Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Just back from Paris

Hi all, just returned from a quick 5 days in Paris and thought I would share a few observations that will hopefully help out fellow travelers. Flights - flew Air France both ways from NY/JFK to CDG. The flights were fine each way, on time and the service was fine. Going we flew on the new 777 which has to be the worst plane known to mankind. Who designed this thing? A midget? Leg room is virtually non-existant, however, by taking the 11pm flight I slept the whole way - not comfortably of course. Packed flights both ways. If you are flying Air France, check in begins 24 hours before take off - if you get to the airport 2 hours before hand like they tell you- most of the seats are already taken. We did get seats together, but it was a hassle. Taxis - be very careful, they are worse than New York cabbies when it comes to trying to rip you off. A taxi ride from the airport should cost approx 250 - 270 francs. We negotiated the price before we got in the cab at the airport and he still tried to rip us off. Instead of taking the expressway (turnpike, whatever) he came into Paris via Pont de St. Chapelle and took side streets to our hotel in the 5th. Of course we said something to him and all of a sudden No Parlez Anglais. We were captive. Once we got to the hotel ( Hotel Familia) Eric spoke to the driver for us and basically said 270 is all you get. Another time we hailed a cab on Ile St. Louis to take us to Brasserie Balzar in the 6th. He went over the Pont Neuf into the 5th and then tried to go back over another bridge to Rive Droit and go the really long way. We saw what he was up to and yelled to Stop immediately and let us out. So just be on your toes if you take a cab. Hotel - Hotel Familia for the 2nd time. Lovely and a great area. Eric and his family are wonderful hosts and will do anything for you. We had him make dinner reservations for us, which he did no questions asked. Eric is going to be a first time father in two weeks, so if you go wish him well. The hotel was in the NY Times travel section several weeks ago in the Whats doing in Paris column complete with a picture. We gave him a copy of the article which he said he was going to frame and display. PS he speaks fluent English. Weather - it is very cold. Dress in layers!!!!! We were lucky and had no rain, but it was sunny and cold. Approximately 40 - 46 during the day, and 35 at night. You may say that's not really cold, but when you are outside all day and night it is cold. I had a lined raincoat which really wasn;t heavy enough. My friend wore a leather coat with a thick wool cardigan over turtlenecks that she said was fine. Bring a hat, that helps, and don;t forget gloves and a scarf. Of course, you can buy a scarf there, some of them are absolutely beautiful, but more on shopping later. Restaurants - Found two wonderful restaurants that I would like to share. The first is La Truffiere, 4, rue Blainville off of the Place de la Contrescarpe in the 5th. The restaurant is in a cave and is quite beautiful. We found it in a magazine and said what the hey and boy are we glad we did. A bit on the expensive side, dinner for 3 with champagne and a bottle of wine probably ran around $300, but the food was to die for. Make sure you try the truffle raviolis and the duck. Huge wine list in all price ranges. There web site is www.latruffiere.com and highly recommend it for a special meal. Also, went to Brasserie Bofinger in the 4th, right off Place de Bastille (went there in May also). The food here is excellent and reasonable. Put it this way, a bottle of Louis Roederer Cristal Champagne 1993 was $100 American. What a steal. they have a price fixe dinner that includes appetizer (get the froie gras), main course, half a bottle of wine, and dessert for 189 Francs. If you go, make a reservation and ask for non-smoking on the main floor. The room has a huge stained glass dome that is absolutely gorgeous. Also ate at Brasserie Balzar in the 6th which was just OK. Wouldn't go out of my way for it, though. Shopping - there are no real bargains in Paris. Did buy some beautiful silk scarfs from the vendors outside of Galleries Lafayette and Samaritain. Also some food stuff at Fauchon and a great place to go is Le Grande Epicurie at Le Bon Marche. They had really good prices on hard to find champagnes and we ended up bringing home 3 bottles of the stuff (Yum). Also mustards, cookies and spices in nice tins make great gifts. Miscellaneous - don't miss a concert at St. Chappelle if you can help it. We saw Vivaldis Quatre Saisons. Wow, what a setting and the acoustics are incredible. The concert lasted about 1 hour. You can get tickets right at the box office, it was not sold out when we were there. We reserved via the internet and had no problem, we even picked up the tickets the day before since we were there. Truly a once in a lifetime event. Don't miss it. The museums of course are crowded since it is cold outside. If you go to the Eiffel Tower, get there as early as possible. My friend had never been there so we went and waited on line about 1 hour to buy tickets and then 20 minutes to actually get up top. then another 20 to get down. And it was COLD. the Musee D'orsay has a special exhibit going on called Theo Van Gogh. This exhibit has a special entrance in the front of the museum, with no line. You have access to the museum from the exhibit, but if you go into the museum through the main entrance, you can;t get into the Van Gogh exhibit. Lots of Van Goghs, Monets and Manet paintings that were evidently owned by Theo. Worth it just to beat the line into the museum. My husband went to Sunday services at Notre Dame since he felt that this would be once in a lifetime. He said it was all in French, but he could follow along and thought it was really cool. Did but the museum pass, but didn't buy the Metro Pass. We bought the carnets (10 tickets) since we figured we would walk alot which we did. That's it for now, if you have any questions feel free to post here and I will try to answer them.