Paris Tips

Some of my personal tips for staying in Paris

• Bring fresh wipes or hand sanitiser with you. A lot of the public places feel grimy after touching. My sister who has previously been to Paris and has just returned from her honeymoon there still thinks the place is dirty.
• Do a hop on, hop off bus tour at the start of your trip so you can familiarise yourself with the area and see main monuments. Doing this can also help you decide what to see first or what you can group together based on location.
• Purchase the Paris Museum Pass – we didn’t and I wish we did. It costs 39E per person but it provides entry to so many attractions which have entry fees. So after three paying attractions you’ve already gotten your money’s worth. Knowing you have this pass may also encourage you to enter fee paying monuments that are included with the ticket. For example ticket includes climb up to the Arc de Triomphe which we didn’t do cause it cost money but now I wish we did just to see the six streets merge into the Arc.
• When catching the metro just purchase the 10 billet tickets option. What this means is you are issued with 10 tickets to use which can be used at any station on from the main metro lines. By being issued with 10 tickets it means you can share them with someone as well.
• Galleries Lafayette is not open on Sunday’s – which we learnt going there on a Sunday.
• Bring your passport with you to allow you to claim the tax back on goods purchased from big retail stores. No one explained this process to me before I left so here’s the run down. Firstly confirm whether the store you are buying goods from participates in the VAT tax back scheme, because not all stores do. Confirm what’s the required minimum spend to be eligible for the refund (every country and store in EU have a different minimum spend). Before you pay or leave ask them to provide specific VAT forms or at least specify on the receipt the VAT amount paid. If forms or receipt do not explicitly state this the customs office at the airport won’t accept receipt of goods and wont issue tax refund. You lodge refund before you head back home, so at the airport of the last EU country you are in before you head back to Australia. You need to find the customs office and lodge your refund. You will need to show all receipts, forms and they may also want to see the good itself. So I suggest you give yourself time to do this before you check in your luggage. You can either receive refund as cash which is issued straight away or credited back to your credit card which can take up to eight weeks. We opted for the credit card option as we no longer had the need for EU cash since we were going home.
• Staying anywhere in Paris is fine as long as you’re close to a metro station. In Paris most streets are lined with restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores, bars and retail stores. In my opinion there is no one good place to stay because a lot of the streets all have these amenities close by. Read the review of the apartment we stayed at here. 

 Lock Bridge

 

Sacre-Coeur

The Lourve

Busy Bee

I've been meaning to write a few posts on here but I've been caught up with ... everyday life stuff. Work's busy (is it ever not for anyone), it's November so weekends are starting to fill up, still trying to get the house in order and the small amount of down time you do have I like to spend it bonding with my family instead of the computer.   

But most importantly it was my birthday last Wednesday!!

When I've got a few minutes to myself I'll write a detail post about my birthday ... and all the other everyday life stuff.

In the mean time I will publish a post I have sitting here waiting to be published.

Hope you all had a great (and not too busy) weekend.

Hubby's Birthday

Unfortunately Ian had to work on his birthday. They’re so busy at work at the moment and under staffed that his leave to take his own birthday off was denied.

I knew what he wanted for his birthday but unfortunately the product Ian wants isn't actually available until end of the month. So to be creative (and funny) I came up with a place holder in the mean time. He opened his card to find this in it.

Being a Friday though I had it off so we agreed Eli and I would join him for lunch in town. I invited E and my sis K to join us at Suminoya, a Japanese BBQ restaurant.

That evening he still was “on call” so dinner plans was out of the question, if anything we had left over’s that night as we were still full from lunch that afternoon.

Saturday I took him to where I originally wanted to have lunch (if he had the day off), Jazz City Diner. This place has been highly recommended by lots of people claiming it servers really great American style food.

The restaurant is this tiny diner on the side of the road. It can only accommodate 10 parties with a maximum of 4 people as it had 4 booth style seats. The waitress wore a traditional American diner costume and there were a few American memorabilia around the room. What spun us out was seeing a friend’s name parked on the wall. When asked why these people have their names on the wall the waitress just said they were friends of the owner.

I ordered the chill fries, jerky chicken with onion rings. Ian had the macaroni and cheese and the chicken with waffles. We also both ordered milk shakes as people raved how yummy there were. My overall review … over rated. Admittedly I should have tried one of the burgers as they had about 6 different types.

The jerky chicken was 5 small drumsticks serving covered in this brown powder and did not taste nice at all. The coating must have contained chill in it cause it was also very hot, I only had 1 piece. The chill fries tasted like it had spaghetti bolognaise sauce and cheese poured on top. I had enough of the macaroni and cheese after 3 bites, the chicken waffles were edible but again nothing memorable.

The prices was also on the pricey end so I was expecting this place to serve delicious, generous serving food.

Would I eat here again? Only if the owner invited me to a free meal. There are far better restaurants / diners out there in Sydney. 

Have you eaten at Jazz City Diner? What was your experience?

Fat Bike Tour Through Paris

Web Site: www.fattirebiketours.com/Paris

Cost: 28E per person

One activity a friend suggested to do while in Paris was a bike tour during the city. There are a few bike tours in Paris and we opted for the Fat Bike Tour company just based on their tour availability and our itinerary. A lot of tours do get booked out quickly in Paris so I do suggest to think ahead regarding what you want to do and book in advance … more on Paris tips later.

How they operate is you rock up to the office of the bike company. You check in, fit you out with a helmet, a very flattering (not!!) night reflecting vest (since we were doing a night tour) and try on the various bikes they have available for size. With this tour company there was more than one group so we were split into three groups of about 20. I noticed they split the crowd roughly by age group. I appreciate reasons why this may be the case: skill level, group dynamics and allow tour operator to harness his interaction with the group based on their age market.

The bikes themselves are really easy and comfortable to ride .. but still expect to have a sore bum the following day (like we did) unless you’re a regular bike rider. After the tour Ian and I were contemplating on purchasing the same bikes as we realized how easy they are to ride and get around in and a great form of exercise.

The tour took us all over Paris via the normal traffic roads. At first it was a bit daunting but 3 minutes into it and knowing there are 19 other people riding with you, your confidence just builds up and you really start to enjoy the experience. I recall smiling and laughing throughout the whole time. I must’ve looked like an idiot but it was that much fun I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.

We rode through St Germain, Notre Dame, gelato stop around St Louis, lock bridge, The Louvre to watch the sun set .. and other key monuments I can’t recall anymore.

 Gelato pit stop

The tour also included a River Sine Cruise. So we rode our bikes to the wharfs, combined them all together and locked them up with a long piece or rope … no seriously. Obviously bikes need to be secured to avoid being stolen but there aren’t adequate bike racks around the wharfs. Plus there are also other bike tours doing the same thing. Tour operator served us some wine during the cruise which kept us warm as it had gotten cooler as the sun had set. Avoid drinking too much wine cause you still have to ride after the cruise. 

After the cruise we rode parallel to the river and stopped at a good vantage point to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle at 11pm.

I recommend doing a bike tour as it allows you to see a lot of Paris in a different way. The tour goes for about four hours but you seriously the time flies.  It also exposes you to a bike and may give you the confidence to be like the locals and take advantage of the Velib bike hire service available through out the city.

Actually I’ve been a decision if a bike tour is available in the cities we travel to in the future, we’re doing it. It would be so fun especially once they kids (heheee) know how to ride bikes. 

Bonjour Paris

In fear of the massive queues for the Eiffel Tower we decided to do this monument first thing one morning – if you call leaving the apartment 9am first thing in the morning. I recall getting off a station and ending up at one side of the tower, roughly at the start of Champ de Mars but the walk to the allowed us some panoramic shots of the tower.

When we got to the gates we realised they don’t actually open until 9:30am leaving us with a waiting time of 7mins. So basically if you’re prepared to wait for the gates to open then there’s really no point in arriving really early, it just adds to the waiting and queuing time. The queues for the lifts were long however the queue to walk up to the decks was not as long. So we headed over to the walking option and were through the gates, climbing the tower within minutes.

There are about 500 steps just to the first deck. They even count each step for you by marking each step with a number. I wouldn’t recommend the walk to someone who is considerably unfit or has weak knees as the hike is quiet tiring – hello it’s 500 steps!

On the first deck obviously there are 360 degree views of Paris, a cafeteria if you want to get some refreshments, bathrooms and a function room from memory.

There was a foggy haze throug h the city the day we climbed the Tower.

From here you can also choose to climb up to the second deck (another 200 steps) or catch the lift to the second deck. Alternatively you can walk or take the lift back down to the ground. We decided to walk up to the second deck. During the walk up I started to feel some vertigo and found the hike up a little uncomfortable.

Second deck is pretty much the same as the first deck however I think there’s a restaurant instead of a cafeteria.

From here you can catch lift to the top deck however you will need to pay an additional fee. We decided to give it a miss and head back down to the ground via the lifts. Waiting for the lifts was so painful as there was only 2 lifts operating that morning and there were so many people already on the tower at that time.

Again a major historical monument we were seeing (and potentially never see in person again) was being obstructed. To see where more evidence of other major monument being blocked or obstructed click here.

We decided another way to see as much of Paris without getting too lost along the way was to catch one of those hop on hop off tour buses. There are about 3 bus companies operating in Paris and all pretty much looping the same key monuments all offering 24 or 48 hours valid tickets allowing you unlimited rides on their buses during that period of time. There are various bus stops on the route so you can hop off the bus and hop on at any point in time at one of the designated bus stops, allowing you to see the city in on your own pace.

We decided to go with L’Open Tour because they had 4 bus routes on offer. We purchased a 48 hours ticket which cost 32E. We only got to do 3 out of the 4 tour routes … they really need to over a 72 hour bus ticket. Their buses have an audio guide which you can listen to with the free head phones that were provided with your ticket. It’s just a looped recording which talks about historical facts regarding the area the bus is driving through at that point in time.

What’s great about these bus companies is you can get on and buy tickets from any bus stop. The bus driver issues tickets first time you get on board. Therefore this means sometimes we could be stuck at a bus stop for several minutes waiting for the masses of new passengers to buy their tickets. Another issue I found with the tour is at times buses get stuck in traffic adding to time wasted on the bus instead of seeing sights. We also noticed some routes had less buses looping (or they’re stuck in traffic) meaning the buses are full resulting in standing room only.

After staying on for one loop we got off the Arc de Triomphe stop. This place is very touristy but you got to do it whist in Paris. It a massive round about that connects six different roads. To access the arc pedestrians need to walk under the road – don’t try to cross the road like some of the idiots we saw. You can also climb the arc but again at a fee. We didn’t bother climbing the arc considering the views weren’t the best that day due to the weather. However now that I think about it I wish we climbed it or went back and climbed it another day.

From here you can walk down the Avenue des Champ Elysees. You can get your shopping fix at the various high end designer stores and main stream retails stores. There are also many restaurants along this street and side streets.

We proceeded to walk down the Champ Elysees, past the Tuileries Gardens, The Lourve and finally arrived back to our apartment. It was a tiring day of sight seeing and walking I was exhausted and crashed in bed.

At 8pm Ian woke me up asked if I we were going to eat dinner. A little eatery was recommended to me by a friend and I knew it was close by. So we headed over to L’As Du Falafel to try their famous falafel’s. The place is pretty busy when we arrived with people queuing outside waiting to be seated.

They do have a takeaway option up front too for those who just want to grab something to go. The staff do a good job of herding the customers into the restaurant and probably adds to the reputation. I had a shawarma falafel and it hit the hunger spot.

 

Got any other tips you want to add to avoid waiting queues at the Eiffel Tower?
Know and recommend any other cheap places to eat in Paris?

Next stop ... Paris

We arrived at Paris September 4, 2012 and stayed in the city of love for 7 nights. Preparing for our big Europe trip Paris was one city I wanted to spend a lot of time at. Paris is one of those cities where you can expect to pay a lot of money for accommodation in a tiny room. Star ratings are usually inaccurate and generous in comparison to how other western countries would probably rate the same accommodation so to avoid paying a lot of money to be disappointed we decided a self contained apartment was the way to go.

Apartments are also very expensive and depending on where abouts in Paris you stay prices again vary. Obviously staying close to key tourist monuments attract high rates and so called dodgy locations like Moulin Rouge are a lot cheaper.

My opinion after staying in Paris for a week and venturing out at night, any place is fine. I think most parts of Paris is safe, if you avoid dodgy characters and be aware of your surroundings when you are out, then in my opinion its totally fine to stay anywhere in Paris.

My key tips for finding accommodation in Paris:

• Be walking distance to a metro station. This will be your saviour! The apartment we stayed at was probably 100m from Louvre Rivoli. From this station we could access lines 1 and 7. In Paris, like London you can easily get around town just using the train system. The trains are frequent and many lines to take you from one side of town to another side without too much trouble - all you need to do is change lines. Next time I go back to Paris I would probably choose accommodation that is close to a metro station the crosses many metro lines to avoid jumping lines.
• Avoid staying in an apartment on the 1^st or 2^nd floor. If you stay in key parts of Paris you will probably be close to or above public areas such as restaurants and bars. Although they claim there is a strict no noise policy by 11pm they don’t really police this. You can hear patrons at all hours at night and if you are above a bar it’s really annoying when you’re trying to get some shut eye in preparation for a big day. Yes you can close the windows however if you stay in an apartment that has no air conditioning in summer the fresh breeze a night is most welcoming.
•  If there are certain creature comforts you look for in an apartment and they are very important to you contact the vendor and confirm these items are available. For example enlglish cable tv, towels, air conditioning, washer, dryer, hair dryer, internet etc
• Make sure apartment block has a lift if you intend to bring heavy luggage with you to avoid carrying up several flights of stairs.
• Ensure you are getting value for money. You don’t want to spend a lot of money only to be disappointed by the overall state of the apartment. If no photos are provided or you want a photo of a particular angle of the apartment ask for it. If they can’t provide any don’t bother booking with them.
• In Paris (and all over Europe actually) to secure an apartment they take only require a deposit and outstanding balance will be paid upon check in. Paying for accommodation in full is not the usual practice in Paris.

Here's a review of the apartment we stayed at. Unfortunately we didn't take any photos nor is the property in Trip Advisor to read more reviews however you can check out the web site I booked through and they have photos as well as limited additional reviews from past lodgers. 

Address: 45 Rue de I’Ambre Sec

Location: 3^rd Floor

Positives:

• Self contained apartment which included kitchen area, dining area, lounge area, bathroom, separate toilet and washing machine.
• Apartment although located in an old building has been renovated. Not sure how long ago however overall facilities and fittings are modern.
• Kitchen contains electric stove, basic cooking equipment, cutlery, microwave, large fridge and dish washer. They also provided some dish washing detergent for the dishwasher.
• Wifi was available although our laptop had trouble staying connected. Hubby was able to troubleshoot the problem without calling the agent however my husband is in IT and when he explained to me the problem and what he did to fix it, I thought it was very technical.
• Apartment was within meters from many restaurants, major retail chains, metro station and across the road was a grocery store that closed late.
• Apartment was within a secured building requiring 2 points of security checks before able to enter lifts.
• Apartment was walking distance to the Louvre, Notre Dame and St Germain. My morning running route included running through the Louvre and around the Tuileries Gardens.
• Lots of storage space available to keep belongs from cluttering apartment.

Negatives:

• No air conditioning. Wasn’t too bad in September considering we were out most of the day so by the evenings the cooler air assists in bring the room temperature down.
• There was a rule that we could not use the washing machine after 8pm. Reason provided was to minimise noise after this time and threatened to keep your $300E bond if you do not comply with rule. We didn’t want to risk it however found rule very restrictive. We are out all day and evenings are really only the time we would want to do the washing.
• Apartment bathroom had no ventilation so obviously room would steam up when taking hot showers.
• Shower area would flood when taking showers as water did not drain very well. Water would eventually drain but then soap residue would be left all over the floor.
• Apartment is above a bar with an outdoor area. Many nights I woke up at various times in the early morning to the sound of patrons still laughing or talking or bar staff cleaning up loudly.
• A nearby apartment is being renovated and workers are up really early demolish and throwing rubbish out. I guess there isn’t a ‘no noise policy before 7am’ rule in Paris.
• No English channels available on cable and tv was tiny anyways.
• Bed was hard as a rock gave me back problems during the trip. The beds were actually two single beds pushed in together to create a double. Also not enough pillows either.
• Apartment has poor lighting and not enough light solutions. Lights provided or installed were located in areas not required and then areas that needed lighting there was none.

British Museum & London Eye

British Museum

In London there are many museums and galleries. Fortunately a lot of them do not have any entry fee so deciding on which museum to go to is up to the individual depending on what you want to see more of. If like us, London is your first stop I don’t recommend seeing too many cause you’ll just be over museums early on the trip and potentially refuse to see other museums in other cities you go to.

Admittedly a lot of the museums contain a lot of the same things. Of course they don’t literally have the same items but they contain many of the same “stuff” from the same period.

During our tour of London we decided to check out the British Museum. Why cause it looked the prettiest inside. When you first walk into the foyer, the space, the brightness and design leaves you mesmerized. I felt a sense of calmness and sterile in that space.

The museum is free but certain exhibitions do have an entry fee. The audio guides are 5P each however you can do what I noticed some people do, which was share one using ear phones between you and a friend.

Besides the beautiful building the museum does host an amazing collection of art and artefacts. I personally enjoyed the greek collection especially the massive stone pieces. To think they were able to carve (in stone) such detail amazes me.

One museum I wish we did go to was the Natural HistoryMuseum to see some dinosaur bones.

London Eye

I mentioned in a previous post we attempted to ride TheLondon Eye one sunny day however the queues were extreme that day and opted for another day. We were lucky the afternoon we did decided to attempt the London Eye again, the clouds parted in time for great views of old London town.

Here are some lovely views taken:

Some tips to save your self queuing time and help you plan your trip on the big ferries wheel:

·      Try go weekdays and potentially mid to late afternoon. In summer last call on The Eye is 8.30pm so no rush in trying to get on first thing in the morning (unless you’re time pressed and on a strict itinerary).

·      There is a shorter line if you purchase tickets directly through the London Eye official web site in advance.

·      Look for ticket deals. We managed to find a 2for1 ticket deal online by chance but heard there are many similar deals available all the time. The shorter line does not apply to these deals. The deals are usually a coupon that you present when purchasing tickets.

Have you got any tips or suggestions to avoid the tourist queues in London? 
Did I fail to mention any other interesting museums in London?