of style, comfort and convenience. Not right for: Young couples on a budget. Instagram from: The flower arch on the rooftop terrace. Address: 11 rue de Poissy, 75005 Paris
Telegraph
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Lauren Sánchez's tacky hen do beats warm prosecco and naked butlers in a Bournemouth Airbnb
We should begin by noting that, obviously, it looked awful and vulgar and terribly tiring. Four days in Paris, featuring fried chicken and caviar rigatoni (how French) for dinner at one fashionable restaurant; rooftop champagne overlooking the Eiffel tower; lunch at another fashionable restaurant; and a cruise along the Seine. They all wore outfits that, at best, looked uncomfortable and, at worst, would give one a bad dose of cystitis. Several travelled with their own hair stylists. This was Lauren Sánchez 's hen party, or bachelorette, as they say in the States. Sánchez, the fiancée of Jeff Bezos, the world's second-richest man, recently hit the French capital along with 11 of her closest gal pals, including Katy Perry, Eva Longoria, an unsmiling Kim Kardashian and Kim's mother, Kris Jenner. Those who know the cost of such things – hotel suites at the Cheval Blanc, boats on the Seine, gallons of champagne and litres of cranberry juice – estimate that the entire shebang would have cost around £500,000. Horrid. Ostentatious. What show-offs. And yet I might not have turned down the invitation, in the unlikely event it had come my way, because the long weekend had one thing going for it: Lauren presumably picked up the tab. Sure, someone else might have chipped in for a round. Apparently they drank espresso martinis at one stage, and danced to Earth, Wind & Fire (a detail I found endearingly levelling, because I remember doing the same during a hen party, at a nightclub in Cheltenham). But I bet you a diamanté-encrusted cowboy hat that Sánchez fronted most of it, and I don't mean to sound grasping and mercenary and terribly bitter, but oh, how refreshing that would be after a decade or so of tricky hen party financing. Hundreds of pounds spent on mildly depressing Airbnbs in the Cotswolds and Bournemouth (weird that Sánchez didn't choose to have her hen in Bournemouth?). Hundreds of pounds spent on flights to places like Berlin and Majorca. Hundreds more frittered on hen party merch – T-shirts, sashes, 'Team Hen' badges. Have you been on the 'Last Night of Freedom' website, recently? One of the biggest emporiums for hen party tat, its penis piñatas (I'm so sorry) are on sale, if you're looking. Yet more money spent on 'entertainment' – fascinator-making classes, macaron-making classes, flower arranging, and prosecco and crudités handed round by 'butlers in the buff' – male students who dress up as naked butlers to help cover their tuition fees, their blushes just about covered in front (but not at the back) by an apron. (Is this OK these days, I've often wondered, while politely accepting a carrot baton from one of these gentlemen. How do we square a group of 30-something women giggling over a naked male bottom, when I suspect most of those present would be aggrieved were their other halves to visit a strip joint on a stag weekend. It's unclear whether Sánchez's hen party featured half-naked students. Perhaps even Sánchez baulked at that.) 'Could you all please transfer me £436 by Monday,' comes one of the increasingly hectoring emails from the maid of honour, in the months and weeks leading up to the big weekend. Although it's no fun being the maid of honour and sending these emails out, either, because you get endless replies from attendees saying, 'I'm pregnant and not drinking, so can I pay a bit less?' or, 'I can't come to the bowling, can you take that out of my total?' One 30-something friend, right in the middle of hen party madness, says she's just turned down a hen in Italy on the basis it was going to cost her nearly £1,000, and now the bride isn't speaking to her. I have seen this so many times – seemingly rational women, who grumble about other people's hen parties, but come their own they turn quite Marie Antoinette. It's my turn, seems to be the belief, and if it bankrupts you, well, too bad. Although this summer, you may be off to a spa weekend rather than a 48-hour drinkathon in Harrogate or Palma. A zen do, if you will. According to a recent survey by the wedding website brides are increasingly opting for calmer, more relaxing 'experiences' – meditation and yoga instead of penis straws and vodka shots. Not that this makes them any cheaper. Two days of drifting about a hotel in a dressing gown with a few treatments thrown in will still set you back a few hundred quid. And all this before the cost of the wedding. I've had magnificent times on hen dos. There was the time we all stayed in a bright pink house in Essex, its exterior walls genuinely fuchsia. It's designed for hen parties and photo shoots, and the interiors look like Barbie's boudoir – shagpile sofas, furry headboards, heart-shaped cushions, heart-shaped lamps, heart-shaped mirrors. I slept in the 'love kitten' bedroom, with leopard-print walls and bedding, and found something unmentionable under the bed. That one sticks in the memory. Also, the time that the model arrived at our Cotswolds Airbnb for a life drawing class, emerged from the downstairs loo in his dressing gown and a cloud of Lynx, told me politely that posing in the nude was his hobby and that he worked in IT in Reading during the week. Terrific. I've been to burlesque classes, drag acts, played 823 rounds of Mr and Mrs and the Knicker Game (don't ask), and cried with laugher at most of them. Can't put a price on friendship, can you? And yet. I hope Sánchez's hen party was similarly silly, although from the looks of the Oscar de la Renta frocks and £4,500 handbags, they took it more seriously than we did in Essex. 'Forever starts with friendship, surrounded by the women who've lifted me up, illuminated my path in dark times, and shaped my heart along the way,' she wrote on Instagram, below a snap of the gang posing on a Parisian rooftop. Yes, all right, all right, Lauren. Lovely stuff, but where's your fake veil and bride-to-be sash? Still, I would probably have gone along, if only because I don't imagine anyone was emailing anyone else come Monday morning saying 'Sorry girls, we overspent in the bar on Saturday night, so could you all transfer me another £17?'
The Guardian
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Digested week: high-end hen dos, pricey hoo-has and some horny history
Another dream dies hard. I was not invited to Lauren Sanchez's hen do, and Jeff Bezos' bride-to-be and her gang of close personal brunettes have now returned from their £500,000 jaunt and are recovering – I imagine in solid gold flotation tanks in a mansion's solid gold flotation tank room – without me. They took a private chartered champagne boat ride down the Seine (or possibly up the Seine – are you going to make me admit again that I wasn't there?), drank espresso martinis at Galeries Lafayette's restaurant and documented every moment on Instagram so the rest of us could gaze in awe and wonder if hen partying as a billionaire's fiancée's friend is any less hateful than doing it the normal way. It is, I suppose, likely that if you are a Kardashian or an Eva Longoria or Katy Perry, as so many of the guests were, you are more extrovert and naturally gregarious than average, but it remains a pleasure to imagine that when the gilded invitation dropped through the letterbox the girls' reaction was the universal one: a muttered 'WTF does Bridezilla want now?', a resentful locating of a wheelie suitcase and some mid-tier underwear to throw into it, and a vow never to agree to this kind of thing ever again. There is another hoo-ha about Gwyneth Paltrow's hoo-ha. Her most (in)famous piece of Goop merch, a candle launched on her lifestyle website in 2020 under the name This Smells Like My Vagina for the not inconsiderable sum of $75, is now selling on eBay for the even more not inconsiderable sum of $400 (£295). And all my questions of five years ago come flooding back, including but not limited to: does the name mean that the candle smells like GP's own? Or is it meant to evoke the essence of all? IS there an essential vagina smell? Is it the one we hear all the jokes about, and, if so, why would you want to perfume your house with that? Furthermore – who was in charge of ensuring that the scent was accurate enough to forestall claims of misrepresentation? Did they get a bonus payment or was it a privilege fought over by a worryingly devoted few? So strange to have so many questions burning brightly in my mind still, and yet somehow not quite want any of them answered. I visited one of the oldest windows in London today. It looks like it is made of glass but is actually 15th century cow horn, shaved to a translucent fineness. It is in the Great Hall of London's Guildhall, and you should go and look around the whole thing immediately. Descend into the medieval crypt dating back to at least the 13th, and possibly the 11th, century and see the gouges at the bases of the pillars where the horses stabled there at times over the centuries have kicked them. Go to the art gallery and take in a Canaletto or a Constable or two. Look at the enormous royal coat of arms that was salvaged from Christopher Wren's St Michael Bassishaw church when it was demolished in 1897 (though take care because there's a statue of Margaret Thatcher just a few yards on and I know we all need to be mentally prepared). And then, down some steps, 8 metres under the surface of the city, see the remains of the Roman amphitheatre that were discovered during the building of the underground carpark that now lies on the other side of them. I was shown round by friends of my late dad, whom I very much consider myself to have inherited and won't let any of the rest of my family have, and it made me think anew about how wonderful London is and how wonderful the people are who want to share its secrets with you. Speaking, as we almost were, of the preservation of things that add grace and gaiety to the nation, research has found that the semicolon is in danger of dying out. Twenty years ago it was deployed once every 205 words on average. Now it's down to once every 390, and only 11% of people surveyed described themselves as frequent users. God, people are animals. And what are you going to do once it's gone, eh? What are you going to do when you need – yes, need – to indicate a pause in print slightly longer than a comma, slightly shorter than a full stop? How are you going to yoke together two separate but related clauses in a way that suggests exactly that liminal state? How are you going to avoid a comma splice when duty calls? Come on, people. If we can preserve Roman amphitheatres and the passage of medieval horses for the delight and education of future generations, we can do this too. It's the end of the week so time for my mother to eat again. She works mostly off diesel, but needs the occasional nutrient to get by. Dad used to do all the cooking but stopped a couple of years ago when he died. So every Friday she rings me (my sister just blows a whistle down the phone if she tries calling her) and we have conversations like this: 'Did you say I should put salt in pasta?' 'Yes.' 'Why?' 'Because that's what gives it what we call 'a taste'.' 'Do I have to?' 'You don't HAVE to. The pasta will still get soft and in that sense be edible if you don't.' 'If I boil the water.' 'Yes. Yes, if you boil the water. But it will be an unhappier experience than if you had put salt in.' 'It's a lot of faff.' 'Is it really, though? It's adding a teaspoonful of salt to a pan of water. People do it all the time, often almost without thinking, so automatic does this small action become.' 'I'll think about it.' 'You do that.' I'm off to buy a whistle.
The Sun
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Katy Perry leaves little to the imagination in sheer leotard on Lauren Sanchez's hen night
SINGER Katy Perry looks orbit underdressed as she pops out on rocket pal Lauren Sanchez's hen night. The pair — part of last month's all-female Blue Origin space jaunt set up by Jeff Bezos — teamed up again ahead of Lauren's wedding to the 61-year-old Amazon billionaire. 4 4 4 4 Katy, in a sheer leotard and mesh skirt, and Lauren, 55, were joined in Paris by reality star Kim Kardashian, 44, and Desperate Housewives actress Eva Longoria, 50. They were photographed leaving their swanky hotel for a cruise on the Seine. Luckily, 40-year-old Katy is now used to a big launch. Last month Katy was reportedly regretting her behavior on the Blue Origin spaceflight. The launch was touted as a powerful message of female empowerment as it sent six women into space in an 11-minute trip. But it sparked fierce criticism over its jaw-dropping price tag, environmental impact, and the "over the top" behavior of its star-studded crew once they touched down. Perry was joined joined Gayle King, Lauren Sanchez, NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, film producer Kerianne Flynn, and activist Amanda Nguyen on the Jeff Bezos-funded flight. And she is now reportedly having second thoughts — not about the mission itself, but how it all played out. Watch first video inside Blue Origin space trip as Katy Perry and crew hang upside down & marvel at the moon
Daily Mail
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Lauren Sánchez's 'budget' bachelorette look hides pricey surprise that costs SIX times more than outfit
Lauren Sánchez has been enjoying a fun-filled bachelorette weekend in Paris ahead of her wedding to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. On Friday, the bride-to-be, 55, took a boat trip along the river Seine with a number of her glamorous pals, including Kim Kardashian and Katy Perry. She wore French brand Murmur's low-cut bridal white bra top, retailing for $281, and a lace-up skirt for $691. But her 'budget' look hid a pricey surprise that cost six times more than her outfit. In her hand, Lauren carried a nearly $6,000 Eiffel Tower-shaped purse from designer Judith Leiber. The bag is a tribute to the city of love's iconic landmark, and adorned with silver and black crystals. It features a metallic leather lined interior. The purse has a removable shoulder chain and a push down closure with a semi precious onyx stone. She finalized the look with a diamond necklace and white stilettos. Her pal Kim turned heads in a black strapless dress that highlighted her famous curves. The reality star, 44, also wore a pair of black tights with matching heels and styled her tresses into a sleek updo. Katy, 40, opted for a daring look for the trip as she slipped into a black leotard which she wore with a black sheer skirt and matching belt. Also in attendance for the day was Kim's mother Kris Jenner who cut a stylish figure in a black long-sleved mini dress. The momager, 69, also wore a pair of black tights and boosted her frame with matching heels. Kris linked arms with Eva Longoria as the group left their hotel with the Desperate Housewives star, 50, looking sensational in a blue turtle neck dress. Lauren looked in good spirits as the group climbed on deck and went for their trip down the Seine. She was all smiles while enjoying a glass of bubbly with her pals. The outing came just a few hours after Lauren and her friends enjoyed lunch at L Avenue restaurant in the French capital. can exclusively reveal that glamorous journalist Lauren has a full weekend of celebrations planned and kicked off her pre-wedding festivities with a luxury dinner. A source close to Kim told 'Spending girl time at Lauren's bachelorette was a great way to end the week after testifying. She's glad it's over but thankful she was asked to testify as part of the trial.' Lauren and her famous friends enjoyed dinner at the historic Lafayette's Paris restaurant in Paris, which offers refined French dishes with a modern twist. Katy, Lauren and four other women previously completed their all-female mission to space aboard Bezos' Blue Origin rocket on April 14. The A-list crew travelled for 11 minutes, reaching an altitude of 62 miles (100km) and crossing the Karman Line, the official boundary of space. Also on board were CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King, film producer Kerianne Flynn, activist Amanda Nguyen, and former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe. Speaking about the latest festivities in Paris reuniting the Blue Origin 'astronauts', a source at Lafayette said Lauren hosted an 'excellent party'. They shared: 'We recognised a lot of big names, including Kim Kardashian and Katy Perry,' he said. 'They were all delightful, and a pleasure to have here.' They were treated to starters that included fried chicken, Caesar salad priced at $28 apiece, and $22 Norwegian smoked salmon, and a main course that featured mushroom rigatoni at $31 a head and roasted chicken costing $105 each. Mory Sacko, 32, is the star chief chef at Lafayette's, and he concentrates on French dishes with an American and African twist. Asked what the ladies had to drink, the source said: 'Mainly water and soft drinks, although there was a bit of champagne drunk too.' Among the other friends who joined her was October Gonzalez, the wife of her football player ex Tony Gonzalez, with whom Lauren shares son Nikko, 24. Lauren is on friendly terms with October, as the pair are often seen socializing with one another on a regular basis. Not only has Lauren been on vacation with her former partner Tony and October, she regularly attends events with the 44-year-old and they even spent Thanksgiving together last year. Tony and Lauren separated shortly after Nikko's birth in February 2001. Lauren and Jeff, 61, are expected to walk down the aisle next month, and the unusual venue for the ceremony is raising some eyebrows. The couple, who have reportedly booked Elton John and Lady Gaga to perform, could say their 'I dos' on a Venetian island in an open-air theater. The billionaire, his bride and some 200 guests have reportedly already booked rooms at the best hotels. Jeff's mega yacht is also expected to be a part of the festivities, although neither the future bride or groom would confirm. Guests are expected to include: several members of the Kardashian/Jenner family, Perry and her fiancé Orlando Bloom, Leonardo DiCaprio, as well as Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, and along with model Karlee Kloss and her husband Joshua Kushner. President Donald Trump has also reportedly been invited to the nuptials. Lauren and Jeff went public with their relationship in 2019. The pair got engaged in May 2023, after Jeff popped the question on board his $500million superyacht. Their engagement followed the couple having an affair, which Jeff has admitted to, leading to his divorce from wife of 25 years Mackenzie Scott in 2019 and Lauren's split from husband Patrick Whitesell, who she married in 2005, with whom she shares a son and daughter. Four years after their affair was revealed to the world by the National Enquirer, Jeff asked Lauren to marry him, providing a pear diamond estimated to be worth at least $2million. Since then, the couple have flaunted their love around the world, with holidays aboard Jeff's megayacht. As well as their luxury yacht trips, the couple take trips to five-star resorts, private jet flights and beachside getaways. They dine in sought-after restaurants, attend elite parties, and mingle with some of Jeff's celebrity friends.
