Initially Paris didn't really appeal to me, it's just not a place I'd ever expect to spend time in. We all know the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame, etc. and major attractions don't usually fire me up.
Annually France has 10 million more tourists than anywhere else in the world, and I gather they all go to Paris, so masses of people don't usually excite me either. Meanwhile, Amy couldn't wait to get into it!
As we leave Paris and head to our next French destination I leave on a massive high and happy with what we experienced and would highly recommend you visit!
You Must:
- Go on a walking tour as soon as you arrive - get your bearings and consume some history.
- Go on a food tour - ours was quite expensive but worth it (rolled out half pissed and almost uncomfortably full) Secret Food Tour We learnt where to buy good authentic french food, what to look for and how not to get ripped off.
- Paris at night was beautiful - we felt safe and it was easy to get around.
- The metro is easy and far more efficient then the London system.
- Go to Basilique du Sacre-Coeur de Montmartre (Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Montmartre) - for me the highlight! Visit before dusk, and watch as darkness sweeps the city.
- Get a French book and try to speak some French, it was actually a bit of fun!
Monday 20th June
We had a sleep in and a bit of a spell before we decided to head out. The weather was shithouse so we weren't overly excited about getting our and about.
Eventually we managed to leave a very small apartment in District 4 and head to a couple of shopping centres just for a look around. Paris is pretty famous for it's shopping centres. I think it was one of the first cities to do the big indoor shopping centre....
Not really having a plan of attack I was rattled (Amy was solid) - I wasn't too sure what to do and it was bloody wet. Over a coffee Amy convinced me to open the wallet and splash a bit of our hard earn on a couple of tours because we were not getting anywhere ourselves and at this stage we hadn't spent any cash on classic tourist activities.
We looked to Tripadvisor and booked a walking tour for Tuesday night (60Euro - 100AUD), and a French food tour (190Euro - 300AUD) for the both of us.
We are in Paris at the same time as Euro16 - a soccer competition for majority of the European countries. The population of Paris has swelled with tourist from other countries and it's pretty bloody busy. Security around major attractions like the Eiffel Tower was intense, including a pat down to get through.
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| Taking refuge from the rain in one of the many amazing shopping centres in Paris. |
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| Two story train on the way to the Eiffel Tower |
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| The Eiffel Tower was under quite a lot of security due to the Euro16 soccer championships. |
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| We bought tickets to get to the first level of the tower. It was too overcast to see anything at the top so we didn't bother! |
Tuesday 21st June
Massive day today as we were out most of the day seeing the sites. Today France celebrated - Fete de la Musique - and all day music festival celebrating the beginning of summer. Because of this celebration, a lot of things were open later than usual and metro was to run all night. This was a pretty amazing experience as most restaurants and cafe's had amateur performers outside providing a vibrant and exciting night.
Morning - Notre Dame free walk thru - back to the apartment for lunch - headed to Promenade Plantee - got some arvo tea and a beer - back to the apartment for a nap - heading out for tea and to our walking tour we'd booked the previous day.
Interesting things we saw on the walking tour:
- Roman colosseum dating back to when the Romans civilised Paris bloody 2000 years ago.
- New vs Old Paris. Paris used to stink, so George Haussmann in the 1850s demolished crowded medieval neighbourhoods turning them into wider streets, squares and parks new sewers etc. The housing capacity went from 20,000 to 40,000 after the modernisation.
- Existing Roman wall showing how small the city was a couple of thousand years ago, and France's elite school which has several Nobel Peace Prize winners under its belt.
- Churches everywhere - something like 113 churches in Paris.
- Centre of Paris still built on medieval foundations, still signs of torture chambers etc. in and under some of the pubs.
- First cafe in Paris with history of Napoleon, Benjamin Franklin and other noteworthy characters.
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| In line waiting to enter Notre Dame - moved surprisingly quickly. |
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| Inside Notre Dame |
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| Seine side of the Notre Dame |
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| The rear of Notre Dame |
Headed back to the apartment for a sanga before we headed back out to walk along the Promenade Plantee - an old railway transformed into some gardens. Interesting walk above the streets.
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| Walking the Promenade Plantee |
Tuesday Nights walking tour.
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| Remains of a Roman Colosseum - typical shows were slave vs. lion |
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| Remains of a Roman wall dating back to around 200AD |
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| "New Paris" Typical Architecture - Open and stylish. This form was implemented by Napoleon as he wanted to drive out the stink which Paris was surrounded in around the 1800's. He tore down 20000 buildings to redevelop the city and rebuild as shown a more open, stylish city and doubled its capacity to 40000. |
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| "Old Paris" - Plain, narrow & smelly back in the day. Very pleasant now. |
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| Tower which is apparently nearly as old as the Roman Wall above the most elite high school in France. |
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Le cafe Procope - The cafe responsible for bringing the espresso to Paris in 1686. Often visited by notable people such as Napoleon, Benjamin Franklin and famous writers.
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Fun Fact: Benjamin Franklin was a diplomat and lived in Paris for 9 years, where he managed to Father 33 children during that time, in his early 70s!
After the tour we just waltzed around to see the city at night.
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| Notre Dame at night. |
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| Arc de Triomphe |
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| #metrolyf - Trains are cleaner and the metro system is much more significant than the London underground. Once we got our heads around it all and the Paris Metro app, in conjunction with locating ourselves with the mapsme app, it is so easy to use the metro system offline, to jump from line to line to get where you want to go. |
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| The Eiffel Tower was going off as Turkey just won their game in the Euro's. They'd all came out after that in support of the win. It was pretty full on... |
Wednesday 23rd June
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| Luxembourg Gardens and a Gelato |
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| Sacre-Coeur de Montmartre |
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| Sacre-Coeur de Montmartre - Overlooking the city |
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Food tour.
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| Butcher, the way to know it is a real authentic butcher is by the poultry, you can see up in the top right hand corner of the photo, the duck with its head and feet still on, guts remain as well. A way to show the buyer how fresh the poultry is. |
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| Cheese - this stick denotes this specific cheese has been made a specific way, using specific ingredients in a specific area. The French really value local product and methods, they use language and stickers like this to show that. It is referred to as AOP, authentic origin produce or something like that. |
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Pain is Bread and Pain Pain was the name of a pretty sweet bakery.
Boulangerie & Patisserie means Bakery and Pastry, this term also means that all products inside have been baked onsite, from scratch - authentic baked goods. |
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| This is a list of recommended cheese, meat, desserts and restaurants in Paris to go for authentic food without the tourist attachment. |
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Creeping on the tour.
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Our food tour was in District 18 of Montmartre, so after we headed back to Basilique du Sacre-Coeur to see the sun go down and reflect on the time spent in Paris so far. This was my highlight of Paris. There were heaps of people, street performers and just an awesome vibe as we looked over the city and took it all in.
Merci Paris
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