We’ve just spent a few days in Paris, which is in our top two or three cities ever. (Would we live there? Maybe, maybe not…) And, while we don’t know the city well, we’ve been here enough times that we – blessedly – do not feel obliged to stand in line waiting to get into the major tourist sites. Read on to find out what we do oblige ourselves to do whenever we’re in the City of Lights.
Eat French Onion Soup OR Escargots OR Duck
We love French food, so sometimes we manage all three of these. But usually, only one is in season. This time it was duck, splendidly done in a French-Korean restaurant. Chances are good you will also manage to find a baguette even on the briefest of visits to Paris; fill it with brie or jambon or both, and you will be engaging in one of the greatest sandwiches known to man.
Watch the World Go By
This is most effectively done at a café, or several, sitting outside on a brightly-coloured chair that faces the world. We were delighted to see that Parisians still take actual paper books with them during these stints watching the great parade of life. You can too! And here’s the brilliant thing: café culture is so important to the French that nobody will ever make you leave. For the price of a coffee or a glass of wine, you can sit for hours. We’ve been feeling the need for some new duds, so we spent a lot of our time allowing other people to model options for us as they passed. Also important for us, but not an actual obligation, is to drink French bubbly or Lillet. (This is mostly because we would never miss the chance anyway.) Any café worth its salted peanuts will have both these options. Lillet Blanc is relatively easy to come by in many parts of the world, but Rouge and Rosé are trickier, so we often opt for them.
Walk and Walk and Walk
The best thing about being in Paris is … Paris! We love walking all day, taking breaks as needed. We try to explore neighbourhoods we don’t know well, but if Paris is new for you, we recommend the picking an arrondissement in the center. The heart of the city is the Seine and we recommend, roughly in this order, the 6th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and 5th.
We always find something new and beautiful, which makes us love Paris even more! Above is an open passageway in the 4th we recently popped our heads into. There are also some covered ones, and they’re stunning. And it’s fun to notice how many times the Eiffel Tower sneaks up on you; we spotted it all kinds of places we weren’t expecting.
Visit with our Arty Friends
We love the Louvre, and we think everyone should go there, probably more than once. But on a short visit we just can’t bear the thought of spending all that time shoving around to get not-so-close to the Mona Lisa. There is a ton of other amazing art in Paris. We make sure to visit the Musée D’Orsay or the Orangerie whenever we’re in town, but we also like the Musée Rodin and the Musée Picasso and the Centre Pompidou. And there are many, many others.
Have a Sweet Treat
All that walking and art-ing can leave a minimalist dying for a snack. We love the macarons at La Durée (salted caramel is still the winner!). But really, it’s hard to go wrong. Most any block will have a pastry shop whose window will have you drooling. If you’re more a savoury type, check out the astonishing sourdough and rye loaves at Poilâne. Bonus: some pastry shops and bakeries have a small number of seats, so you can multi-task, watching people while you refuel.
Find Green Spaces
The Jardin du Luxembourg is another spot we often find ourselves gravitating to. Or the Jardin des Plantes, the Tuilleries, or the Bois de Boulogne, which we got to for the first time ever on this trip. (It’s a massive garden, with restaurants, racetracks, and thousands of people running, rollerblading, and cycling.) Or any one of a dozen other smaller places, like the Place des Vosges – just grab a map and pick a bit marked in green; so much the better if it’s not one of the famous ones. You can do people watching here too; especially recommended if you like babies and dogs.
On our most recent visit. we walked along the left side of the Seine and found all kinds of little green spaces. In the summer, there are also – you guessed it! – cafés where you can take a break. And we adore La Coulée Verte, an elevated garden above an abandoned train track.
Yes: like everybody else, we love Sacré Coeur and Père-Lachaise and the Galleries Lafayette and Notre-Dame and the food hall at the Bon Marché. But we also love feeling like Parisians, strolling about enjoying the city’s architecture and culture.
