More croissants, s’il vous plait: Morbo’s guide to visiting Paris

July 16, 2005

Guest Post by Morbo

I’m back from Paris and want to spend a few minutes offering some thoughts about that fine city.

I was there on business but had time for sightseeing. This was my second trip to the City of Lights. I don’t pretend to be an expert, but here are a few pointers for anyone thinking of going to the land of the baguette-eating, beret-wearing Frenchies:

For starters, don’t hesitate if you have the opportunity. Go. Paris is a great city, full of history, art and culture. And don’t believe any of that junk you hear about the French being rude. It’s a crock. Every country has its share of jerks, of course, but on balance the French are a delightful people who love Americans. They are also smart enough to know that many of the Americans who come to visit now are probably not fans of the Bush administration. In casual conversations, just insert some criticism of Bush and let the fun begin.

Don’t worry if you don’t speak French. Most Parisians I encountered were fluent in English or understood enough to communicate. Do learn the French words for the following: “Hello,” “Thank you,” “Please,” “You’re Welcome” and “Excuse me.” Use these terms liberally. When you walk into a shop, smile at the proprietor and say, “Bonjour!” In other words, extend common curtsies and you will be fine.

Paris has an excellent subway system, which I highly recommend. You can use it to get all over the city. Everything you’ll want to see is within walking distance to the subway. Forget taxis, which are costly, and rely on the train and your feet. It’s a great city for walking.

One word of caution: Pickpockets can be a problem on the Metro (and also on the related RER line), so keep you hand on your wallet or purse. I recommend a small pouch you can wear under your shirt for your passport, credit cards and larger sums of money.

As for what to see, well, there are obvious attractions — the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe. But for something a little different, I recommend the following:

* Try Musee d’Orsay instead of the Louvre. The latter is great but overwhelming in its scope and size. You can spend an entire day there and still see just a fraction of the collection. So see some Louvre highlights and then hustle on over to d’Orsay, which contains mostly 19th century works with a special room on the Impressionists. It has three floors, meaning you can see everything in a day. D’Orsay offers free admission the first Sunday of the month.

* Of course you must see Notre Dame, but don’t overlook an equally interesting church — the Basilique Sacre-Coeur. I’m not a religious man, but even I was awed by this stunning 19th-century structure with domes like a mosque. For 5 euros, you can climb a series of narrow, winding steps to the top of one dome. Once there, you will be rewarded with one of two things (or possibly both): a heart attack and one of the best views of Paris. (Sacre-Coeur offers the second highest view of the city, outdone only by the Eiffel Tower.) The surrounding neighborhood, Montmartre, is also quite interesting.

* If you’re in the mood for something different, visit the Catacombs. As Paris grew in the 19th century, the city began to expand into outlying areas that had been used for cemeteries. Six millions bodies were exhumed and relocated to an old quarry. For a few euros you can walk though a series of tunnels and see the bones and skulls, artfully arranged in a creepy elegance. (This attraction may not be for you if you are claustrophobic or prone to nightmares.)

* The Latin Quarter features a museum with Roman ruins and exhibits on Paris in the Middle Ages, the Hotel de Cluny. Not far away is the Conciergerie, a squalid prison where victims of the French Revolution, including Marie Antoinette, were housed. These are must-see attractions if you’re into history.

* Napoleon’s tomb at Invalides is, well, hard to describe. You might say that it’s somewhat ostentatious. It’s well worth a visit, and not far away is a military museum that invokes France’s days as a world empire.

* For a literal walk on the wild side, stroll down the Rue St-Denis, a red light district featuring sex shops and legions of interestingly dressed prostitutes. I stumbled upon this area quite by accident (I swear) during an evening walk after enjoying a boat ride on the Seine. While seedy, it’s perfectly safe. This is also the neighborhood for you if you promised your sweetie you’d bring back metal underwear,

I’ve only scratched the surface. There is something interesting to see on nearly every street in Paris. Just go. Give those Bush-hating French your money. You get a great vacation AND an opportunity to annoy the kook right. What could be better?

I’ve been to Paris for stays of two weeks each of the last two years. Here’s my list of things to see. Musee d’Orsay–wonderful and of a size that doesn’t overwhelm you the way the Louvre does. Notre Dame–in the thirteenth century a Parisian sitting in that place would have thought they had gone to heaven. Our age lacks anything remotely like such a place. The gallery district off the Champs Elysee offers world class browsing.

The Metro is amazing–only a fool would rent a car for a stay in Paris. I was disappointed in the amount of Jazz I was able to find. It’s there but not as much as in the fifties, or so I understand.

As to food, well, there isn’t much to say that hasn’t been said better already. If your looking for a great meal with cost no object then you have more choices than anywhere on earth. Yes, I know some people will say London has overtaken Paris, or Tokyo, or New York. They haven’t. Nowhere else do you have to decide between choices like Taillevent, Le Grand Vefour, Lucas Carton, L’Atelier de Joel Rebuchon, L’Arpege, and on and on. These aren’t just great restaurants, they are museums where truly great artists display their fragile works.

If meals that cost as much as a rent payment isn’t your thing there are plenty of places to choose from to. Avoid the touristy places in the Latin Quarter and try venerable and small rooms like Leo le Lion, or Au Charpentiers, or Benoit for wonderful meals.

I speak a primative version of French acquired over decades of working in French kitchens, and when I planned my first trip(I was alone) I thought I would improve my grasp of the language. Not so, the French refused to let me butcher their tongue–they all spoke English as soon as they realised it was my native tongue. So much for the tales of the rude French. No truth to them at all.

Go, enjoy, fall in love with the place

  • Maybe you haven’t heard, but Republicans have declared the French cheese-eating surrender monkeys. We’re not supposed to visit Paris anymore … unless it’s in Texas.

    In fact, I now feel justified in questioning your patriotism. You’ve not only traveled to France, you liked it. This is an outrage. If someone could pass along the Department of Homeland Security’s phone #, I’d like to report you immediately.

    It’s nothing personal, but it’s Bush’s America and you’ve left me no choice.

  • If you had your pick of the choicest locations in Paris to stay and money were no object, chances are it would be somewhere in the vicinity of the Place Concorde, site of the Egyptian obelisk (which the French traded the Egyptians for a fancy clock) and which is perhaps best known as the site of the guillotine where Marie Antoinette and others lost their heads. It’s situated at the end of the Champs-Elysées next to the Jardin de Tuileries, halfway between the Arch de Triomphe and the Louvre.

    Well, if you’re fortunate enough to have a vehicle in Paris that you can sleep in, then you’re in luck. There’s a parking lot on the Louvre side of the Place Concorde that opens at about 8 AM and closes at 5, I believe. So from 5 PM to 8 AM the pay gate is open, you can come and go at will. Drive in in the evening and sleep there. If you’re planning on not needing your car the next day, just leave it there and wander around the city via metro and on foot. If you have a need for your car for some activities further afield, just get up and leave before 8 AM. You can stay literally in the heart of Paris as long as you like for free. I’ve done it with my wife and two kids in a VW Westfalia, and with my wife pre-kids in a Volvo station wagon that we’d rigged with curtains like a little hearse. Never got hassled one time.

    As for the reputation of the Parisians to be snooty and nasty, they actually have that reputation among the country folk of France. And if you speak French well enough to understand what they’re saying, you’d undoubtedly run into some of that. But show me a big city with millions of tourists who doesn’t have some people who are rude. Like anywhere, many many Parisians are wonderful people, or at least tolerable. And if you bump into somebody who’s rude, who cares? Water off a duck’s back. You’re never going to see them again anyway. Turn away and be happy to be in one of the world’s most amazing cities.

  • I’ve spent a lot of time in Paris, and done considerable research into the city’s history–it’s a side specialty of my architectural history interests (I’m an architect who works on preservation).

    Boy, I could tell you of some terrific little sights, but I’ll cut those down to three insolites. Forgive any lack of French accents below–I’m too tired to do the ASCII key business right now:

    The Insititut Catholique on the rue Vaugirard (Paris’ longest street. Get a pocket arrondissement map from Michelin.) includes the former convent of St-Joseph de Carmes. Once a week, they give an architectural tour of the school and former convent, including the crypt. In the September massacres of 1792, there was a bloodbath in Paris that consumed 114 non-juring clerics imprisoned in the former abbey–they were beaten to death in the garden. Their bodies were exhumed in the Restoration and their skulls displayed down there. If you like catacombs, the revolutionary skulls you’ll find even cooler.

    Basilica of St-Denis is a trip up the RER, and worth a visit to see the funerary sculpture. Always cold in that building, too, which is a consideration on a summer day.

    Don’t take a bateau-mouche down the Seine: take a trip down the Canal St-Martin, instead.

    I like staying on the Left Bank near the American University and Ecole Militaire, near the rue Cler market.

    If you go to the Louvre–and you should–don’t forget the basement where you can see the ruins of the Charles V enlargement of the structure.

    The Jardin du Luxembourg is the most remarkable manicured garden anywhere. Relax there. See a movie at La Pagode, which isn’t far away.

    The Cluny museum (which is partially formed of the Gallo-Roman baths) is a fabulous combination of architecture and medieval art. The Arts et Metiers (Arts and Crafts) museum is neatly renovated and worth an afternoon, too. The area surrounding used to be the city’s original Chinatown, which moved far south in the last decades.

    The blocks of Paris south of the rue de Rivoli / rue St Antoine and west of the Arsenal contain the best remains of renaissance Paris (Damn you, Haussmann!). Don’t miss them or the Marais. Nice walks.

    I particularly like the Art Nouveau works, the extraordinarily crafted apartment buildings, and the rather leafy landscapes, of the 16th and 7th arrondissements–the richest quarters, but you can walk. The Marmottan Museum is there, too.

    Pere Lachaise is much more than “Jim.”

    Be polite according to French style. Greet shopkeepers in French, and say goodbye in French. You’ll be fine.

    Other spiffy sites: http://www.parillusion.com

    Sadly, the Samaritane, which offered the best panorama of Paris outside the top of the Eiffel, has closed for massive renovation (or so the management of the department store says).

    • Comments are closed.