What do you love about Paris?

Old May 16th, 2000, 12:40 PM
  #1  
Teri
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What do you love about Paris?

It is has been over a year now since I visited Paris and I am dying to go back? Why am I so obsessed about this city? Does anybody else feel this way? What do you love about Paris?

One of the many things I enjoyed about Paris was walking along the Champs-Elysées and stopping at an outdoor cafe for a glass of white wine and watching the world go buy.
 
Old May 16th, 2000, 12:42 PM
  #2  
teri
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Guess it would help if I knew how to spell,

"watching the world go by."

Thanks.
 
Old May 16th, 2000, 12:46 PM
  #3  
jwagner
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The very friendly, helpful French people...

The smell of public transportation...

The easy access to the museums...

Great service in the restaurants...

Inexpensive hotels...

Alright, enough sarcasm. I love Paris, too. I love the outdoor markets and being able to turn in any direction and see a famous landmark looming over the skyline. I love reading the International Herald Tribune over breakfast. I love "discovering" a restaurant that isn't listed in any guidebook.
 
Old May 16th, 2000, 12:55 PM
  #4  
Beth Anderson
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well, "go buy" actually fits... was this a Freudian slip? ;-)

(you described what I pretty much did on the Boulevard - sat outside drinking much white Loire wine...)

The history does it for me. and the beauty. and yes, I do think people there are friendly, but then again I speak passable French and use it.

Beth
 
Old May 16th, 2000, 01:45 PM
  #5  
me
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I, too, am in love with Paris. We went for the first time just over two years ago and now I'm planning our 9th trip.

The street marches are great. In particular the Saxe-Breteuil marche with the Eiffel Tower in the background. Galleries Lafayette with the beautiful glass dome is amazing.

The cemeteries are beautiful. The parks are beautiful and the residents know how to enjoy them.

Bistros, brasseries, an afternoon break for a pichet of Sancerre Rouge and a plate of pommes frites.

We've enjoyed the museums and "must-see" attractions, but our favorite thing to do now is to select a neighborhood each morning (over a cafe creme!), and take the metro there with no particular agenda. We wander and turn down any street that looks interesting.

The energy of the City is really something, and the obvious love for life that the people possess.

Gee . . . although it's coming up soon, that next trip suddenly seems much too far away!
 
Old May 16th, 2000, 01:49 PM
  #6  
Diane
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Kinda funny, but my first glimpse of Paris was after spending a week in Normandy and the Dordogne and I did not like it at all! It was smoggy, busy, and noisy.

Then I saw it at night from the Arc de Triumphe and fell in love with it and have loved it since.

I've been there twice and looking forward to a couple days in early September.

There is a feeling I get there and in the rest of France like nowhere else and I can't explain it.

It is so good at being Paris and meeting the expectations the travel industry has sold. Beauty, a large city but not overpowering and easy to navigate around. Romance is very comfortable there. A place where it is ok to take your time and enjoy life. The language. The food, wine, and my favorite - the patiseries (sp?)
 
Old May 16th, 2000, 01:55 PM
  #7  
Thyra
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What don't I love about it? I was there as a teenager and spent a blissful night (parent free) leaning out of my balcony and listening to a string quartet playing at a roof top wedding across the boulevard. That nailed it for me! What else? Hot crepes au chocolate in winter, crispy coissants at breakfast, a rainbow I saw over the Champs Elysees, lights on the Sein after a rain storm. Watching a French waiter tap dance to Singin' in the Rain, while seated at a cafe during a down pour. Going there on our honeymoon. That is one city that has always been pure magic to me. In other words, you are not alone.
 
Old May 16th, 2000, 02:10 PM
  #8  
elvira
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You can never take Paris for granted.

When you're sure you know her, she changes.

Even at her worst, she's better than anyplace on earth.

Even at YOUR worst, you're better there than anyplace on earth.

You feel inferior AND superior when you're there, simultaneously.

Canard vs duck.

Even potholders have style.
 
Old May 16th, 2000, 03:14 PM
  #9  
Monica
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Hi Teri!

(How's the photo?) You stated what I love about Paris: sitting at an outdoor cafe drinking wine and watching the world go by. I can sit for hours, although there is so much to see. I love the architecture, I love being able to say, "my favorite museum is the D'Orsay with all its impressionism paintings on display." I love the food! How wonderful a pastry shop window looks. So perfect and so delicious. Food preparation in France is art work. And the outdoor markets, oh la la! I love the sounds of the police cars zipping along the streets, sirens blaring - nothing like that in the U.S.! I love the French accent, especially when I'm greeted "Bonjour Madame" and I can reply the same. There's more that I love, but time to think about my upcoming trip to Germany!
 
Old May 16th, 2000, 03:42 PM
  #10  
Patsy Klontz
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I love Paris for all the reasons many of you have already mentioned, but my greatest love was the rose garden at Bagatelle in the Bois de Balogne. It is a little complicated to find, but worth the effort. We were there last year when clematis and iris were in bloom. The park there is lovely and a nice break from the fast pace of the rest of the city. It is worth an afternoon.
 
Old May 16th, 2000, 11:22 PM
  #11  
Joanna
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Just wandering around the quaint streets of Ile St. Louis and the Quartier Latin, sitting at a cafe with a cafe au lait and watching the passing parade, Musee de Cluny, Rodin Museum and the glorious Sainte Chappelle.
 
Old May 16th, 2000, 11:25 PM
  #12  
Joanna
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I forgot to mention the Jardin de Luxembourg - great memories of the locals playing boules, kids with their toys and chic people walking their dogs.
 
Old May 17th, 2000, 03:15 AM
  #13  
lola
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...the way it brings out the romantic in us. No other European city seems to have the same power to engage our senses, heighten our imagination, and make us wax away like poets. Whether you find the people a turnoff or not, the city flirts with you. Just think of the Eiffel tour spewing fireworks at the millennium. That's Paris.
 
Old May 17th, 2000, 05:16 AM
  #14  
dan woodlief
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There is nowhere with more history in such a relatively small space. You can walk in the footsteps of Napoleon, Louis XIV, Thomas Jefferson, Hemingway, Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, Joan of Arc, Charles DeGaulle, and countless others.

You could stay there for years and never do the same thing twice.

Paris retains its charm despite being mobbed by tourists.

People there know what is really important in life: good books, music, art, food, and love.

There certainly is nowhere better for people watching.

About what other city have you heard: "if the people there act superior, it is with good reason"

 
Old May 17th, 2000, 09:30 AM
  #15  
pj
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The Pantheon.
Views of the rooftops from the Pantheon. (I think the upper levels are closed for repair but should re-open soon.)
Sacre Coeur from a distance.
The bakeries.
The Eiffel Tower at night.
Pere Lachaise cemetery.
 
Old May 17th, 2000, 09:48 AM
  #16  
Jeff
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Here are a few less poetic things. They aren't the top of my list, but they are things that I remember with peculiar fondness (if not always at the time I experience them):

Floor toilets
brooms made out of plastic twigs (instead of plastic straw, like found in the U.S.)
Baguettes
The Metro (and the ornate signs)
1664 beer (when I tire of good red wine)
Bottled water (whether we wanted it or not)
carnes of billets
The furnicular at Montmarte
Paying an attendant to use the toilet.
The convoys of important government cars (at least I assume that is what they are) that stream out of certain locations in the late afternoon;
 
Old May 17th, 2000, 12:21 PM
  #17  
Carol
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Teri:

My husband and I are both obsessed by Paris. Check out our journal at www.davidandcarol.com - go to the Paris pages. I hope they help you relive your time in the City of Lights.

Carol

P.S. We were supposed to go back to Paris this May but have postponed our trip until the Fall. I can't stop thinking about it . . .
 
Old May 19th, 2000, 07:43 AM
  #18  
Teri
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Thanks everyone, seeing that I am not alone, I pitched this story for a friend that works at a tennis web site. Since the French open is coming up, I decided to write a story about Paris. Anyone want to share comments for my story?
 
Old May 19th, 2000, 08:36 AM
  #19  
Lori
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Ah Paris, I wish I could put my finger on the reason for my obsession with this city. Could it be because it is a city - with all the life and diversity to it - No I think not since I come from NY. The romance - maybe. The sheer beauty - possibly - I love walking around and discovering. The cafe life - possibly - the mind set of these people - we work hard but take time out to 'smell the roses' and drink wine and just be. The history - the most important thing to remember is that Paris was not bombed in the war, so everything is as it was 200 years ago (give or take). The story goes that Hitler ordered the German general in Paris to burn it to the ground at the end of the war, supposively the general was so in love with Paris he couldn't do it. See, it grabs you and won't let go, even back then.
 
Old May 19th, 2000, 10:52 AM
  #20  
Beth Anderson
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yep, that was General von Choltitz - among many other dastardly things, he was ordered by Hitler to "drop the Eiffel Tower into the Seine" - he didn't do so, obviously - but timing was a criticial factor, too - he (strategically, on his part) didn't have the opportunity to "obey" as the Allies/De Gaulle/Leclerc's people all came to save the day, in just the nick of time.

I only wonder that he would have been forced to, had the tide not turned, as it did. (I understand he sent the Swedish Consul General to the Allies to ask them to come quickly).

and if I have this at all wrong, please educate me...

Beth
 

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