Do I Love Paris in the Springtime? (Paris)

Member Name: GuruOnAMountain

Product:	Paris
Date:	02/07/06 (183 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Clean, plenty to see and do.

Disadvantages: Unfriendly natives.

Paris has become an increasingly popular destination most probably due to its proximity to Britain which makes it an ideal location for a long-weekend city break. However, it is a huge, sprawling city and although I've been there twice, I've not even touched on all it contains, but will try to give you some Paris travel advice that I've gathered on my trips.

The Airport:
This may be the most unexciting place to start a review on Paris, but it is, after all, going to most probably be your first port of call when you arrive. Flight times are short from Britain to Paris. You can fly from Scotland to Paris in little more than an hour, but of course, the Eurotunnel also gives you the choice to fly or drive, which may be lengthier, but is arguably less hassle. I flew to Paris on both my trips, the first time to Charles de Gaulle and the second time into Beauvais. My first trip to Paris was actually my first trip out of Britain and on arrival into Charles de Gaulle I was bowled over by the sheer size of the place. Since that little trip I’ve been to plenty of other airports, but have subsequently learned that Charles de Gaulle really is more vast and confusing than any of the other airports I’ve ever been in. I felt a bit like I was in a cattle market, being shoved and jostled about amongst other passengers. The place was so busy and so confusing and airport staff were so unhelpful that it took my dad and I what seemed like hours to find our cases and another hour to find our way back out the place through the labyrinth of corridors. If I remember correctly we had to get a bus out of the airport which took about 10 minutes to drop us off at a train terminal, and then from there we’d to hop on a train into the centre of Paris, but my memory of this part of the journey is a bit vague and hazy due to the almost catatonic stupor I’d fallen into after the stress of the airport. Needless to say on my second trip I decided to fly into Beauvais instead of enduring that, again. The cheaper airlines such as Ryanair tend to use this as their airport of choice, and it certainly isn’t the type of place you could get lost in, but nor is it an airport that you could while away much time in if your flight were to be delayed. However, Beauvais is rather out the way and being a smaller airport that CDG, the transport links from it aren’t as good. However, there are buses into Paris, but since there were 4 of us travelling we opted to hire a private car. It wasn’t particularly cheap at 135 euros each way, but split between the 4 of us it worked out at a reasonable enough price and was certainly the least stressful way to travel and got us to our hotel and settled in soon after our plane had landed, which in turn gave us more time to enjoy the city.

Accommodation:
Like any city, expect to pay an arm and a leg for a place to stay. On my first trip, my dad and I booked a hotel room in the city. It wasn’t the Ritz, yet still charged something along the lines of 100 quid a night for a twin room. Being in a city, noise filtered in through the windows and although it was walking distance from the Eiffel tower I didn’t particularly enjoy my stay there. The minute you left your hotel room you were in the heart of the noise and bustle of a city and you couldn’t enjoy a peaceful stroll around before bed without being jostled around on busy pavements. On my second trip I was travelling with friends, and being students, our budget was tight. We decided to hunt around for a cheap bed and as we hoped to spend time in Disneyland as well as in Paris, we opted for one close to Mickey Mouse and friends. We booked our beds through Hostel World via the Ryanair website, although I recently checked and the hotel we stayed in is not longer listed there. However, it only set us back about a tenner per head per night. The rooms were basic, but had clean beds and private bathrooms and TVs, and considering we weren’t spending any time in them other than to sleep, they were ideal. Even better yet, it was situated in a quiet village about a 10 minute bus ride away from Disneyland and a 30 minute train journey away from Paris. The train station and bus station were only a 5 minute walk from our hotel and the village was so quiet and picturesque that we could quite happily stroll around at night without the bustle of Paris itself. The buses to Disneyland ran from just before the park opened until the park shut and the trains into Paris ran virtually 24 hours (I think they didn’t run between 1am and 5.30am). A return ticket into Paris cost about 12 euros and a return to Disneyland on the bus cost around 6. Its definitely worth looking into budget accommodation outside of Paris itself, and if I were going back I think I’d definitely stay in a place like this rather than in Paris itself where you can expect to be ripped off and stay in less pleasant surroundings.

Transport:
Paris has extensive transport links in and around the city. For most people on a city break the Metro will probably be the most useful mode of transport for them to use (as well as the easiest), and you can buy tickets that cover designated numbers of days of unlimited travel. I found that the Paris transport system isn’t as cheap or as good value as that of Athens, but you will definitely get more for your money than you do in London. The Metro is not half as confusing as the London Underground, but certainly isn’t as simple as it could be, but if you study the maps carefully enough, you’re sure to get where you need to. Alternatively, you could hop on a sight-seeing bus. Yes, they are touristy and generally rather expensive, but will take you to the doorsteps of all the tourist hot spots without fuss, stress, or without you getting yourself lost (or maybe its just me that manages to do that so frequently)! Tickets on these generally last two days as well, so are definitely worth considering as you could easily fill two days hopping on and off these buses and visiting places of interest, or even just vegging out on top of one of them and taking in the sites and sounds of the city or as a tool to get yourself orientated. A good map is always a useful companion in a city, though, and Paris is certainly no exception. Get a map with train stations, Metro stations and museums etc. all clearly mapped and study it before you go to help you set out an itenary. Check it each day before you leave your hotel and carry it with you just in case. If you find you have some spare time, or just want to get off the well beaten tourist track, wander aimlessly through the Parisian streets safe in the knowledge that your map will be able to help you find your way back out. Chances are you’ll stumble across some backstreet museum that you fancy a look in. In fact, this is exactly how my friends and I found the Picasso museum.

Food and Money:
Paris has plenty of places to eat, but they tend to be pricey. However, there are usually supermarkets dotted around if you look hard enough and you can grab some fruit, junk food etc. to keep you going. There is always a McDonald’s to be found (in fact, I’m sure there’s probably at least one McDonald’s to be found even on uninhabited islands these days), and although they might not be the classiest of establishments, at least you know what you’re getting, they’re cheap and you can pick up a quick bite to eat on the go if you’re short on time and want to cram in as much sight seeing as possible. On my second trip to Paris I became a big fan of baguettes bought out of a ‘fast food’ chain whose name escapes me, but were found in every train station we went into. These were a better (and healthier) option than McDonalds, but were just as quick, easy and cheap.

As for your finances, I can’t remember seeing more than a few exchange places in Paris, although there are plenty of banks. A word to the wise, however: the banks are all a bit security conscious and tend to work a weird system where you enter in the first door and wait in front of another door whilst being eye-balled by a security camera before being let into the bank itself, and they generally only allow one person to enter at a time. I also found that a lot of the French (especially the bank staff!) weren’t particularly friendly or helpful, so it might be best to change Traveller’s Cheques in your hotel if possible. You can also exchange Traveller’s Cheques at Disneyland if you happen to be heading there. There are also plenty cash machines on the Paris streets if you intend to withdraw money using a cash card, but again, if you have problems don’t expect bank tellers to be helpful or bothered that your holiday is being ruined because you can’t get your hands on any money.

The Sites:
Now for what you’ve been waiting for. As I mentioned before, Paris is HUGE and I haven’t even seen a lot of the places myself, but will give a quick run-down of some of the main attractions that I have visited.

The Eiffel Tower: possibly one of the most famous monuments in the world and a must-see if you are in Paris. Personally, though, I wasn’t too impressed. By all means take some photos from a distance and maybe have a wander underneath it, but I don’t personally recommend a trip to the top. If you do decide to scale it, you can take the stairs (the cheaper and decidedly less popular option) or the lift. When I went up the Eiffel Tower it was December and even then it was extremely busy. There was a large queue for the lifts, although admittedly it moved quite fast, but after you’d taken the first lift you had to queue for a second to take you further up and this queue moved very slowly. Once I got to the top I was squashed and jostled about, trying to take the mandatory pictures whilst being wedged between a few sweaty German armpits (nothing against Germans, in general, but the ones I got stuck between definitely did have a bit of a problem)! And what do you get for your troubles? A view of a city from up high. That’s it. Yup, if you searched on Google for an aerial view of Paris you’d get much the same for a lot less hassle, so unless you have a special wish to do it, I’d recommend giving it a miss.

The Louvre: if I was asked to describe the most famous museum in the world in one word, the word I’d have to choose would be ‘massive’. Admission fees are relatively cheap considering the size of the place, but expect lengthy queues in the summer. The success of the Da Vinci Code has no doubt made this an even more popular tourist attraction, and expect to do the ‘Mona Lisa Conga’ if you enter the Denon wing, where you’ll patiently have to endure the masses of people who run off to snap some pics of the famous Da Vinci work whilst barely stopping to breathe, let alone look at anything else along the way or at anything after her. I’m not any sort of art critic, but even I could pass hours in here looking at the ‘pretty pictures’. In many rooms, even the ceilings are intricately painted and I could quite imagine an art lover easily being able to spend days trawling the Louvre. However, it is a bit of a Charles de Gaulle of the museum world and if you’re anything like me, you will get lost when you try to leave. It is the only place in the world where even if you take two entirely different routes, you’ll still most likely find yourself in the exact same place you started. Panic starts to set in after about the 12th circle when once again you find yourself facing that same old painting/statue/security guard that you started out from and you do start to wonder if you’ve crossed into some strange Twilight Zone that you’ll never be liberated from.

The Arc de Triomphe: I still border suspicions that the fact that this stands in the middle of the most hellishly busy roundabout-cum-deathtrap in the world is actually proof that its a ploy of the French government to kill off tourists that try to cross over to see it. Its lovely, it really is, but unless you have extreme testicular fortitude, you may want to view it from a safe vantage point atop a tourist bus rather than risking life and limb to see it up close and personal.

The Picasso Museum: a little bit out-of-the-way, but a great museum and a must-see for anyone who has ever looked at a Picasso and wondered just how he started drawing that way. You can walk through rooms laid out in chronological order starting from his earliest sketches to his famous Cubist works.

Disneyland: If you have kids with you, you’ll no doubt find your way here, and if you’re a big over-grown kid like me you’ll also find yourself magnetically drawn towards this saccharine sweet make-believe world which also has some blooming cool rides for the aforementioned big kids! Its definitely not a cheap choice, but there is nothing quite like it! I was grinning more than the little kids were the minute I walked through the gates and at Christmas time they even made it snow fake snow down Main Street!

Paris really is a beautiful city with plenty to see and do. Its more of a place for the culture-junkies than anyone else, but even the culture shy could no doubt fill a weekend here easily enough. Unfortunately, I found the Parisians don’t tend to be friendly at all and the unfriendly natives really prevent it from being an almost perfect city.

Summary: An excellent city for a short break!