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Travel: Five Days in the City of Lights

The Arc de Triumph, Eifel Tower, Louvre, Notre Dame, and Sacre Coeur; any city in the world would be fortunate to have but one of these icons within its borders, but Paris has all of these and more.

I went to Paris with tons of preconceived notions that are probably shared by many Americans. The French are rude, they smell bad, they are all wimps, they eat snails, and did I mention they are really rude? It’s not often that I admit this, but I was wrong and so is everyone else who shares those thoughts (except for the eating snails part).

Paris was the second city in my trip to Europe. Our first city was London. As a big Anglophile, I thought I would just love London and Paris would just be okay. Paris ended up being my favorite part of the trip, so much so that I am only writing about it instead of London as well.

So what was it that makes Paris so great? That’s just it, there isn’t really anything that you can just point to and say that is why it was so cool. It is the fact that when you are there, you just feel like you are somewhere special. Paris is just Paris. Whether you are walking down the Champs-Elysees, or along the banks of the Seine at night, or sitting in a café in Latin Quarter, you can’t help but feel a bit outside of yourself, and that strange and wonderful feeling is all part of Paris’ charm.

Any guidebook can tell you about all the places you can and should go to on a trip to Paris, so I’m not going to reinvent the wheel and tell you all the same. Instead, I would like to share a few highlights from our journey and some tips we learned that can make your trip just as enjoyable as ours.

First some tips to help you out while in Paris. Number one tip is to learn some French. Don’t do the American version of the universal translator and just speak English louder and slower. Many, if not most, Parisians know quite a lot of English, and just like you would be a bit put off if someone came up to you and started to yell, slowly, in French while here in the US, they feel the same over there. Now I’m not saying that you have to be so fluent as to be able to have some witty conversation or discuss French existentialism, but be able to ask for the basics.

Believe it or not, you will earn tons of points with the French just for trying. My wife and I not only were never treated rudely while we were there, we got more than one approving smile just for asking for something in their native tongue (my wife was much better at it than I so I let her be the primary translator). This is where that whole rumor about being rude started. I guarantee you that it was started by someone like the rich New Yorker who strolled into a high end shoe store (guess who drug me in there), and after barking at the sales people in loud and slow English and not getting served in the manner to which she had become accustomed, just assumed that the French in general are rude. After watching this display first-hand, I actually felt so bad as to apologize to the sales people on behalf of my linguistically challenged country mate. The sad thing is they kind of shrugged their shoulders as if to say, they kind of expect it from us.

Second tip is to not go to Starbucks or McDonalds when you are there. Neither of them is really all that great back here where they started, do you really think they are better in a foreign country? The French helped to perfect the art of coffee and a pain au chocolat (those delectable warm croissants stuffed with chocolate) will kick the snot out of an egg McMuffin any day. Part of the charm of Paris is the field day you could have just going from café, to crepe stand, to the bakery, to the pastry shop, and starting all over again.

Last tip is to quickly upon arrival, get yourself a Metro card. For about 25 Euro (approx. $34), you can get a pass that will grant you unlimited use of all the public transportation within the greater Paris area for five days (it comes in one, three, and five day increments with the shorter lengths obviously costing less). This includes the buses, subway, and regional rail. The beauty of this is that it opens up your lodging choices greatly since staying anywhere in the center of Paris can be extremely pricey. Lines out to the business district in La Defense (with a lot of cheaper hotels) can get to the center of Paris is about five to ten minutes. There are so many lines and stops that you could see all the sights just by taking the Metro to them all and save your feet a ton of work.

Being the Type A personality that I am, I don’t even go to sleep without a plan, let alone go on vacation. I had all the locations for us to see planned out well in advance of our arrival. It turns out though, that once you get in to the city, it becomes really easy to forget about running to all those places. Upon coming up to street level in front of the Paris Opera, I was immediately smitten by just the “feel” of the place. I was so taken with the city, that when my wife asked me where we were going, I said, ”Lets just walk around,” which is a decidedly unplanned activity.

Paris is unlike any city I have been in with the possible exception being Venice. One of the great things about Paris is that you could jump in to a time machine and go back a hundred or possibly even two hundred years and many places would look exactly the same. Unlike London which has been around almost as long, but has given up much of its history and charm to skyscrapers and shopping districts, Paris has kept the style of the city as much the same as they possibly could in the modern world. That is actually the beauty of the La Defense/Paris combo; La Defense is pretty much all of the modern parts of Paris, much like mainland Venice is the modern counterpart to old Venice.

Like I said, I’m not going to tell you where you have to go while in Paris, I’ll let the spirit of the place guide you to where it likes. The only thing I will say is to allow plenty of time if you wish to see even a fraction of the Louvre. One of thing to note is that on Wednesday and Friday evenings the Louvre stays open until 10 PM and you can get an evening pass at 6 PM for a greatly reduced rate, though four hours will probably only allow you to see half of the place and that is moving at a good clip.

Also, the Eiffel Tower has long lines. Even at the slow times you can count on a wait of over three hours for the entire experience. This is because there are only four elevators taking people up to the top, and you have to wait at each stage going up and coming down. You can of course just go to the first level, but what is really the point of that? If you buy the ticket to the third level, which is the top, they skip past the first level and go straight to two. There are beautiful sights to be taken in from up at the top, but if you are crunched for time, I think you would get more out of a nice walk along the banks of the Seine (at night this is a truly spectacular walk). Also, try to keep up enough energy to stay and see the Tower at night. On the hour, once it gets dark, they put on a beautiful light show with thousands of lights twinkling all over the Tower, and it lasts for ten minutes.

That is just a small look at Paris. I could fill this entire magazine with places to go and see and especially eat, but I will leave that up to you to find your way in the City of Lights.