Matt's Blog

Paris

September 11th, 2006

I spent the past few days in Paris, doing all the touristy stuff; looking at the Sacré CÅ“ur, Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, etc… Paris is undoubtedly an historical and important city, but I don’t know if it should be called the most romantic city in the world.

The highlights of the visit seemed to be the high places – on the roofs of the Sacré CÅ“ur and Notre Dame and, of course, the top of the Eiffel Tower. The views are really incomparable to anything available in London. I think the dizziness that comes with climbing cramped, old, stone spiral staircases allows you to appreciate the view more profoundly, or something.

Paris is to be commended for its (seeming) resistance to large corporate chains – I only saw two Starbucks™ and one MacDonalds™ there, which is almost the same as I see when I walk to the nearest tube station here… Instead, there were a large number of (I think) independently-owned cafes, bakeries and markets.

On the other hand, there were a couple of highly un-romantic things:

Firstly, there was an ubiquitous smell of piss. I mean everywhere – on the street, the metro, in lifts. To give the benefit of the doubt, it was quite hot while I was there, possibly the smell was exacerbated. Also, I don’t know how recently it had rained. On the plus side, I didn’t see any vomit (a common sight in large UK cities).

Secondly, and this is perhaps more my fault than that of the Parisians, there is very little to eat if you are vegetarian. I already knew this was true of the south of France, but thought that the capital would be more cosmopolitan. It could be that we just went to the wrong places, looked at the wrong menus, but I have the feeling that a meal without meat isn’t considered a “real” meal.

Entry Filed under: Travel