Paris

Whenever I travel, I usually try to go to less-visited places first. The reason is simple, wherever you have less visitors, the culture has retained more of its original content and traditions. When there are few tourists, there is little to no point in adapting everything to tourism. It’s more genuine. The frequently visited places have westernized themselves, albeit while still retaining parts of their original cultures.

Paris is one of the most-visited cities on the planet. While the French culture is still pretty solid, there’s many touts and hawkers that you wouldn’t see without the tourists. Not to mention the hoards of people everywhere. Paris is full of attractions and worthwhile sights, don’t get me wrong. But the city was initially not high on the to-do list for the reasons mentioned above. However, I had one much better reason to go. A very good friend of mine, Patrick, lives in the United States. He was back in Paris to visit family, where he grew up. The timing lined up with some of my off days, so I took the opportunity to fly to Paris to spend some time with him.

SATURDAY, JULY 21ST

Started with an early 7 AM morning flight to Paris with SWISS, which was punctual. At the Charles De Gaulle airport, I was picked up by my friend Patrick. Paris’ main airport has some very interesting design features, because most of it was built decades ago. Patrick wanted to show me some of these, including still-used CRT screens with departing flights.

Next we walked down to the airport’s train platform, and took a commuter train downtown. Eventually we got out and changed to the subway. It was much too early in the morning to check in at the airbnb I had rented. So we made a stop at Patrick’s parents’ place, where I would leave my trolley behind for some hours. Just around the corner from their apartment was the Ecole Militaire, the name of which translates to Military College.

It was built in 1750, and still functions as an academy for the French military. However, more impressive is perhaps the building that immediately becomes visible when walking past the Ecole Militaire. Namely, one of the world’s most recognizable landmarks, the Eiffel Tower. It was constructed in time for the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris.

The Eiffel Tower was actually meant to just be a temporary installation. It was however so popular that it was allowed to stay. There’s a long, rectangular green area in front of the Eiffel Tower, like a public park, called Champ de Mars. It’s quite a nice place for people to go jogging, or just relaxing outside in the sun. It also provides for nice, unobstructed views of the Tower. We didn’t plan on getting up into the tower because it would have taken hours. As we walked closer it quickly became evident, that the line to visit the tower was insanely long. We just settled for a photo of the two of us in front of the tower instead.

You could pre-order tickets online. Even then, that line probably took at least a solid hour to get inside the actual complex on the ground. From there, you still probably had another hour or two to wait for the elevators to get up to the viewing platforms. Nowadays the Eiffel Tower is a fenced-off area full of security. You can only walk around the tower. You can’t really get close to it, without having to enter this complex with a ticket. It used to be possible to ride bikes or jog from the green lawns right underneath the tower itself. But times have changed. Patrick and I had agreed to not visit the inside of Paris’ most famous attractions. That would have meant too much wasted time waiting in lines.

We circled around the Eiffel Tower and continued across the Seine River to the Palais de Chaillot. It has a nice view of the tower and downtown Paris. The view from up here, right across from the Eiffel Tower, has a bit of symbolism to it. When Nazi Germany occupied the city during World War II, Adolf Hitler had pictures taken from this vantage point.

The pictures of Hitler along with some German commanders, with the Eiffel Tower in the background, was meant to demonstrate that Paris was under Nazi control.

We continued walking along the riverfront, passing the Palais de Tokyo art museum (not pictured).

Further along the riverbanks is the Flame of Liberty, where we made a stop. The Flame of Liberty sits right above the tunnel where British Princess Diana died in a car accident in 1997. The monument has been there since 1989 though. It was actually put in place as a sign of friendship between the US and France.

It’s a copy of the torch on the Statue of Liberty in New York. It has become an unofficial memorial for Princess Diana. Fans keep laying down flowers or pictures of her right underneath the statue.

We continued walking along the Seine River, passing the Grand Palais and Petit Palais. Both were exhibition spaces built for the 1900 World Fair. Across from them is the Pont Alexandre II bridge, which crosses the Seine towards the Hôtel des Invalides.

The Hôtel des Invalides was constructed in the 1670s to house disabled war veterans. It played a role in the French Revolution, as a mob broke into it on July 14th, 1789. They stole an estimated 32,000 rifles. The mob, now armed, continued towards the Bastille where the French Revolution was initiated officially. The Hôtel des Invalides, and particularly its golden dome was visible from the bridge. It was however much further down the street than it seems. Patrick had planned that we stayed north of the Seine. Thus, we didn’t visit the Hôtel des Invalides, which is in Paris’ 7th Arrondissement (administrative district), south of the Seine.

Our next point of interest was the Place de la Concorde. This square sits at the eastern end of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, one of Paris’ most famous avenues. What’s at the other end of that street? The Arc de Triomphe.

This wide road also serves as part of the final race of the Tour de France bicycle competition. The Place de la Concorde has a 3,300-year-old Egyptian obelisk in the middle of it. The obelisk was a gift from the government of Egypt received in 1831.

By now it had become time for lunch. We walked a bit around the neighborhood north of the Place de la Concorde, until we found a traditional Parisian restaurant. It was quite busy on a Saturday.

After lunch we walked to the Place Vendôme. It is located in one of the most expensive parts of Paris. In the centre of the square is a column. The column’s outer bronze spirals is made from the material of hundreds of cannons. All of these were captured from the Austrians and Russians at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805.

The buildings that surround the square include the French Ministry of Justice, the Ritz Hotel, and numerous luxury brand fashion stores.

We continued further east, walking past the Palais Royal, built in 1624. It now houses France’s Council of State, and is thus closed to the public. It’s courtyard is open however, and inside you’ll find several rows of marble columns which together forms an art installation.

Supposedly, each of the columns here is equally long (counting the parts, if any, that are below the surface).

The adjacent Musee de Louvre was crowded with visitors, and we didn’t have pre-booked tickets anyway. We just looked at it from outside, seeing the glass pyramids.

After that we went to my airbnb to check-in, before continuing much further east. This meant taking the metro back towards Patrick’s parents’ apartment, where I had left my bag. Next we needed to pick up the key. The owner of the airbnb wasn’t in town. We had arranged to pick up the key at a café nearby, which had a key-safe. After some initial confusion regarding how to enter the PIN-code I was given, we finally managed to open it. Next up was the question of getting into the apartment building itself.

There was an outside door and a second door leading into the courtyard. Neither of them were locked with keys, but with different PIN-codes. Figuring out both of these took a good five minutes. Right behind the second door was an elevator, and we simply stepped inside. I was told the apartment was on the sixth floor, but the elevator only had buttons from 1 to 5. So we assumed that the sixth floor meant taking one floor up with the stairs. When we got up, it turned out that there was no 6th floor! The door codes for the two doors on the ground floor had worked. We were obviously in the right building, somehow.

There were several other stairways and we definitely realized we had taken the wrong one. I re-read the owner’s description of how to access the apartment, and we found the right door. This part of the building did not have a lift though, so we walked up the six flights of stairs on foot. When we finally got to the apartment, it turned out to be tiny. Patrick said that most of these tiny apartments on the top floors used to be where housemaids would sleep a few centuries ago. The bathroom and kitchen were thus added in later, which makes the living space even smaller. There was just a bed and a small table with two chairs, in addition to the small kitchen and the bathroom. I quickly dropped off my bag and we went back out to explore more of Paris.

We took public transport out to where we had essentially left off earlier in the afternoon. We were now in the very center of Paris.

Historically, this part of the city used to be a maze of tiny lanes, with cramped, dirty alleyways. Buildings were packed in tight next to eachother. It would have been a nightmare for modern city planners. Paris has long since been rebuilt, with more open spaces and wider streets. We did take a look at what is claimed to be Paris’ currently narrowest street, Rue du Chat Qui Pêche, an alley that has not been rebuilt.

Next we went to the Cathédrale Notre Dame. It’s one of Paris’ most-visited sites, with upwards of 14 million visitors. The line was actually moving along quite well once we got there, so we queued up to get inside. The cathedral has been one of the most important for Catholics in Paris for the last seven centuries. Built in a French Gothic Style, it is very impressive.

Not only with the level of detail on its façade, but also its interior decorations. The stained glass windows are particularly pretty.

Visiting the Notre Dame Cathedral itself does not require a ticket, but visiting the towers or its treasury does. We didn’t visit either. Because it was in the middle of the summer, there was of course a large crowd. If you wanted to photograph everything inside, you could wait quite a while to get a clear shot. You can walk in a loop inside the cathedral, but not all parts are open for visitors.

Next we walked around Ile de la Cité, a small island in the middle of the Seine River. The Notre Dame Cathedral is situated on here, among other things. Primarily we walked along some of the bridges connecting the Ile de la Cité with the rest of Paris. One of these was the Pont Neuf. The name translates to New Bridge, but it is in fact very old. We turned around, and walked onto Pont Saint-Michel, a good spot for photos of the Cathédrale Notre Dame.

We continued walking along the River Seine further east. Patrick had planned a route along some of Paris’ beautiful city canals. It was a part of Paris that quickly changed from up-scale to more affordable, middle-class apartment blocks.

We walked towards the Bastille Square, which used to be the site of the Bastille prison. It was this prison which was stormed as part of the French Revolution in 1789. It is currently marked with what’s known as the July Column, which actually honors those who died in the second French Revolution of 1830.

Next, we went into some of the nearby side-streets, ending at Place de Vosges. Just around the corner we spotted a pair of police officers riding horseback. I wasn’t expecting to see that in a large metropolis like Paris.

After that we went out for dinner and stayed quite a while. Patrick and I hadn’t seen each other for over a year, so we were just talking and catching up for hours over dinner.

SUNDAY, JULY 22ND

We started out early in the morning by meeting in front of my apartment. Then we walked to a nearby café for a simple breakfast, a pair of croissants and some juice and coffee. We began the day’s sightseeing at the Arc de Triomphe. This triumphal arch was commissioned by Napoleon following his victory at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805. It was however not finished until long after his death in 1836.

The arch stands in the middle of a large roundabout, which marks the beginning point of 12 avenues. We weren’t sure if we would get inside. It was still relatively early in the morning, just past 10 AM. The line was short and moving along well. It was a much shorter wait than usual, particularly in comparison to what it would be later in the day. Patrick and I got in line, and about 15 minutes later we were inside. Within the actual structure itself is a couple of small, uninteresting exhibits regarding the French military history and the construction of the arch. The real draw is the magnificent views from the top.

The weather was excellent, with visibility extending far beyond the city of Paris itself. It was interesting to compare the contemporary office buildings of Paris’ northwestern suburbs, with the more traditional buildings that have been largely preserved, closer to the city centre.

After enjoying the panorama of all twelve avenues stretching out from the Arc de Triomphe, we returned to the ground floor. Below the arch are several plaques in memory of those who fought in the French Revolutions, and all major wars of the French Republics. It also includes resistance fighters during World War II. The names of sites of important battles are written on the walls of the arch. There’s also a flame burning for the “unknown soldier”, which was initially built in connection with World War I.

As we left the Arc de Triomphe after well over an hour there, the line to visit had gotten considerably longer. We had gotten lucky.

After visiting the triumphal arch, we hopped on the metro to go to the Montmartre neighborhood in northern Paris. It’s quite a nice neighborhood, home to lots of artists. It’s claim to fame is the Basilique du Sacré Cœur, a basilica that was constructed between 1875 and 1914.

Given Paris’ long history and plenty of other churches, it’s actually one of the newer ones in the city.

By now it was noon. Once again the lines were shorter than we had feared, so we decided to see the inside of the basilica. As we waited in line, the hill-top location of the basilica provided for some nice views across the city of Paris.

Patrick had some in-depth knowledge of the building from the time he lived in Paris. He was able to point out many of the features outside and inside. Some of these details may have been overlooked by the casual visitor. It actually turned out that a mass was going on in one section of the basilica. Thus, in addition to the numerous visitors, there was a significant amount of worshippers as well. The inside of the Basilique du Sacré Cœur was quite crowded, and we couldn’t get close up to all parts of it.

Within walking distance of the basilica, just south of the Montmartre, was the city’s Pigalle neighborhood. It is the red light district of Paris. It’s perhaps not the side of Paris that everyone wants to see, but it’s part of the city nonetheless. The most famous night club in the Pigalle area is probably the Moulin Rouge cabaret.

There’s plenty of other night clubs and bars in the neighborhood, as well as restaurants. Just beyond the red light district itself, we found a decent restaurant serving cheap, but good food for lunch.

After lunch, Patrick wanted to show me another side of Paris that most tourists stay away from. Much like Patrick, I try to visit places that are off the beaten path, and parts of cities that get less visitors. Paris’ northern neighborhoods in the 10th, 19th and 18th Arrondissements, east of the Montmartre, are definitely not the prettiest parts of the city. There are very few tourist sights in the traditional sense.

What you get here is the low-income neighborhoods of Paris. It’s a stark contrast to the expensive apartments of the city centre, or the glitz and glamour of the Champs-Elysées’ fashion stores. These areas of Paris are very much rough around the edges. There’s a higher density of immigrants than elsewhere in the city. A large section of the population here are ethnically from France’s former colonies in Africa and the Middle East. We walked for a good hour or two just exploring the neighborhood.

This area of the city does have a reputation for being riddled with crime. While that may statistically hold some truth, much of that is based on prejudice anyway. As long as you’re not being careless or flashing your expensive smartphones and jewellery everywhere, you’ll be fine. We never felt unsafe.

Speaking of phones, Patrick had dropped his a few weeks prior and needed to have the screen repaired. He noted that there was a lot of phone repair shops in the area, and it’s true. It’s a very simple comparison, but lower-income people are more likely to hold on to older phones and repair them, instead of simply discarding functional smartphones for a newer product, like wealthier Parisians would. Thus, there’s a market for phone repairs here in this part of town. Despite some streets having three or four smartphone stores within sight of each other, we weren’t able to find one that was able to repair Patrick’s phone that day.

In addition to all these small electronics stores, there were plenty of stores catering specifically to the immigrant community. Many of these were ethnic restaurants, or food shops importing original products from the Middle East and Africa. We even saw one person grilling corn on the cob in a stolen shopping cart, and selling that as street food!

What’s really interesting about Paris’ low-income neighborhoods in the north, is how close they are to “better” parts of the city. You don’t have to walk more than 15 minutes before you’re in middle-class districts, or even some more up-scale areas. We kept walking east, eventually arriving at some of Paris’ canals. While these canals look nice all throughout the city, some have occasionally had various types of trash thrown into them. Discarded vehicles and even dead bodies are sometimes recovered from them. Keeping this in mind, Patrick and I were startled to find designated swimming areas in some of the canals.

While there were wooden poolsides placed on floats, it didn’t seem as if there was much of a filter, if anything, for the water. As you can see right in front of the pool area, in the very bottom of the photo, the canal was not clean. There were several posters ensuring that the water quality was monitored. It was supposedly safe for people to be swimming in the water. It was however also mentioned that one should not spend too long in the water itself, and it wasn’t safe to drink. Whatever the quality of the canal water, we were quite content with remaining on dry land and just watching.

Our walk continued towards Villette Park in north-eastern Paris. It’s one of the favorite spots to hang out for Parisians, being a massive green area in the suburbs.

There’s also a science museum as well as some entertainment venues and concert halls here.

Add in some pretty futuristic architecture, and it’s no wonder Parisians like to come here from all over the city.

On the way back with the metro, we got out close to the Montparnasse Tower. With all the other beautiful buildings in town, it’s quite the eye-sore by comparison.

However, this tall tower is centrally located and visible from much of the city. It can be useful as a geographical reference.

We split up, as Patrick went home to his parents’ place for a family dinner, on his last night in Paris. I returned to my apartment, before heading back out for dinner myself. I found a nice traditional Parisian restaurant that served French food.

On the way back from dinner, I got a nice view of the Hôtel des Invalides. It was situated just down the street from my apartment. The light of the setting sun was perfect for the photo.

MONDAY, JULY 23RD

I met up with Patrick in front of his parents’ apartment. This was more convenient because there was a train stop nearby. From there, we took the train to Charles de Gaulle airport together. Patrick’s flight to the US was leaving shortly after my flight back to Zurich.

Patrick used his frequent flyer status to let me join him in the Star Alliance Lounge at the airport. This was an awesome gesture, as it meant we could have breakfast together. It would take another couple of weeks before I had airport lounge access on my own. The lounge was however located in the non-Schengen area of the airport, which meant having to pass through passport control. Patrick would remain in the non-Schengen area, but eventually I needed to leave to re-enter the Schengen Zone. Fortunately, the passport control on the way back was quick, with no line.

I still needed to clear security. At Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport, the airport terminals are divided into smaller satellite terminals. The security checks are done when entering the satellite terminals, right in front of the gates. That wasn’t much of a hassle either in terms of the waiting time. The satellite system is however quite an old design. Each satellite has a handful of gates.

The satellite terminal I was in got very crowded. With multiple flights departing at the same time, it was tough to even just move around. I had to squeeze through groups and lines of people everywhere. It was quite a mess as well when queuing up for the boarding. There was no space to form a proper queue. The chaos during boarding delayed everything. That’s mostly an issue with the design of the airport, not much you can really blame SWISS for.

When we were finally ready to depart, already about 20 minutes behind schedule, we got an ATC slot which delayed us even further. Our arrival in Zurich was at least 30 minutes late. I was anyway exiting in Zurich so it didn’t bother me, but some passengers with connecting flights seemed stressed.