Annabel Simms’s talk, “How to briefly escape from Paris to France,” will outline her criteria for selecting daytrips in her original guidebook, An Hour From Paris, and its recent sequel, Half An Hour From Paris. She will explain why the Ile de France is one of the most accessible and rewarding regions in the country, still little-explored by many Parisians, let alone foreign visitors. She will illustrate her talk with a detailed look at one of the destinations in Half An Hour From Paris, including some of the experiences that went into writing it. Finally, she will try to assess the future development of the Ile de France, now that it is being rebranded as Le Grand Paris.

Annabel is a Londoner who came to Paris on a year’s sabbatical in 1991 and never left. An Hour From Paris first appeared in 2002 and was last updated in 2017. Half An Hour From Paris was published in 2018. Her articles on off-beat travel in France and other countries have appeared in The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, The Financial Times, The Mail on Sunday and elsewhere.

Evenings with Authors and other weeknight programs at the Library are free and open to the public (except as noted) thanks to support from the Annenberg Foundation, our members, and those who attend programs. There is a suggested donation of ten euros for non-members.