It’s practically forbidden to spend the entire month of August at home in Italy because August is meant for vacationing. Not wanting to slight Italian tradition, we packed our bags and spent a week in Paris. The highlights for us were:
The food
In Paris, everything is delicious. From pain au chocolate for breakfast, falafel for lunch and lamb shank for dinner it’s hard to go wrong eating here. One of the most basic and delicious staples of the French diet is the baguettes. There’s just something irresistible about a fresh baked, crusty on the outside, warm and chewy on the inside French baguette. They’re eaten any time of day, with or for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and it’s pretty common to see people walking down the street with a baguette poking out of their bag, or clasping onto the rectangle of wax around the center while breaking off chunks from the top for a snack on the run.

A delectable indulgence is a little pastry called a macaron, not to be confused with macaroon. Macarons are heavenly little sandwiches of an airy cake with a paper thin crust stuck together with a dense icing. They come in flavors like pistachio and chocolate. For a little more substance we had delicious French food, including the just mentioned lamb shank, at Le Panier, a little café in the 10^th arrondissement, and sampled an endless varieties of tarts at an impromptu potluck dinner at a local co-op restaurant. Something else nice about the culinary scene in Paris is that it’s in no way limited to just French food. You can find almost any type of cuisine that you crave, whether it’s Middle Eastern, Japanese, Thai or anything else. I had the best falafel at L’as du Falafel and couscous at 4 Freres, and we finally got a little spice in our diets at a Vietnamese restaurant in the 13^th arrondissement, which is known for it’s Asian cuisine. We also pay special thanks to David Lebovitz, whose website pointed us on the path to some of these great eats in Paris.
The bike program
Paris has been getting a lot of press over the last few months because of their new bike program, Velib. 10,000 bikes were donated to the city, and now there are literally hundreds of stations around town where you can pick up and return the bikes all for the low annual fee of €7 and a per hour charge of €1. The one catch is that you need a credit card with a microchip in order to use the bikes (which most of us non-Europeans don’t have), but other than that, anyone is welcome to use them, residents and tourists alike.

Inspired by the biker friendly feel of the city we rented bikes from a little shop and spent the day riding around the city from Parc des Buttes Chaumont in the north, through Le Marais neighborhood in the city center, along the Seine to the south before ending up in the Luxembourg Gardens. We knew going into the day that the traffic police had been cracking down on two wheeled drivers, maybe due to the recent surge in bike traffic. Despite our best efforts to obey the rules of the road we made the mistake crossing at a cross walk next to the painted white lines rather than on them. We were informed of this error when an angry police officer pulled us and a few others who made the same misassumption. Luckily, some adept arguing by our friend and guide Kent got us out of a potential €80 fine each.
The parks and gardens
Paris is a park and garden lover’s paradise. There must be dozens of areas with sprawling lawns, pristine gardens and tucked away green spaces. We found the Luxemburg Gardens, Tuileries, and Jardin des Plantes to be bursting with colorful flowers and accented with lawns so plush and green that its forbidden to even walk on them, which would have been a shame were it not or the park benches and lounge chairs set up along the walkways and around the ponds.
Modern Art Installations
I’m not normally the biggest fan of modern art, but even I appreciate the efforts the city makes to beautify its already glorious open spaces. All over the city, and in the most unexpected areas, there are modern art installations. Whether its giant metal globes in the courtyard of Plais Royal or a big dragon statue made out of recycled material in the Jardin des Plantes, the city is keeping its already well established art tradition alive and encouraging creativity.
Musée Carnavalet
It costs a lot to see the sights of Paris from the inside, so it’s always welcome to stumble upon a free museum, which is what we did at the Musée Carnavalet. This museum is all about the history of Paris and is one of about 20 free (and generally lesser known) museums in the city. Musee Carnavalet is full of paintings, sculptures and other artifacts that chronicle the city’s very famous history. You can see models of the Bastille, a famous building which no longer exists, and view paintings of what Paris looked like long before it became the giant urban center that it is today.
The architecture
You can’t talk about Paris without paying homage to the incredible buildings and architecture. The city is brimming with impressive and historic buildings and structures like Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower and the Arc d’Triomphe. My favorite discovery this trip was the Hotel de Ville, a former palace now city hall. Tall windows and life sized statues of famous Parisians line up in alternating order across the building’s façade, which is at least a city block long. A steeply sloping blue-grey roof punctuated by a regal clock tower and still more statues tops off the building. Whether it’s a famous landmark, intricate statue, or elegantly laid out square there’s something to marvel at around every corner in Paris.

The only problem with Paris is that there’s so much to see and do but never enough time to do it all. At least that leaves you with a reason to return!

To see our pictures from Paris click here.

Last Modified : September 27th, 2007
Filed under : Trips
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