Exhausted in a 'Romantic' City

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I've stopped counting the number of times I've been to Paris. But as we dragged our luggage from the Gare de Lyon towards our hotel, I remembered that Paris wasn't one of my favourite cities. Especially after spending so much time in lovely clean Swiss cities, Paris was noisy, dirty, and NOT rolling suitcase friendly!

After getting lost searching for our hotel due to a misunderstanding of the hotel's address (oh, RUE Richard Lenoir, not Boulevard Richard Lenoir....), we finally checked in. We were tired, grumpy, and not at all excited about Paris. It was grey, only 18 degrees, and we were exhausted from carrying all our luggage a few too many kilometers for over 2 hours while we searched for the hotel.

We went around the corner to have dinner at a typical Parisienne bistro. Rather poor table service at first, but when our waiter found out Dave was Australian, he warmed up a little and was keen to let Dave pratice his French. And he was even more keen once he knew he could joke with me too. Dave still had his free Carefour polka-dotted mountain t-shirt that we got at the Tour de France - it became a talking point with strangers as they walked by. The dark cloud over our first impression of Paris began to lift.

In my wallet, I had a tiny piece of paper, carefully cut out from the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper months earlier, with a list of good cafés in Paris. Coming from coffee-geek friendly Australia, I knew that Paris would have terrible coffee. So over the next few days, we used this list as a basis to explore the city.

And it ended up being one of my favourite trips to Paris!

Each day, we'd check the map and try to pick at least one new café to go to, as well as visiting any nearby tourist attractions. The act of looking for these cafés meant we were far off the well-worn tourist tracks as we wandered down residential streets. It was a marvelous new way to see a city I had been to countless times! Of course, we visited a few of my favourite areas, including Montmartre, but with a yummy café to look for in the area, it meant I had a new way to explore the old neighbourhoods!

We also managed to enjoy the multicultural food offerings a cosmopolitan city like Paris has to offer. We had fantastic dumplings for dinner in a funky side street one night in the Saint Germaine area, to-die-for Italian a few blocks from our hotel in the 11ieme arrondissment, and escaped to San Sebastian when we discovered a fantastic tapas bar complete with staff that were convinced that anyone who sat at their tables must obviously speak Spanish.

And shopping. We did lots of shopping. We spent an entire afternoon wandering around some department stores. We both laughed about it, but we craved normalcy. We were so tired of moving from place to place that we just wanted a sense of "normal". Looking at stationary on the 4th floor of a department store somehow satiated those cravings. Luckily for me, it was July. Les Grands Soldes of Paris were on, and that meant bargains to be had. Never being much of a shopper, I was surprised at how quickly I joined the crowds, looking for shoes, scarves, pants, etc. I did come away with a few great pieces, as well as another suitcase to hold it all. I certainly wouldn't have dreamed of that while being a backpacker!

Note to people shopping in Paris wanting to get the tax back: It can only be done at the airport, at one specific Travelex, and it CANNOT be done anywhere else despite what some signs will leave you to believe. Schedule an extra 2 to 3 hours to get your tax back, or just forget about it. We didn't get ours back and nearly missed our flight. And in the end, the amount we would have gotten back might have paid for a dinner, but was certainly not worth hours standing in line.

We ended up NOT doing the normal touristy things - aka: waiting in lines for tourist attractions. One morning I decided we'd try the underground entrance to the Louvre, as the last time I had been there it was such an easy way to skip the long lines that form at the pyramid above ground. Well, everyone else seemed to have figured out that trick...one look at the line that had formed 1 hour before the museum was even open and we turned straight around and got back onto the metro to the next spot.

Luckily for me, Dave was not keen on waiting in lines, so we visited quieter tourist attractions such as the Rodin museum instead. Our café and shopping wanderings gave us plenty to do without feeling like we missed out. In fact, with the wanderings down quiet little streets off the beaten path, I began to see why it was the "Romantic City". There is a romantic air about the city - an idyllic sense that one gets from sitting at a street-side cafe watching the world go by; or wandering around old cobblestone streets, one can just imagine adopting a bohemian artist lifestyle. Or sitting giggling over one too many glasses of wine while dining on fine food in a quirky restaurant. If only holidays could last forever...

By the last day in Paris, we were buzzing from caffeine highs, full from delicious food and our arms were straining from our bags of shopping. We were ready to head home. And I had much more fun in Paris than I initially thought from the impressions that first evening...so I have not crossed Paris off my list just yet.

I shall return yet another time in the future. There is something about that city that keeps drawing me back....

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Photos

Stairs in Montmartre
"Typical" Paris scene

Yum!
Crêpes made fresh!

La pyramide
Outside Le Louvre

Coffee Heaven
Thank heaven for the coffee geeks in Paris!

Street side seats
Perfect for people watching, albeit a bit touristy.

Playing with the light
A break in the clouds in the late afternoon