Ten tips for Paris
Posted on June 30, 2015
Where’s good coffee? Is the Louvre worth seeing? What’s Velib? Are there really sparkling water fountains in Paris? Here are some tips for visiting Paris.
1. Paris has terrible coffee.
Or at least good coffee is hard to find. This is not what you would expect after seeing so many images of expresso-sipping thin people at sidewalk cafe tables, but it’s true. Luckily, we found this coffee locator map that indicates where to find good coffee around the city. We walked two jet-lagged kilometers to La Caféothèque and it was absolutely worth it.
2. Rent Bikes!
Velib is the city rental bike service and it’s cheap fun. You will see the grey bikes docked in several locations around the city with the self service kiosk at the head of the racks. You can take a bike from any rack and return it to any rack which makes the system very convenient. You must create an account online with a credit card for a security deposit, before you are able to rent a bike. Once you have registered, you can purchase a plan that suits your time frame (1 day, 7 day, long term) or you can rent by the hour – but this is the least cost effective as the bike rate increases incrementally every half hour, and gets costly fast. We recommend the day pass, which costs 1,70€ (approximately, 1.90USD) and allows you 24 hours to ride around, hiring and docking the bikes at any convenient station. The first 30 minutes is free no matter what you do, so if you are real crafty, you can take a bike out and return it before the 30 minutes is up (after 30 minutes, Velib uses the hourly fee structure to charge your credit card). Just be sure you to get the bike back in the rack before the 30 minutes is up. You could probably keep riding for free by continuing to get the bike in the rack at minute 29 and then taking out another bike, which I suppose could be fun, but really, spend the two bucks and have the freedom of time on your side! The bikes are heavy with fat seats and thick tires and a basket up front for your stuff – think beach cruiser. There are well marked bike paths, but they can end abruptly if you don’t know where you are going and be difficult to pick up again, so exercise caution and common sense. If riding with Paris traffic sounds nerve racking, and you aren’t trying to achieve a lot of distance, you can bike on the car-free bike lanes on the lower path along the Seine. This ride is a complete joy, breezing past Parisians picnicking and sipping wine all along the riverbank.
3. Skip the Louvre.
The life-dream-fulfilled excitement of visiting the world’s most famous museum quickly fades when you are surrounded by hundreds of frantic tourists who scurry from room to room, taking pictures like children – snap, snap, snap – with this fear that they may miss something if they don’t photograph it. Their anxiety is palpable and the view from their phones and cameras is actually worse (and far more expensive) than if they just looked up images of the museum on google. It’s a sad way to see art for everyone – those taking the pictures and those trying to look with their eyes. That said, if, like us, you simply can’t imagine going to Paris without visiting the Louvre, go in the morning when it is less busy, put your camera away (you can get better images on postcards in the gift shop), and try not to let the anxiety of the crowd get to you.
For a calmer, less crowded, more resonant viewing experience with just as many truly incredible works by master artists, we highly recommend the Musee D’Orsay and the Musee de l’Orangerie.
4. Don’t stand in the long lines for the museums.
You can purchase museum passes either online or in person. We recommend you purchase in person since you do not have to pay shipping fees, nor deal with any hassle should they not arrive at your home before your trip departure. We purchased a four-day pass at the Gare de Lyon visitors office located near the main entrance to the station, and visited six museums and monuments in four days. Depending on how many museums you want to visit, the pass can save you a little bit of money, but you have to have an ambitious schedule to save a few euros.
skip lines like a rockstar.
For example, the four day pass costs €56 per person, and with museum and monument entrance fees averaging €10 to €15 each, visiting six spots in four days as we did only saved us about €4 each. But we think even if you visit only three museums with your four-day pass and thus end up spending more on the passes than you would have on entrance fees, the Paris pass is worth the money for another reason: you will skip lines like a rockstar. Lines for Paris museums can be an hour long or more. The only thing worse than waiting in that line is watching others cut the line and get in ahead of you. (We learned this the hard way when we went to Rome and waited four hours to enter the Vatican, watching others who’d pre-bought their tickets breeze ahead.) Why waste precious travel moments standing in line?
In other words: unless you hate art, get the pass.
Another bonus of the pass is that it makes all of Paris feel like an art buffet – you can try things you otherwise wouldn’t, or have small tastes of all the things you really like. Since you get into as many museums as you want to for the same price, you can just go to stand in front of your favorite painting for twenty minutes studying the brushwork, and then move on to the next thing you want to do. Then, if you want, you can go back the next day. Museums and monuments you had not planned to go to show up as you are walking somewhere else, and since you have the pass, why not drop in? In other words: unless you hate art, get the pass.
5. Eat the bread. Drink the wine. Eat the Macaroon
Don’t go to Paris on a diet. Do sit riverside by the Seine with a just-baked baguette, cheese and a bottle of French wine. It is a magical, timeless experience that locals and tourist alike participate in. It is also one of the cheapest things you can possibly do, one of the few Parisian joys available for under €10. Then stroll the Champs-Élysées and stop at the famous tea room, Ladurée, for their macaroons, which you can have there or take with you to eat under the Arc de Triomphe up the street. Yeah.
6. Dress like the locals.
Parisians don’t wear 17 pocket vests or shorts and neither should you.
This doesn’t mean dress expensively or stereotypically French (no berets, please), it means leave the city hiking costume at home. Dress practically for your day while making an effort to fit in. Parisians don’t wear 17 pocket vests or shorts and neither should you. Besides not fitting into the fashion look of the city, this type of outfit screams “I am carrying my passport, money that I may not know how to count, extra CF cards for my new expensive camera, a map, and I have no idea where my hotel is.” Think about what you would wear to a nice dinner, pack that outfit plus something stylish and comfortable for daytime, and limit the shorts.
7. Learn these French words.
If you do not speak French then learn these words and practice saying them before you go into the French world:
Hello, please, thank you, pardon me, the bathroom.
Bonjour(bon zhoor), s’il vous plâit (see voo play), merci (merr-SEE), pardon moi (par-don MWA) toilett (twa-LET).
Make a point of learning and using one new french word each day and download the google app for translation for times when it’s not possible to communicate. But don’t let the app make you lazy! Learn some words. When you are in line for a coffee or a baguette with seven impatient Parisians behind you, you will be very grateful you learned to say pain and un cafe creme, sil-vous-plait. The cliche is that everyone appreciates when you try to speak their language and that’s true, but also, trying to communicate in a language you are not fluent in will help you grow as a human being. So grow! That’s what traveling is all about. You’ll be surprised at how few words you actually need to express yourself, and it’s triumphant when you do so in a language other than your mother tongue.
8. Free Sparkling Water
Paris has clean drinking water fountains in several locations throughout the city and some of those fountains provide sparkling water. How cool is that?! Here is the map of the fountains – if you can’t read French, don’t worry, just scroll down to the bottom of the page for the map. The sparkling ones will have “sparkling water” written in English next to the button that releases the water. Using these fountains saves you money and contributes in a small environmental way to reducing plastic waste. Plastic bottles cause global pollution that is killing our planet.
9. Paris, cheap or expensive?
Paris is expensive, but you can make it less so by booking a private rental that has a kitchen for you to cook in, have baguette sandwich picnics in all the best spots like the Seine, the park outside Notre Dame, and so on, watch street performers (tip them if you do, they’re working artists), hang out in Pompidou Square in Le Marais and so on. There is so much to see and do that is free and fulfilling. For more tips on traveling on a budget, see our section How to Plan your Vacation.
10. When you get lost, sit in a cafe.
Just park it, order a drink and relax for a minute before pulling out the map. Things always come into focus after a break.
Great tips! Free sparkling water, skip the Louvre, learn one French word a day. Muchos gracias!