We were in Paris for 10 days and couldn’t help falling a little in love with it.  The atmosphere, the tons of sights to see and things to do, the ease of getting anywhere you need to be without a car, and the food..who wouldn’t love it? For anyone wanting to visit Paris, here’s some info:

The city: Paris is huge! For someone who grew up in Northern VA, where every city can be driven through in 10 min on a main road, Paris seemed like it never ended. There are tons of different areas – from the Eifel Tower/Champ de Mars area, Monmartre, the Latin Quarter…so many different things to see and places to eat! You’ll pretty much never run out of things to do.  During our week and a half visit, we certainly didn’t pack in as much as we could do each day, but we had more than enough to keep us busy.

The people: Most Americans think the French people are rude and snobby….so not true at all!  Our encounters with people (mostly our airbnb.com hosts, retail workers, taxi drivers, and waiters) were all pleasant. Nobody was rude, even though we barely spoke more than 5 words of French the whole time, everyone was very polite and friendly, and helpful! I’d say, to not be a horrible tourist (like us), learn at least a few words/phrases in French so you don’t stand out like a sore thumb.

The dress code:  while I’ve learned that all Europeans are very open minded and not judgmental at all, Paris isn’t called the fashion capital of the world for nothing. While it’s easy to dress in shorts, jeans, t-shirts, and sneakers (like I did for the most part since that’s mostly all I packed for our 5 month tour of the world), you may feel pretty bummy looking (like I did the entire time I was in France) if you don’t have at least a few fashionable outfits… Parisians often look like they’re coming out of a Vogue photo shoot…most of them are annoyingly good looking! And I say annoying only because I felt like a frumpy old woman with my shorts, tank top, flip flops, no make-make up and hair in a bun compared to the nicely dressed, perfect haired, mannequin-like figures walking all around me.

The food: OMG, don’t get me started.  Though it was rather pricey, all the food we ate was so fresh and delicious.  There are bakeries, cheese shops, sweet shops, and gelato stands EVERYWHERE! I am supposedly “lactose intolerant” in the US, but in France I was not…no idea why….maybe I’m just chemically processed dairy intolerant?  To make up for the years and years of not eating much dairy, I had my share (and probably about 20 other people’s shares) of cheese, gelato, and all sorts of other delicious deserts.  What I found odd…there’s a lot of Italian dishes.  We had more pasta and pizza in Paris than we ever did before.  And of course…macarons….mmmmm…. I could eat these things forever, but I was good and only limited myself to a few 🙁

The wine: CHEAP. enough said. You can get a good bottle of wine for 5-8 euros (and average bottles for 1.5 – 3 euros).

Transportation: Getting around the city was so easy! The metro takes you pretty much anywhere you need to be and only costs 1.5 euros per person.  Taxis are also fairly cheap.  Don’t think we paid more than 10 euros for the taxi rides we took when we were more in a hurry (except for the “pre-vat car” experience from my last post).

Housing: Can be pricey depending on where you decide to stay.  We used airbnb.com and found studios to rent for a couple days, but wound up paying roughly $1k/week.  Cheaper than a hotel, yes, but still expensive.  The up side, we could wash our clothes, and buy food to eat (and wine, of course) in the apartment.

Things to do: In 10 days, we did not get bored, or feel that we did everything we could think of.  I’ll come up with my favorite things we did in the next post.

Stay tuned…

S