Friends of mine get to live in Paris for a month in spring 2016. Lucky them!
They asked me for the best things I discovered in Paris during the month Michael and I lived there in spring 2015. Here’s what I came up with.
A couple of times you’ll see me reference the Marais and the Place des Vosges. That’s because that’s where their apartment will be.
1. Walk, walk and walk some more.
That’s how I discovered the best parts of Paris. My iPhone said I walked 180 miles that month; I walked like it was my job. Walking down all of those streets cemented the city map in my mind and left room for all the cheese I ate. Sometimes I walked to specific places; sometimes I meandered, got lost and then found myself on my iPhone map.
2. Walking tours
I took seven Paris Walks walking tours. They last two hours, weave in lots of French history, are run by native English speakers. Most cost just 8 euros and require no reservation. There are two tours of the Marais, both excellent. And both end at the Place des Vosges. (How convenient). These two Marais walks would be good ones to take at the beginning of your stay to orient yourself. I liked every single Paris Walk I took. You can peruse the list on their web site, http://www.paris-walks.com/. The chocolate tour was cool. I learned so much about chocolate, its history and how to buy it with confidence, though it’s so well-regulated in France that if it’s called “chocolate” it’s very unlikely to be bad.
3. Versailles
The palace of Versailles is magnificent and very worth the suburban train ride. There are long lines to visit the palace itself, which is a cool thing to see at least once in your life. But even more magnificent are the grounds. This last time, Michael and I didn’t even go into the palace. We let our guests go inside and we walked around the grounds for hours and hours. The Petit Trianon and Marie Antoinette’s little fake farm are on the grounds and worth visiting. So be sure when you buy your ticket to buy the one that lets you into all of the palaces, not just the main one. If it’s too much for Noa to walk, there is a shuttle that looks like a little train that will drive you around.
4. Buy advanced tickets
When you go to Versailles, the Louvre, Eiffel Tower and Musee D’Orsay, you simply must buy advanced tickets when possible. It allows you to use a special line at the entrance, bypassing the regular lines that can take an hour or more to stand in. The lines for the Eiffel Tower elevators and Louvre, especially, are heinous. Also, take advantage of the museums’ evening hours when you can. They’re usually offered once a week and the crowds there at night are much smaller. As I mentioned to you at dinner, I was even able to see the Mona Lisa, something I’d never even tried before because of the insane crowds around it. Also, don’t accidentally go to one of these museums on their free day. Yikes.
5. Restaurants
I used the TripAdvisor app to find good restaurants near my apartment. There’s a map function that plots the restaurants near you, and I paid close attention to their ranking. There are 14,700-ish restaurants in Paris. I tried to stick to those ranked 1,000 or better. Prix fixe menus are usually the best deal, but force you to eat three courses, entree/plat/dessert. (You probably know this, but French entrees = American appetizers and French plats = American entrees.) It was hard for us to eat such rich food every day, so a lot of times Michael and I went to Thai and Vietnamese restaurants. I had some damn good Pho in the 3rd arrondissement.
6. Park sittin’
The thing I love to do best in Paris is sit and read in the park. My favorite has always been the Jardin du Luxembourg, but this last time I also spent a great deal of time in the Tuleries Gardens. Both offer free, comfortable and plentiful chairs. I’d bring a lunch, park myself and alternate reading a book and watching the people. The Tuileries Garden is a great place to sit and wait as your guests visit the Louvre, if you’ve already seen it and don’t want to go again. The Luxembourg Gardens has the cutest little restaurant where you can get an only-slightly overpriced coffee and sit in the shade. There is one bathroom in the Luxembourg Gardens, behind the restaurant and down some stairs. It costs a euro, and there’s often a line, but it’s good to know it’s there during a day at the park.
7. Beverages
* French hot chocolate: You’ll learn on the chocolate tour that chocolate was first brought to France by foreign queens who drank it. It’s like drinking liquid chocolate. Hot chocolate can be found on many menus, but usually it’s the milky American kind. If you want this special drink, you have to look for “chocolat a L’ancienne.” It’s so rich, they serve it with whipped cream to cut it. Ha! The best place I found for this kind of hot chocolate was at Angelina http://www.angelina-paris.fr/fr/. There’s more than one Angelina location, but I went to the one at the edge of the Luxembourg Gardens. I do recall many years ago getting a cup of this kind of hot chocolate at a restaurant on the edge of the Place des Vosges, so maybe you’ll find one during the explorations of your own neighborhood!
* Tea
I think you said you like tea. If so, I’d recommend Mariage Freres. The store in the Marais is half tea store half upscale, ladies-who-lunch-style tea room. It’s at 30 Rue du Bourg-Tibourg, in the Marais. The menu offers hundreds of teas, rare and otherwise. If you like the cup you were so carefully served, you can buy a tin at the counter on the way out. They don’t make you eat, but you can if you like.
8. Night boat tour
It may sound cheesy, but I loved the night boat tour on the Seine River. I learned so much about the history of Paris and found it to be a relaxing way to see a lot of the city. I think it lasted just an hour.
9. Rue Mouffetard
If you’re looking for one of those darling market streets with vendors from whom you can buy food for dinner, go to Rue Mouffetard in the Latin Quarter. I’ve always loved the atmosphere here, the narrow Medieval streets, the bricks underfoot. One warning: They close up tight on certain days and at certain hours that I could never quite anticipate. To be safest, I’d go on a week day in the mid-morning, before lunch. If you want to eat at a restaurant over there, I’d recommend Cave La Bourgogne at the bottom of the hill (just a great, native French place for lunch or dinner) or Salle a Manger, also near the bottom of the hill. Here you can get breakfast or one of those fabulous salads the French eat for lunch.
10. Cooking class
One of the coolest, though most expensive, things I did was take a “market class” at a place in Montmartre called Cookin’ with Class. A super friendly English-speaking French chef took a group of six of us to the market, where he explained how to buy the best meat, fish, veggies, cheese, etc. We bought food to prepare and then adjourned to the classroom where together we cooked a three-course meal as we drank wine and ate cheese, and then ate the meal. He taught us many French cooking techniques. It was a unique and memorable experience that lasted about five hours. Here’s the web site. French Cooking Classes in Paris. I booked this a couple weeks out because they don’t offer a ton of classes
All of this is a lot to consider, I know. Please let me know of any wonderful things you guys discover, so I can try them out the next time I am there. I’m so excited for you. I think Paris is one of the best places on earth!
Jane
My Radical Sabbatical 