“You ask her.”
“No, you ask her.”
Harriet sighs, and agrees to put the question that’s been bubbling embarrassingly in both our brains as we ogle the show at Paris’s infamous Moulin Rouge. Looking our interviewee squarely in the armpit (the minimum height for Moulin dancers is 5 foot 9, but in their costume boots, they’re mostly well north of six foot), Harriet does the deed: “So, um… how do you keep your nipples erect for the whole 90 minutes?”
We’re here at the high-kicking (and, yes, largely bare-breasted) cabaret show because Paris isn’t all about the Olympics this summer. Whilst Adonis-like men and Amazonian women will dazzle crowds with their athletic feats at the capital’s Stade de France (among others), much of the city will go about its business just as it always has – and that business isn’t always as sportily wholesome as the stuff in the stadium.
The City of Light’s shadier side (or, at least, its naughtier, sexier side) has just as much history and is just as much a part of Paris’s heritage as its outdoorsy achievements, though; and an adventure through the city’s semi-seedy underbelly is a truly stimulating way to experience the city’s unique culture of ooh-la-la sauciness.
Take the Moulin Rouge itself: this Parisian institution has been putting on a show for nearly 150 years, since the days when Toulouse-Lautrec haunted its auditorium – and it’s fascinating, fun and surprisingly suitable for all, more end-of-the-pier camp than erotic odyssey. In fact, it’s a true spectacle in a gorgeous old fin-de-siècle playhouse where Champagne flows like Evian but where the nudity and knicker-flashing are safely couched in some cheerfully sexless mises-en-scène (meet the topless pirates, topless pantomime tigers and – surely the stuff of children’s nightmares and therapists’ lucrative dreams – topless clowns). Oh, and it turns out it’s nothing naughtier than powerful air-conditioning that keeps those nipples up.
Things get edgier once we leave the Moulin. Paris has some lovely, tasteful ‘adult boutiques’ (try one of the city’s five branches of Passage du Désir; passagedudesir.fr), but the sex shops next door on Boulevard de Clichy are a little more… old-school. I’m not sure that condoms in ‘Game of Bones’ wrappers, or a ‘Greedy GILF mature’n’mucky inflatable love doll’ were what Harriet had in mind when I promised her a sexy weekend in Paris though, so we potter further into Pigalle.
Here, only five minutes’ jog (for a 1500-metre specialist) from key Olympic venue the Hôtel de Ville, the young and arty and bohemian smoke cigarettes and gesticulate emphatically outside bars and cafés into the small hours, just as when the Moulin Rouge first turned its sails here in 1889.
We have a glass of €4 wine so rough it’s actually perfect, then indecently good cocktails on the gorgeous secret-garden rooftop terrace at our hotel, La Fantaisie (open just a few months but clearly a hit, with a clientele – and staff – as beautiful as its stylishly light, airy rooms). Seb Coe might not approve, but we have a great time, and the Charred Pasilla Margarita makes us feel like champions ourselves.
Next morning, we hit the brothel. True, it’s been closed since 1948, but Aux Belles Poules still looks as decadently resplendent today as it did in its 1920s wahey-day. Proprietor Caroline Senot bought what seemed like a normal office space for her family computer firm in 2015, discovered the bawdy-but-beautiful Art Deco murals beneath some wood panelling, restored them with (appropriately pricey) love, and now runs tours – plus, on Fridays, burlesque nights (auxbellespoules.fr).
Even more surprising, to our prudish Anglo eyes anyway, are the ‘ladies of the night’ (and, indeed, lunchtime) touting their wares openly on the street outside (Rue de Blondel). None of them under 50, they make their living from a few loyal, long-term customers who’ve grown old together with them, Caroline tells us.
It’s almost romantic, I suggest, but Harriet hurls me an unmistakable don’t-get-any-ideas-Monsieur look, so I hurriedly whisk her to the more salubrious boulevards of the 1st arrondissement and our next hotel, Le Meurice. There’s still plenty of decadence going down, but it’s a more decorous kind.
Napoleon is said to have created a secret tunnel from the elegant neighbouring Tuileries Garden to the hotel so he could discreetly visit his mistress; Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson holed up here after his abdication; Dalí (and his pet ocelots) got up to all sorts on his annual month-long stay in the Presidential Suite; and there are rumours, too, concerning previous guests Andy Warhol, Grace Jones and (obvs, Robs) Robbie Williams. Me, I just have one pastry too many at breakfast in the Versailles-sumptuous Alain Ducasse restaurant, sigh over the Eiffel Tower view from our bedroom and wander around the magnificent Place de la Concorde, two minutes walk away – and home to the Olympic basketball, BMX and (I’m not making this up) breakdancing events.
My attempt to up the naughty levels and seduce Harriet with a sexy speakeasy cocktail bar hidden behind a barbershop nearby (gentlemen1919.com) founders when, at 49, I’m the oldest person in there by two decades or so. But I’m on safer ground when we stroll 10 minutes through the Tuileries and over the Seine from Le Meurice to Le Musée d’Orsay (musee-orsay.fr). Here, the very first objet d’art you see when you walk in the door is Auguste Clésinger’s outrageously sensuous 1847 Woman Bitten by a Snake (“…wanted to immortalise his voluptuous mistress… a famous courtesan… succès de scandale… accused of creating a mould of the model’s body… without hiding the realistic details of her flesh… overt eroticism…” whispers the explanatory plaque).
Some of the sculpted bodies on display here could put any Olympian to shame – a few of Rodin’s, in particular, are like chiselled bronze gods in human form – but part of the thrill for Harriet and me is in the sheer naughtiness. Whilst half of Paris’s residents (and two-thirds of its tourists) are busy with the XXXIII Summer Games, you can have the rest of the capital largely to yourself – and an illicit rendez-vous with the city’s saucy side that you’ll remember long after the Olympics has moved on.
Ed Grenby was a guest of La Fantaisie (lafantaisie.com), which has doubles from £407; Le Meurice (dorchestercollection.com/paris/le-meurice), which has doubles from £870, room only; Eurostar (eurostar.com), which has London-Paris returns from £78; and Moulin Rouge (moulinrouge.fr), which has performances from £75.
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Ed Grenby
After 15 years as editor of The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, Ed is now a freelance writer who has overnighted everywhere from King Charles’s house to a Nepali yak pen, and has tried his hand at everything from flying a plane to pleasuring a rhino. He has won five Editor of the Year awards and 11 Writer of the Year gongs – most recently Travel Writer of the Year 2023 – but still mixes up Sweden and Switzerland.