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Published: November 18th 2007
I wasn’t sure which of the titles I liked better so I decided to use both. 😊 I say ‘Paris on a tightrope’ because I ended up spending a little more money than you would if you were to do it ‘on a shoestring’, but still tried to keep it cheap. And when I say ‘Paris Diet’ I don’t mean Paris Hilton - I think one chocolate croissant would be one too many for Paris Hilton. I mean the city in France.
So here’s ten easy steps on how to experience ‘Paris on a Tightrope’ or how to lose weight in Paris (or at least get fit)!:
1. Make sure you have sturdy walking shoes. I didn’t. My shoes were basically already dead before I got there, so know not only are my shoes dead but my feet too. Needless to say I’ll be buying some new ones soon, but I still think I got more than my AUD10 out of them! (Good old SpendLess in Perth!)
2. Book a cheap plain/train ticket to Paris, France. I managed to find pretty cheap return tickets with the TGV train - France’s extra speedy train that almost feels like an aeroplane - so
bridge over the Seine River
If you look toward the centre of the photo, you can see very faintly the Eiffel Tower. This was the first glimpse I got of it, so I wanted to capture the moment on camera! :Psmooth and fast!
3. Find a youth hostel that is cheaper and nicer than the one I found (or better yet - couchsurf!). Unfortunately my accommodation was too expensive for too little. That’s the problem when you make sort of spur-of-the-moment decisions to go to Paris - you don’t have much to choose from as everything’s already booked up!
4. Take some chocolate/lollies/energy snacks that you might already have with you. I heard that France (especially Paris) was generally pretty expensive, so I took some fruit and muesli bars and (Swiss!) chocolate I already had with me to help cut down the costs a little. Having said that though, you can find a few cheap supermarkets once you get away from the city a bit.
5. Don’t use the Metro. If you’re staying close to the city centre this won’t be so bad - not only getting some exercise, but also saving money. Although the metro is cheaper than the buses/trams/trains/underground here in Germany. However I wanted to save as much money as possible, and as the website for the youth hostel said ‘15min from the city’ I thought I’d walk there on the first day. However, I think they
failed to mention that it’s 15min with the Metro. It took me about 1 ½ hours each way (yes, I stupidly walked back to the hostel too, even though I knew how far it was!) Then of course there’s the extra 45min walk from the most of the ‘attractions’ to the Eiffel Tower...
6. If a buffet breakfast is included in your accommodation, wear clothes with lots of pockets when you go to eat. Now I know it wasn’t overly honest/good of me, but to cut down on costs even more I took a few extra pieces of bread and cheese from breakfast to serve as my lunch each day. 😊 Hey I had to get my money’s worth somewhere, right? And since the actual accommodation wasn’t too great...
7. Buy as little food for dinner as you need (i.e. only eat enough to satisfy the hunger). Now you’re really starting to see where the ‘diet’ comes into it, right? I recommend street crépe vendors or patisseries. If you go to a restaurant you’ll be paying AT LEAST 9Euros, generally more.
8. Be under 25/26 years old. Under 26s (although sometimes they reduce it to under 25s) get into places
cheaper in Paris. You even get into Le Louvre for free!!
9. Walk up the stairs of the Eiffel Tower rather than taking the lift. Not only is it about ½ the price of the lift, but think about how it will tone your legs! 😊
10. Experience the city at night. OK so this doesn’t have much to do with saving money (although the Louvre is cheaper at night), nor has it anything to do with the ‘diet’. But I thought 10 was a good number of steps and I thought it was a good tip for anyone hoping to go to Paris. It really comes alive at night. During the day I often wondered why people called it the ‘city of love’, as it was not really extraordinarily beautiful - just like many other cities in Europe. But then at night, when all the monuments/museums/sights are lit up, it is AMAZING.
So now I’ve gotten my tips out of the way I’ll tell you a little more about my own experiences in Paris. Normally I have classes on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday mornings as well as Friday afternoons, which makes travelling a little bit difficult without missing class,
so when my usual Friday afternoon class was cancelled for reasons unknown to me, I jumped at the opportunity of a 3 ½ day weekend to travel. I just had a bit of a browse on the internet and found a good deal with the ‘Deutsche Bahn’ from Karlsruhe (about 1 ½ hour train ride from Freiburg) to Paris and thought why not? It was actually cheaper than many train tickets within Germany that I’d looked at. And I thought if I could couchsurf it would end up being a really cheap holiday! However, of the five people I asked, four were going to be away on holiday the weekend I wanted to go and one was already on holiday so couldn’t reply until the day I was leaving. Turns out I could have stayed with her, but by that stage I’d already booked my youth hostel and they wouldn’t give a refund by that stage, so I thought I’d better stick with the over-priced hostel. I did meet up with her for a coffee before I caught my train back to Freiburg on Sunday, though, and was really nice.
Anyways, as mentioned before, the hostel wasn’t great. There was
very little on the website describing it or how to get there. They mentioned it being ’15 minutes from the city’, but failed to mention that it was 15 minutes with the Metro (the French subway), hence why I walked to the city on my first day there. I also found it quite dirty - not just the hostel itself, but also the area in which the hostel was located. It kind of surprised me, as I had the impression that France was a super-clean place, but in the area in which the hostel was there was a lot of rubbish on the streets and LOTS of vandalism.
And then...there was my room. I was in a 3-bed room, situated right next to the male restrooms. No, the problem wasn’t the smell - it was surprisingly odourless (maybe that was because my roommates had smoked the smell out - yep that’s right, before I arrived I think they must have been smoking, cos the room smelled a little like cigarettes and then I found the remnants of a cigarette in the sink!). The problem was that the walls were PAPER thin, so when a group of about 20 French guys
had finished partying-it-up in the bar downstairs at about 2am they made their way up to the restrooms on their way to bed (which somehow took over 2 hours...and guys say girls take ages in the bathroom!). I’d be surprised if I got more than 3 hours sleep that first night! However, I will admit the next two nights weren’t so bad - I think I got a solid 9 hours each night! :D Hey I had to recover the lost hours from the previous night!
I also got a chance to visit the catacombs while I was there. Just a hint: make sure you check opening times. I didn’t even think about it and turned up at 9am and they didn’t open til 10! Fortunately I had a book with me, so I found a spot away from the rain and read. The catacombs were so interesting. Originally they were quarries where they mined limestone, clay and one other form of rock which I’ve forgotten. But then when a cemetery nearby began to get overfilled after the murder of thousands of people in revolutionary actions, causing lots of disease in the local area, the decision was made to move
the bodies and bones into the quarries. Now the bones of thousands of people from all classes and races of life, the victims of the revolutions are ‘buried’ there. I say ‘buried’ as many are not actually buried but rather on display. I overheard a British woman say something that I found quite thought-provoking: ‘These people had different backgrounds but all ended up buried in the same place’. It made me think about how much of a big deal is made of how much money people earn and what kind of job you have, but in the end we’re all the same - we are all just human, skin and bone (and some of us have muscles :D).
I think I might leave it there - I covered most of what I got upto. I must apologise that this is a bit of a disjointed entry. I’ve been quite exhausted lately and am also struggling to construct English sentences (which I suppose is good in a way...)!
But of course before I go, my interesting fact! I realised only after I published my last blog that I’d forgotten to include one! But don’t worry I won’t include 2 this time
- don’t want to strain your brains with too much information!
So, interesting fact number 4:
In the 1970s a race to the top of the Eiffel Tower was held. I don’t know what I find more interesting, the four categories the race was divided into: veterans, joggers, walkers, and FOOTBALL PLAYERS (why are they in a separate category??), or the prize: a bicycle. Surely after racing up the 700 steps the winner wouldn’t want to ride home!
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Tash D
non-member comment
Ah, Paris
I've had so many friends go to Europe, it feels like I've travelled it already cause we've heard about/seen pics of so much of it (hence the planned trip to the US!). But now I woudn't mind checking out Paris! I get excited about seeing the lights of Perth lit up at Christmas let alone The City of Love! :-)