The spirit of wanderlust on the towpath at Lagny sur Marne
© Annabel Simms

Feed Your Wanderlust Close to Home

Hidden travel treasures are everywhere—sometimes just around that corner where you’ve never been before and sometimes just a short adventure away.

You don’t always have to make plans months in advance— to grab the best transportation fares or lodgings—nor do you necessarily have to spend days reading TripAdvisor reviews to make your plans for far-flung corners of the world.

You can often feed your wanderlust close to home.

Looking toward a distant Paris from the Chemin de la Machine in Louveciennes
© Annabel Simms

Close Adventures of the Third Kind

When you’re in a new city, especially a city like Paris, each day offers hundreds of choices. It’s rewarding to spend the days exploring the layers of life, history, and culture that the city offers, but don’t forget the adventures just a short train or metro ride away.

The Bois de Vincennes: Just at the end of the Line 1 Paris metro.
© Meredith Mullins

British Author Annabel Simms has made this kind of short expedition a travel theme, with her book An Hour From Paris and her new book Half Hour from Paris. 

She has researched off-the-beaten path daytrips that provide a pleasant walk; interesting local and historical information; a touch of nature, including what flora and fauna one might encounter; where to stop for a café/restaurant break (that also has worthy food or unique artifacts); and how to get there and back (without necessarily retracing your steps).

The River Bièvre in Igny
© Annabel Simms

Time Is Relative

It’s important to clarify that time is relative. It can actually take more than an hour to get from one side of the Paris arrondissement snail map to the other. But Simms’ travel books offer specific times from exact start points (train, metro, and RER stations) so you can put time in perspective.

Simms also imagines that most travelers to Paris have the more well-traveled daytrips already on their radar:

• Versailles (Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette’s chateau, fountains, gardens, and park)
• Giverny (Monet’s final home and gardens)
• Fontainebleau (chateau and lush forest)
• Auvers-sur-Oise (where some of Van Gogh’s most famous paintings were created . . . and where he died).

One of the many peacocks in the Parc de Bagatelle
© Meredith Mullins

Simms offers new experiences that are more of the hidden treasure variety.

The ten adventures she suggests in the new Half Hour from Paris include medieval walled towns, markets, little-known museums, formal and wild parks, riverside pleasures, and picturesque towpaths.

• Parc de la Poudrerie (remains of a gunpowder factory hidden in a 137-hectare woodland park)
• Lagny sur Marne (medieval market town with 12^thcentury abbey church)
• Meaux (medieval town with a gothic cathedral near the peaceful Canal de Chalifert)
• La Ferté sous Jouarre (once the millstone capital of the world, with early Christian tombs)
• Neuilly Plaisance (guinguette by the Marne river and walk by the Canal de Chelles)
• Igny (on the River Bièvre with a house/museum dedicated to Victor Hugo)
• Chateau de Vincennes (château, Bois de Vincennes, and the Jardin Tropical)
• Parc de Bagatelle (château, roses, irises, waterfalls and peacocks on the edge of Paris)
• Malmaison (home to Napoleon and Josephine, near Bougival, a favorite haunt of the Impressionists)
• Marly le Roi (château, park, and walk in the footsteps of the Impressionists)

Entry to the Parc de la Poudrerie—a whole new mysterious world
© Annabel Simms

Not only does Simms do a thorough job of exploring and providing her exploration notes so you can follow a guided path, she is also good at finding the hidden treasures in these obscure spots.

She discovers the remains of a medieval stone-bas relief of the town patron saint in the toilettes of the local café. (The carved St Furcy appears at the Café St Furcy in Lagny sur Marne.)

Hidden treasures in the Café St Furcy restroom in Lagny sur Marne
© Annabel Simms

She stumbles on her first snake of Paris while taking one of the countryside walks (harmless, she is assured by her French walking partner) and also observes the droppings of wild boar (also harmless, she is assured, with the old “they’re more afraid of you than you are of them” story). (Not to worry, though, as these “sightings” were well outside the half-hour-from-Paris mark.)

The wooded towpath along the Canal de Chalifert in Meaux
© Annabel Simms

She embraces nature wherever she travels, finding wood anemones, mandarin ducks, and red squirrels near the abandoned gunpowder factory and even discovering a giant sequoia (native to California) rising up near the three ponds in the expansive Parc de la Poudrerie.

She follows the network of rivers surrounding Paris, just as traditional Parisians did years ago, to escape the pressures of the city.

La Ferté sous Jouarre on the River Marne, once the millstone capital of the world
© Annabel Simms

Parisians would spend Sunday afternoons eating, drinking, dancing, and socializing at the riverside guinguettes. And so, you too can follow in their dancing footsteps in Neuilly Plaisance, mentioned in Half Hour from Paris, and in Villeneuve Triage, mentioned in An Hour from Paris.

The guinguette “Chez Fifi” in Neuilly Plaisance
© Annabel Simms

She highlights places like Château des Roches in Igny—a country home visited by Victor Hugo, Berlioz, Gounod, Ingres, Liszt, and Chateaubriand—and the mysterious crypts of La Ferté sous Jouarre, with a grand finale behind a small locked door where the tomb of St Agilbert is revealed along with a well-preserved 13^th century bas relief entitled Christ in Majesty.

A Merovingian crypt in La Ferté sous Jouarre
© Annabel Simms

Oh I See: Savoring the Moment

Most of all, Simms relishes experiencing the “Frenchness of France, where the slower pace of life just outside of the city lends itself more easily to savoring the moment.”

Feeding your wanderlust, finding hidden treasures, and savoring the moments—travel lessons for us all.

Savoring the moments
© Annabel Simms

For more Paris adventures close to home, visit Annabel Simms website.  If you’re in the Paris area, Annabel Simms is presenting her new book at the American Library on December 18 at 7:30 pm.

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