OK folks .. Taking wife away in October for a romantic weekend , and decided on Paris .. For those in the know , or those who live there .. know there are some on here .. Help is required ..
1. Best place to stay , medium to high price Hotel. 2. Places to visit , sightseeing , best way to get around. 3. Good places to eat.
Best way to get around is walking, Paris is quite a small capital city and many of the sites are reachable on foot. The metro is fine though, can get a carnet of 10 single journeys for €12.5.
Took my wife for her birthday a couple of years ago and stopped in a hotel in the Marais. I'll post up details in a sec. First, your questions;
1. Best place to stay , medium to high price Hotel. They are all expensive. I thought on the budget I'd set aside that we would have a couple of nights in one of the Grand Palais (Bristol/Crillon etc). Not even close. Its another world and one that isn't meant for you and I. In the end we settled on this place:
2. Places to visit , sightseeing , best way to get around. The hotel above is in the Marais district. The beauty of this place is that it was/is the Jewish quarter, which means everything is open on Sunday evening. Loads of smart little shops/boutiques (and APC for you). Best way to get around is on foot and on the metro. You can buy books of ten tickets. Take a wander around the Place de Concorde, Tuilleries, over the bridge to the Illde la Cite and Notre Dame. Its all pretty compact round there, so walking is easy. I could go on, but there's loads of places you can go.
3. Good places to eat. You'll not be short of good places to eat. Try seeking out a traditional Brasserie and you won't go wrong. We went to La Couple in Montparnasse, but its a fair old trek, even using the metro. Ask the concierge in your hotel and they should be able to recommend something for you. One of the pleasure of Paris for us was rolling into a small restaurant near the Gallerie Lafayette (if the wife loves shopping, you need to go here too) and having a lazy lunch that extends into the afternoon - slowly getting pissed on house wine and watching the world go by.
A couple of other things - its well worth getting a couple of guide books in advance and just sussing out the sort of places you'd like to go. Secondly, I've never found Parisians to be that rude. Most of the staff in restaurants are young and have travelled and speak pretty good English. Still, if you can, at least have a crack at the local lingo. They'll love you for it.
I've visited a couple of times for the football. The second time I made a bit of an effort and had a walk around to catch a few sites. Lots of nice things to see within a shortish distance. The Notre Dame is well worth a visit if your into that sort of thing. I was very impressed and didn't even go inside. Didn't make it to the Eiffel Tower though as it was a bit further out. I hope your not driving though. We had a nightmare, ended up going round the Arc de Triumph (mental roundabout) after my navigator got us lost. The only reason I offered to drive in the first place was that he promised that we wouldn't need to go near it.
A couple of interesting places I can remember the name of:
Les Dinges near Nor du gard. Patrick the owner/chef/barman looks like a French pirate and loves Sean Ryder. Food ain't bad either and a place for locals not tourists, which I like.
Un Zebra Montmartre. Think this is my favourite part of Paris as more chilled than the rest. This place was great for a big group of us - food was excellent and atmosphere was brilliant but that may be because we met up with mates from all over (incl. Melbourne).
The only place I felt ripped off at was the 'ice cream island' or whatever it's called £20 for a gin and tonic and a small ice cream is too much IMO.
Dealing with restaurants: it's up to you and your personnal tastes. I would rate Tripadvisor to find a good place. Personnaly I would avoid the "brasseries" as it's just a tourist trap: fries and steack for 20€ ...
Metro is great: cheap and rather safe (please don't show your iphone/ipad/camera if you want to bring them back home), just mind your stuff and wallet and it will be fine :)
Just let me know when you're coming if you want some shopping bargains: there are some "private sales" in the city everyweek and I should get you invitation cards.
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Sat Sep 15, 2012 4:57 pm
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