Paris passed in a whirlwind. We arrived a bit dazed and exhausted from Flip Fest (Gymnastics Camp), moving, packing, and an overnight flight.  Despite our exhaustion, we managed to walk over 50 miles, see 16 different tourist sites, learn a bit about Paris/Parisians, and have lots of fun doing it.

Touring

We couldn’t narrow our favorite places in Paris to a top 3 so we picked 4 instead.

Versailles

Versailles was our favorite place in Paris. It’s easily the grandest castle we’ve visited and the gardens rival the beauty of the castle. Wyatt has wanted to visit the Hall of Mirrors since learning about it in grade school history class and the Hall did not disappoint.

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If you ever visit Versailles, buy your tickets online and arrive by 8:30 AM. The castle opens at 9:00. We arrived at 8:30 but still didn’t get in until 9:20 due to the line. By that time, the line was absurd, with anyone arriving at 9 waiting 1.5 to 2 hours to enter.

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Catacombs

Paris sits on a bedrock of limestone that has been mined for building material for centuries. Over 150 km of tunnels are buried 30 meters beneath the city. In the late 1700’s an overused cemetery in the city literally started overflowing (a wall into an adjacent basement collapsed and graves started falling into it). Burials in the city were forbidden, the mines beneath the city consecrated, and bodies were moved from cemeteries into the newly created catacombs. The next several centuries saw over 6 million bodies buried in these catacombs.

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The line for the catacombs is even more ridiculous than Versailles. It can take 3 to 4 hours to get in if you try to walk in off the street. Fortunately, “skip the line tickets” with a specific time on them can be purchased for the same price as regular tickets. Line up 15 to 20 minutes before your scheduled time and get in with virtually no wait. We used tiqets.com.

Eiffel Tower

A visit to Paris wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the Eiffel Tower. We both enjoy interesting architecture and the Eiffel Tower is unique among the towers we’ve seen. The open-air, all-metal structure captures the eye and climbing the tower presents a great view of the city.

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The Eiffel Tower lines are also far too long (noticing a trend, Paris is busy in August). You have two options for getting up the tower. You can take an elevator to the 3rd floor (the top) or you can walk up the stairs to the 2nd floor (still very high). Taking the elevator puts you in line for a few hours so we elected to take the stairs to the 2nd. The line to buy tickets for both the elevator and walking up the stairs were several hours long so, once again, we purchased tickets online and were able to walk up immediately.

Sacre Coeur

Sacre Coeur is prominent in the Parisian Skyline. Seeing it from the Eiffel Tower made us even more excited to check it out. It’s a Roman Catholic Church, situated on a tall hill with an excellent view of Paris.

Many articles online suggest Montparnasse Tower as the best place for a view of Paris and the Eiffel Tower. We suggest climbing to Sacre Coeur instead. It has an excellent, 360-degree view, costs 15 Euros less than Montparnasse, has a very short line, and is a cool church that’s worth a visit even without the view.

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Culture

We learned a few interesting things about Parisian’s during our short time in Paris.

Summer Vacation

A remarkable number of Parisians leave the city for the entirety of August to holiday in the Mediterranean.

We did not realize this before we booked Paris as our first stop and, if we could do it over, we would start somewhere else, arriving in Paris at the beginning of September.

All of the tourist sites were open with regular hours so our touring was minimally affected. Over half the restaurants we called were closed, however. Similarly, many of the markets and interesting street shops were closed for our entire visit. With so few Parisians in the streets, the city felt empty except for when we were in the tourist areas.

Still, it was interesting to contrast this behavior with Americans. August is high season for tourism in Paris. Despite the potential to make money by keeping their doors open, many restauranteurs and shop owners choose to shut down and take their holiday.

Closing Time

In France, when a business says “we close at 8”, they mean “we leave at 8”, not “you leave at 8”. We were kicked out of a grocery store at 7:45 PM when the closing time said 8:30 PM.

Food

There is a lot of bad coffee in Paris. We had a few good coffees, 0 excellent coffees, and several bad ones. We received the worst latte of our lives on our first day. The “barista” microwaved almond milk and added minimal espresso, resulting in a slightly warm, watery, almond milk beverage that we threw away.

French people really do eat a lot of bread. We saw people walking home with Baguette’s sticking out of their bags at all times of the day. We have eaten more bread in the past week than we have in the past year.

What do Parisian’s eat other than bread? The grocery stores we found are tiny (0 true supermarkets found thus far) and we never had to wait in line for a restaurant during our entire stay (despite half of them being closed).

Where are the black beans? We made tacos one night and ended up using lentils because there are no black beans. 5 grocery stores later, we still haven’t found any.

Architecture

Check out all of these chimneys. Buildings seem to have more chimneys than apartments. We remarked on this so many times we looked it up. It turns out, chimneys used to be a sign of wealth. People would put fake chimney pots on their roofs to make themselves appear wealthier than they were. Keeping up with the Jones’s, 1700’s style.

The sidewalks are remarkably small with remarkably windy streets. We are not large people and we have not fit on some of the “sidewalks”. Paris’s streets make Boston’s look well planned.

Other

Wyatt made it 5 days without buying protein powder and 7 without working out. Settle your bets.

Overall

Paris was fun but it did not live up to some of the other world-class cities we’ve visited (New York, London, Tokyo). We found that:

• There’s a huge amount to do but only a few things are amazing.
• Paris is very expensive. Even the mildly interesting activities cost 10 to 20 Euro’s, a price that adds up if you both do a few each day.
• The city is so “classically European” that it almost feels bland at times.
• The lack of Parisians and closure of restaurants meant we saw less of the cities culture and found it difficult to find good vegetarian meals.

With that said, we had lots of fun and will come back in the future to experience the city when the Parisian’s are there. The city has lots to offer, the public transit is exceptional, there are many corners we have not explored, and I expect we can find better food/coffee when more restaurants are open.

Bonus Pics

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