Visit Paris

	Paris As impressive as it may be, the Eiffel Tower shouldn’t distract you from everything else in Paris.
Manless in the City of Love I had never been to Paris. I had seen the photos, heard the stories, imagined myself on top of the Eiffel tower and most frequently in the arms of someone as the sun goes down over the river Seine. On a whim a colleague and I decided to spend a weekend in Paris. I lied a bit in my topic, my colleague is a guy, but trust me, there was no romance in the air. I was on a mission: to see dead people. I was told you either hate or love Paris. I loved it from the moment we stepped out of the bus and saw the Arc the Triomphe. I loved the parks, the old buildings, the run-down quarters, the French, whom I thought were extremely helpful (...maybe it helps being blonde), and most of all the feeling of everything being larger-than-life. The churches, the cathedrals, the ministries, the museums and the monuments…not to mention the prison! Three days in Paris is enough to scratch the surface, and that is what we set out to do. Realizing there was no time to go through all the museums (it takes two days to see the Louvre) we decided to see everything from the outside. The best thing you can do, if you want to see the city and get a picture of how it is set up is jump on one of the boats that go along the Seine. The best ones cost around 60F and let you jump on and off so that you can see the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, Notre Dame, Place de la Concorde. Or you can decide not to jump on and off and just relax in what hopefully is the beautiful Parisian sunshine. (Must admit we were lucky..) If you really want to see all of Paris in two hours and hear an annoying narration in four different languages, jump on a bus and see it from there, but my advise is to be very tired and very hungover to block out the sound and just concentrate on the view. We jumped on a boat that took us to Ile de Cité, one of the two islands in the river. This island hosts the world famous Notre Dame, which is a beautiful church both inside and out. It is, of course, most famous for its gargoyles up in the towers, which you can que up to see. We didn’t. We figured famine would hit Europe before we would be inside the tower and headed on towards St.Chapelle and it’s stain glass windows. There is just something about the solitude you find in churches. Especially in Paris where it usually is dark inside but never threatening nor daunting. On a sunny day the windows in St.Chapelle work like a caleidoscope, reflecting light in different colours. We missed this phenomenon because of the rain outside but a shaky photgraph I took without flash inside the chappel gave me the illusion of having experienced it first hand. So I’m happy. Around the corner is the Conciergerie. In the absence of the Bastille this is the closest you get to gory. It has the cells, a guillotine blade and the history of famous dead French people including Marie Antoinette. To get the most out of the Conciergerie wait for the grande tour (in English). Our guide was excellent and without the tour it is just another huge building. My biggest thrill came after our trip when I saw the photos from the large marble hall of the palace-turn-prison. The bright white walls had turned brown and erie with the arches defined by yellow lights, and it looked like something I had only seen in screen adaptions of Alexandre Dumas’ novels. I could go on about the churches and the sights, but the only thing I really have to mention is Pere Lachaise, the most beautiful and most famous cemetery in Paris. It is the closest you will ever come to seeing Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf and Frederic Chopin in person, not to mention the legendary Jim Morrison, whose legendary grave now is missing both the head and the grafiti it was best known for. After the introducing of a 24-hour guard the closest you get to interesting and legendary is an empty pack of cigarettes lying on his grave. My advice is to swiftly move on and see the rest of the cemetery as it’s one of Paris’ most beautiful attractions. Or maybe I just get a kick out of dead people… But back to the topic of no romance in the most romantic city in the world, even when travelling with a man. There’s always a solution, even in my case. You can either see this as my ego trip, or just put this aside and look at it as my recommendation for a fantastic dinner and a very original experience. The genuine atmosphere of Paris can be experienced in any Brasserie, or at least the atmosphere you imagined prior to visiting Paris. It is all about expectations. If you have no expectations and/or are tired of the ”same old thing” the solution lies on Ile St. Louis. Nos Ancetres les Gaulois is a restaurant offering jugs of wine, plates of saucisson (dried sausages) and long wooden tables, combined with late-17th-century décor. Enter the world of Asterix and Obelix, and if you’re a single attractive female, let the waiters flatter you endlessly. Leaving this place in a bad mood isn’t possible. Whether it is because of the endless wine or the flattery, I will not comment on. There is much more to say about Paris. I haven’t touched upon shopping, nightlife, Montmartre with its landmark Sacre Coeur, Pigalle with its landmark Moulin Rouge, nor Champs Elysée nor… Books have been written about Paris, and although I probably could waffle for hours I won’t. Go to Paris, and fall in love with the city…or a Frenchman. If you go for three days or less, have a plan. If you have a plan, don’t follow it, go with your heart, walk until your feet demand hospital care. If you like dead people see the catacombes (bring your own flashlight). If you like the living go shopping. Have a picnic in one of the numerous parks. Buy a baguette. Trust me, don’t trust me. Whatever. Just don’t go to Paris and spend your time in the queue of the Eiffel Tower. Time is too precious for that, and in the end a roof is a roof and you can see the same roofs for free from Montmatre. And let Paris embrace you, if there is no man round for the job. It’s not quite the same, but it worked for me.