Travel & Hotspots
PARIS TIPS
At the time of writing, I am in Paris. More precisely: I am sitting on the terrace of my ultimate favorite Café Charlot, at a small round table, with a gigantic heater above my head and a glass of white wine is about to be brought. Paris is a city where you always feel at home immediately, where you would want to live right away. It speaks to the imagination and always makes you so happy, even if it’s just because of the ridiculously delicious bread. By now, your editors have been to this city quite a few times and that has given us a lot of knowledge and wisdom. Not necessarily about life (if only it were so), but certainly about the city.
Bring cash
Paris is a world city, but at the same time, they still live here a bit in the Middle Ages. The fact that you can smoke almost everywhere is wonderful for the smokers among us, but when you think about it, it’s quite crazy. What is also quite medieval is that you won’t get far without cash. Sure, in restaurants you can pay by card and with credit cards, but many smaller businesses only accept your plastic card from about ten euros. Small purchases are almost always cash, so make sure you always carry a few bills.
Buy single metro tickets
It seems smart: buying a metro ticket that you can use all day, so you don’t have to walk around with those little coins. But a single ticket costs no more than 3 euros, and a day pass is around 20 bucks. Unless you plan to be underground a lot in one day, you’ll never get your money’s worth. It’s better to buy about ten single tickets; you’ll definitely use them for much longer.
Keep your metro ticket
And now that we’re talking about those tickets, don’t throw them away until your metro ride is over. As in: officially, you must be able to prove that you have purchased a ticket. It seems obvious to throw that thing away as soon as you’ve gone through the gate, but it can happen that there are police officers checking at your stop at the exit. That happens rarely. I’ve experienced it once in all my years in Paris, but that little joke cost me 50 bucks because I had of course already thrown that ticket away. So I don’t do that anymore.
Book G7 taxis
I always do almost everything by metro because the network is great, you never sit in traffic, and it’s nice and cheap. But if you want to take a taxi, do it with G7, the French version of Amsterdam’s TCA. May-Britt zoomed around in it and enthusiastically told that there’s ‘water, wifi, and a driver who has a charger for every kind of mobile.’ And all that while you’re being driven around, sounds quite divine indeed.
Learn basic French words
The French certainly do speak French, but they would rather never eat another baguette than speak English with you without complaint. If you ask for a ‘vin blanc’ in your best broken French, you either get a huge story back in French that the waiter must know you don’t understand, or a sigh and an English answer back, or no answer at all. However, it is often appreciated if you at least make an effort, and then you just stammer “Je m’excuse, mais je ne parle pas le Français.” And then just hope that you do get that glass of white, of course.
Make peace with smokers
If you have an intense dislike for smoking and the smell of it, then it might be better not to go to Paris. In New York, you might feel more at home, where smokers are almost quartered for lighting up. In Paris, it’s different. In winter, the terraces are equipped with large plastic ‘walls’, allowing smokers to puff away comfortably in the warmth. I was sitting in such a greenhouse this week, being incredibly happy, but next to me was an American couple who started sighing dramatically with every puff of my cigarette and waving the smoke away theatrically. Normally, I take that into account. Hello, this is Paris; everyone smokes here. Of course, it’s smoke-free indoors, so you can sit there nicely, but anyone who wants to stand with one leg on the street (and you do, because that’s where it’s most fun) has to accept the smoke.
