Artifact: Paris

 Typically our featured city's artifact is an object. In Las Vegas, we found Bugsy Siegel's wristwatch, and in Miami we dug up a 1932 blueprint for the Collins Park Hotel.
 

While there were a few items from Paris we wanted to share, such the artwork of Romaine Brooks, a bisexual artist whose work resembles that of her temporal, aesthetic and philosophical contemporary Claude Cahun, but ultimately we decided on an entire village, La Roche-Guyon.
 

In addition to romping around the historic streets and exploring the 12th Century castle, including a dungeon built into the domineering cliff that looms above this village about an hour north of Paris, visitors can hike through the Arboretum de La Roche-Guyon, a free-of-charge refuge with trees from all over France.
 

Bring a picnic for your excursion to prove once and for all that being provincial can indeed be quite chic.