guy, getting a parking ticket or having your car towed in New York is not bad luck. It is the penalty for breaking the law.

StCirq is the expert here but I can also say that in several trips to Paris I have had nothing but the best experiences. This includes a trip while my wife was pregnant & one earlier this year w/my now 17 month old. Perhaps your expectations were so high they could not be met ? The comments made are somewhat wide & varied & there are many questions left unanswered. The fact is you can't let an Apt. switch ruin a vaction, especially a Honeymoon. There are many suggested Apt. providers on this board from folks who have had wonderful experiences. I don't know whether or not to tell you to 'try again' or to be selfish as you are one less ugly American tourist I'll have to worry about. (Yes, I am American). Also, how long was the stay ? If it was anything less than 2 weeks you hardly had time to breathe. Lastly, I am sorry you did not find the experience that so many of us go back for over & over. Ciao, see you in Venice ?

My wife and I have been to Paris many times and have only had one person be rude to us, and he was not even French, but someone of middle eastern extraction in a candy shop. He was RUDE as could be, but hey, I was not suprised by that, as that is typical for most people from the middle east. Seems to be just their natural way.

I have seen the title of this thread for a while but for whatever reason chose not to read it before today. I have not read every word of everyone's post (but did read all of rippowam's). Some thoughts & observations.

For me and I suspect for many, having accomodations you like can make or break a trip. I know, I know, you're only in the room to sleep etc. Well it ain't true for me & it probably wasn't true for rippowam on his honeymoon. Feeling you have a comfortable home base can really make a difference. And if you feel "ripped off" at the beginning of the trip it matters. I've noticed this was true reading several recent trip reports here.

On my first "real" trip to Paris 15 years ago (had been there once before briefly) I travelled with a girlfriend because her husband refused to go to Paris for just these reasons. We had an absolutely FABULOUS time BUT I still remember two episodes. I arrived by myself from London late & tired. I got into a cab & asked for Le Grand Hotel in English (IE with an American accent). The driver played dumb & insisted he didn't know what I was saying. Finally, after repeating it several times with no results, I said with my very best FRENCH accent- LE GRAND HOTEL. Ah! OUI OUI he replied. Did he really not understand? I don't know.

Then, the first morning I had gotten up early & went out on my own for a coffee & croissant. Had a wonderful experience in a nearby cafe. When I got back to the room, my friend was up & dressed & wanted to do the same. We walked to the same cafe sat down & my friend ordered (in English). The waiter became surly & rude. I quickly ordered for her in French (passable but not perfect) & things were much better. There is no moral here. Should the French be more tolerant? I suppose but I've also seen waiters in NY be very rude to out of towners.

Finally, I've also had the experience that rippowam did of doing lots of research but missing some info-like the first time I went to Paris with my husband. He had never been there, I had & loved it & wanted him to love it too. We arrived for a weekend to find everything closed. It was a hoiday. Did we have a nice time, yes. Did we have a great time, no. C'est la vie.

rippowam, I suggest if & when you're ready to try it again, stay in a nice hotel, arrange for a personal tour guide for 1 or 2 days. Have the hotel make reservations at 2 or 3 special restaurants and have your wife practice her accent. Also, think about NYC and what made it good for you (the neighborhood you lived in, the places you liked...)& try to figure out those sort of things in cities you visit as a tourist. Think about how you would have felt in NYC if you just saw the theater district or around Grand Central, ate in "untested" restaurants, & went to the seedier areas of the city.

I think rippowam made an unusual and commendable effort to be balanced in his remarks. The respondents seem to have made a similar effort, but a lot of us wanted to put Paris' best foot forward for her. We want it to be right, even for somebody we'll never meet.
I lived in Clermont in central France for 3 years with my wife. We would take the train up to Paris for a weekend or holiday 4 or 5 times a year, but as time passed we came to see that the beauty of France was in the day-to-day of living there. You could fit into the flow, forget the tourist spots, and just be in a French kind of way. It took us about a year and a half to get into that fram of mind. After that, it was great.
That's not much help for a tourist, unless it helps you to just slow down, don't try to see everything, focus on what you think might be special, and soak in the uniqueness of your surroundings.

Rippowam, you forgot to mention CDG is the worst airport in the world!

Hi Mclaurie

>I got into a cab & asked for Le Grand Hotel in English (IE with an American accent). The driver played dumb & insisted he didn't know what I was saying. Finally, after repeating it several times with no results, I said with my very best FRENCH accent- LE GRAND HOTEL. Ah! OUI OUI he replied. Did he really not understand? I don't know.<

In defense of your cabby, I offer:

When I was still a newcomer to the South, I spent a Summer working for the US Census validating names and addresses. At one place, I asked the name of the residents the respondent said something that sounded like "Rhine Trey". I politely asked him to repeat it. He still said something like "Rhine Trey". I asked him to please spell it. Somewhat miffed, he slowly spelled out R A I N T R E E.

Pronounciation can be very important, even in the US.

LOL Ira. My wife had the same sort of thing happen to her the other day. We've only been in the south a couple of years and she's been in the US for a couple more.

A lady the other day was asking her if she'd seen the movie "Mister Greaver" yet. No, never heard of that. My wife later asked me. She'd try to look it up on line out of curiosity. No movie like that. Light bulb time for her. Ohhhhh... MYSTIC RIVER...

Ever been to South Carolina? I wanted a ham sandwich at a lunch counter in Charleston. The waitress asked: "With muttered or mine eyes?" That's right. With mustard or mayonnaise.

Some people should just stay at home since they seem to have such a run of bad luck when they travel. Odd isn't-that it happens so often to a select few and extremely infrequently to the majority. Stars must not be aligned for those people.

Aside to jsmith regarding traffic tickets being the result of breaking the law, not bad luck. Normally I would agree, but luck does happen. In one case, the sign contradicted itself. I wrote a humorous newspaper column about it, with photo, and the NYC commissioner of finance called me, agreed with me, got the sign changed and helped expunge the ticket. Don't short-sell luck.

Guy, and the other cases?

1. Dropping son at JFK for month of study in China, couldn't find chaperone, went to ask, car towed.
2. Camera allegedly caught us going through a red light in Brooklyn by .004 seconds, but the machine musta misfired. I SWEAR, your honor.

guy, your blatant and reckless lawlessness has to stop! The streets will be in complete anarchy before long!

Ooooh I love a man who lives dangerously! You bad boy, guy!
My case:
Dropped my son off at a camera store. Drove away, remembered something. Had to park. Put money in the meter, went back to camera store. Back to car. Drivers side window broken, radio stolen.
Walk to nearest store, call police.
Walk back to car, ticket cop walks away, leaving ticket on windshield.
I run after him, but but officer!! You had to be standing in the pile of broken glass to give me that ticket, could you not have guessed that I might have needed police assistance and not a ticket?
His response, a dull eyed look and a shrug.
I wrote a long and heartfelt letter to the judge, it made no difference whatsoever.

Scarlett, that man was a foul beast! That had to happen up North. A pretty woman in distress would never have got a ticket in the South!

Sigh~ yes, dear Degas, it was a Yankee policeman!
Perhaps I should convince my husband to move me back to that gentle Southern atmosphere that I remember?

Go to Madrid instead. It is absolutely elegant. The people could not have been nicer: cab drivers, waiters, internet cafe workers, etc. The art museums are fabulous. Never observed anyone urinating on the street. It was what I had imagined Paris to be like. (Well maybe I would have preferred French cuisine but the food was good, the hot chocolate outstanding.) My only complaint is that people smoke so much in restaurants - but that is true for much of Europe.

Joe G,

If you'd like a copy of my detailed report entitled "Zee Trip to France, aka, the Trip from Hell", please feel free to email :)

You asked what I saw, did, where I stayed and how I travelled. I'll try to condense.

We flew from San Francisco to Paris where I had everything planned...well, until the strikes started, and then I had to revert to Plan B, C and sometimes D! We didn't see Versailles (strike), the Orsay (strike)but did go on the Paris Sewer tour, cuz, HEY! It was raining and there were strikes! What better place to head? :) We were taking the Metro to Montmartre and got kicked off less than mid-way (strike), so we had a impromptu "walking tour" of about 2 miles. Of course we did the "du rigeur" things of the Effiel Tower, Louvre, Notre Dame. I checked out a few tours (which now I know I would NOT recommend to most clients); namely a canal cruise and the "Paris Story". Stayed at the Libertel Bellechasse.

We then took the TGV to Tours, picked up a rental car and did the chateaux thing. We stayed at a B&B there, which would have been so much better if the pool advertised hadn't out of commission as they were "sealing" it. I'm really not into swimming; but as I said this was the beginning of the horrible heat wave, and we could have used that pool! While there, we visited my favorite town Amboise, and Chaumont, Chenonceau, Chambord and Buergaurd.

From there the train to Bordeaux, picked up another car and drove to Sarlat, with stops along the way. We stayed at a lovely B&B, had some great restaurant experiences, visited Le Bogue, Limeul, Tremolat (it was in this area that I saw more duck products than I had ever imagined).

Onto Carcassone (largest walled city in Europe)......gee, guess what? The interior portion (the part we wanted to be in, away from the tourist junk) was closed to a strike! (again) Since we didn't spend as much time there as we thought we were able to make time and get further into Provence; namely to Arles. Spent the night there and then onto Aix and then Carpentras, where again our accommodation was not as advertised - the pool was out of commission. After 2.5 weeks of nasty heat and humidity we were SO disappointed. We decided not to stay. Now what? I drove into the town to the Tourist Office and they found us a place.

At this point I should mention that this was to be the "romantic" portion of our trip; celebrating our anniversary with 4 days in the Provence area, doing those trips to the market, sightseeing, coming back to our tres charming place with the POOL...you get the idea. So we showed up hot and cranky to this B&B we didn't plan staying at to find it full of families -I'm talking the owners and a guest both having SIX WEEK OLD BABIES as well as other assorted children, all under seven.

At first glance we thought we were doomed, but it turned out to be a highlight of our trip (and isn't that what great travel is all about...those wonderful circumstances / surprises you find yourself having?)

Our hosts Phillipe (French) and Anca (Belgian)were wonderful. Anca is an amazing cook, and we had some of the BEST meals of our trip here.

www.lemoulindesouchieres.com

We were to go to Avignon next, for one night and then the TGV direct to Paris..but there was a rumor of another impending strike so I drove into Avignon, changed the train tickets and got a hotel a day early in Paris (there's lots more drama here, I'm condensing) :)

And that's it....until I go again with the French Tourism Board.....hopefully better experiences! But I guess, from the postings, I should be glad I didn't see anyone peeing, being rude, had really bad food or worse!

Melodie

This is an interesting and useful thread!

Someone said a lot depends on luck, and I think that's true. My wife and I just returned from a week in Paris. We stayed at an apartment on rue Malar (7th arr.) known as "Cosmopolitan" and booked through Chez Vouse (chezvous.com). The apartment was excellently located, spacious, and met or exceeded all our expectations. The Chez Vous staff was flawless in their handling of the booking and our arrival. I highly recommend them.

Out of 7 full days, we had 5 pure sunshine and blue sky days, 1 pissy/drizzly day, and one that started misty and turned glorious.

We ate all our breakfasts in the apartment (tea and fresh pastries from Poujauran, a well-regarded boulangerie). For 5 dinners we ate exceptional "take out" from various shops on rue Cler and from La Grande Epicerie de Paris. For one dinner I cooked "Faux Filet" with sauteed cepes and caramalized garlic and shallots in a wine reduction. For our last meal we "splurged" and had a very good meal at a very reasonable price at Le Bellcour (nearby).

We drank lots of VERY good wine, including older Burgundies and vintage champagnes. All this was quite affordable (at least comparatively) because we shopped at the local wine stores and took wine back to our apartment. (We also had 5 different wines, by the glass and 2 "demi" bottles with our meal at Le Bellcour. There prices were very moderate for a classy restaurant.)

There were few crowds at the major sites we visited, other than at the Louvre. The major crowd intrusion at the Louvre were Japanese tourists posing in front of major pieces of art and having their picture taken with flash cameras! I wish the French guards had been MORE rude in these circumstances!

Our trip was just charmed. We saw a couple of men urinating and dodged dog poop, but it wasn't too intense. We were lucky in that only once did the more noxious behavior -- smoking -- make a cafe stop unpleasant. NO ONE at all smoked while we were in Le Bellecour! (Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!)

The shopkeepers on rue Cler and the rest of our neighborhood were all very friendly and helpful despite our ridiculous attempts at basic French. Hopefully our appreciativeness showed, as well. The staff at Bon Marche and La Grande Epicerie de Paris and a few other shops outside our 'hood were pretty snotty, but that didn't bother us -- we just spent less with them than we might have otherwise.

We were alert, sensibly cautious, and had no problems on the Metro or anywhere else during our extensive daytime and evening walks.

My wife had been pushing for a trip to Paris, and I had been resisting, for years. (I'm more of a "country and outdoors", backpacking kind of person.) But this trip was one of my most fun ever. We have some reasonable points of comparison, having travelled to London a number of times, Monte Carlo twice, Florence, Rome, Barcelona, Madrid, and, of course NYC, SF, DC, and most other major U.S. cities. Paris is beautiful, ruch with potential, and, not surprisingly, has a bunch of the crap (figurative, as well as literal) that I find in most big cities.

But like I said, luck does have a lot to do with a good trip. If our apartment had been crummy, the weather foul, we'd had even one theft, or we'd spent the week arguing over our wine budget (smile) -- I'd be writing with a different attitude.

I don't have a lot of advice to offer other than when the "Travel Gods" shine on you -- smile big and enjoy!