Paris
I'm sure that many of you have been to Paris before, so you'll not be surprised when I declare it to be the prettiest city I've visited. Every building throughout the city (and also the outer-city as observed from train windows) has such charm that it's as if, like their language, they tried to refine it until it was made as beautiful as they could.
Now before we get on to my Parisian adventure I'd like to address some French stereotypes to clear things up for your own future visits (and to update your internal notebook).
* Berets. In all my wanderings I have only seen one person wearing this particular headpiece - while wanding through the Louvre. He then spoke in a broad American accent like a complete tool.
* Bread sticks. Absolutely. There's generally a pile of them at the counter near the registers and there are always people carrying them off to places.
* Horizontally striped t-shirts. Yes, absolutely. They're absolutely everywhere, but I'm not sure if they're supposed to be post-ironic fashion or a sign of patriotism.
* Snootiness regarding language: Sometimes. Certainly I've been visiting a bunch of touristy places so they'd be used to far worse than I (who knows almost nothing). The waitress at a restaurant didn't take kindly to us moving chairs and attempting to ask questions in French. But waitresses can be annoyed wherever they are. Personally, I've been working on getting my French pronounciation for greetings working and then switching to thick Australian accent for real questions. (I learnt this lesson in Spain when I asked something fairly accurately and she rattled off an answer that I then had to ask her to repeat in English. Although really there's no way that'd happen here.)
* Stunningly attractive, sexy women everywhere: Meh, no more so than anywhere else. Vienna is still taking top honours there, followed by Spain. The men on the other hand do often seem to put an effort into dressing well and I saw far more than a few vests about the place, so many that it began to look normal. Momentarily I considered getting one for myself... y'know, to wear over my amusing t-shirts.
So what touristy things did I do? Most everything within walking distance of my hotel. (Hotel really is stretching it though. The Hotel du Commerce is kinda more like a hostel without the social facilities, but the position can not be beaten.) Notre Dame is five minutes from the front door. The Loueve is just over the river (and overwhelmingly large), and not far from that is the Musee d'Orsay. Then you may as well get to the Army Museum where the French have put their cataloguing skills to good use. Continuing on there's some sorta huge tower that people have made a big deal about for the past century. (Although the view is better from the first level, everyone goes up the lift to the top storey for further pictures.) Up the top of the hill is the gloriously dirty-white Sacre Coeur (which everyone seems to visit on a Saturday), although the view from the hill is no comparison to the Eiffel Tower's. There are plenty of beautiful churches about the place too. Just wandering the city and seeing these things gave me a feeling of having a win even though I was just walking by.
But not everything in Paris is perfect. Their parkland, frankly, sucks. The wind would often blow great swirls of white dust from the paths into the air, and what grass there was you often weren't allowed to sit on. I knew it would be, but Paris is very expensive, and not many cheap options - even including self-catering. Really, I imagine it's what Melbourne would be like if I bought breakfast every morning and all there were was those little city supermarkets. Paris is known as the City of Lights; while that may be true in winter, in May the sun doesn't set until 10pm. It looks like 4pm outside and all the shop staff will be saying bonsoir to you because it's 9pm. The weather has been hot and cold and then all things in between, but I can't complain too hard all things considered.
And what didn't I do? Most notably would be Versaille, which I felt happy enough to skip after 1) seeing Schonbrunn in Vienna and 2) reading the most recent review (a week old) describing it as expensive, large and dusty, without much greenery and no working fountains. The Arab World Institute was largely closed. The Dali Escape museum I made it to (It's right by Sacre Coeur) but there was a queue standing in the hot sun that just wasn't moving. I also missed out on seeing stuff lit up at night due to days filled with walking and that whole late sunset thing.
To spice up my days, there was a Gypsy trick that was tried three times on me in my wanderings. Some guy pretended to have found a ring (each time an ugly, thick brass-looking thing) on the ground, gave it to me as a sign of luck ("for your future marriage") and then walked away. I'd been waiting for the catch the first time and sure enough after a moment the guy turned back as if just remembering something and asked for money. "It's a very good trick," I said, tossing the ring back to him. "Have this instead." Pretty witty in retrospect.
Now you'd think that I was a bit of a fool for staying alone in the most romantic city on the planet for a week with no way of meaningfully communicating with its inhabitants. And you'd be right. It's almost built for couples, young Parisian families and older travelling groups, and the single man can kinda feel lost (something I'd hoped to negate by spending quality times in beautiful parkland working on a writing opus). Quite by chance I found myself kicking about for a couple of days with a quite brilliant Melbourne couple I've known for a confusing amount of time now. (And I don't just describe them as brilliant just because they can read this, but I do have more breathless phrases to ascribe to them if necessary.) Without them I probably wouldn't have experienced half of the rich little things the city offers, like antique markets, hidden little gems of bars... and Disneyland. The little things.
So that's the end of my journey. I'm not sure what to feel about going home. There'll be routine and a certainty of what I'm doing the next day, which can leave my brain free for other more creative things than how to navigate a particular city's metro system. Unfortunately, my brief forays onto The Age website seems to only tell me petty things that don't really matter (a fact previously masked by proximity) and it makes Melbourne seem so... provincial. But yes, the world is a big place. Maybe I'll get hooked on this travel thing after all.
Now before we get on to my Parisian adventure I'd like to address some French stereotypes to clear things up for your own future visits (and to update your internal notebook).
* Berets. In all my wanderings I have only seen one person wearing this particular headpiece - while wanding through the Louvre. He then spoke in a broad American accent like a complete tool.
* Bread sticks. Absolutely. There's generally a pile of them at the counter near the registers and there are always people carrying them off to places.
* Horizontally striped t-shirts. Yes, absolutely. They're absolutely everywhere, but I'm not sure if they're supposed to be post-ironic fashion or a sign of patriotism.
* Snootiness regarding language: Sometimes. Certainly I've been visiting a bunch of touristy places so they'd be used to far worse than I (who knows almost nothing). The waitress at a restaurant didn't take kindly to us moving chairs and attempting to ask questions in French. But waitresses can be annoyed wherever they are. Personally, I've been working on getting my French pronounciation for greetings working and then switching to thick Australian accent for real questions. (I learnt this lesson in Spain when I asked something fairly accurately and she rattled off an answer that I then had to ask her to repeat in English. Although really there's no way that'd happen here.)
* Stunningly attractive, sexy women everywhere: Meh, no more so than anywhere else. Vienna is still taking top honours there, followed by Spain. The men on the other hand do often seem to put an effort into dressing well and I saw far more than a few vests about the place, so many that it began to look normal. Momentarily I considered getting one for myself... y'know, to wear over my amusing t-shirts.
So what touristy things did I do? Most everything within walking distance of my hotel. (Hotel really is stretching it though. The Hotel du Commerce is kinda more like a hostel without the social facilities, but the position can not be beaten.) Notre Dame is five minutes from the front door. The Loueve is just over the river (and overwhelmingly large), and not far from that is the Musee d'Orsay. Then you may as well get to the Army Museum where the French have put their cataloguing skills to good use. Continuing on there's some sorta huge tower that people have made a big deal about for the past century. (Although the view is better from the first level, everyone goes up the lift to the top storey for further pictures.) Up the top of the hill is the gloriously dirty-white Sacre Coeur (which everyone seems to visit on a Saturday), although the view from the hill is no comparison to the Eiffel Tower's. There are plenty of beautiful churches about the place too. Just wandering the city and seeing these things gave me a feeling of having a win even though I was just walking by.
But not everything in Paris is perfect. Their parkland, frankly, sucks. The wind would often blow great swirls of white dust from the paths into the air, and what grass there was you often weren't allowed to sit on. I knew it would be, but Paris is very expensive, and not many cheap options - even including self-catering. Really, I imagine it's what Melbourne would be like if I bought breakfast every morning and all there were was those little city supermarkets. Paris is known as the City of Lights; while that may be true in winter, in May the sun doesn't set until 10pm. It looks like 4pm outside and all the shop staff will be saying bonsoir to you because it's 9pm. The weather has been hot and cold and then all things in between, but I can't complain too hard all things considered.
And what didn't I do? Most notably would be Versaille, which I felt happy enough to skip after 1) seeing Schonbrunn in Vienna and 2) reading the most recent review (a week old) describing it as expensive, large and dusty, without much greenery and no working fountains. The Arab World Institute was largely closed. The Dali Escape museum I made it to (It's right by Sacre Coeur) but there was a queue standing in the hot sun that just wasn't moving. I also missed out on seeing stuff lit up at night due to days filled with walking and that whole late sunset thing.
To spice up my days, there was a Gypsy trick that was tried three times on me in my wanderings. Some guy pretended to have found a ring (each time an ugly, thick brass-looking thing) on the ground, gave it to me as a sign of luck ("for your future marriage") and then walked away. I'd been waiting for the catch the first time and sure enough after a moment the guy turned back as if just remembering something and asked for money. "It's a very good trick," I said, tossing the ring back to him. "Have this instead." Pretty witty in retrospect.
Now you'd think that I was a bit of a fool for staying alone in the most romantic city on the planet for a week with no way of meaningfully communicating with its inhabitants. And you'd be right. It's almost built for couples, young Parisian families and older travelling groups, and the single man can kinda feel lost (something I'd hoped to negate by spending quality times in beautiful parkland working on a writing opus). Quite by chance I found myself kicking about for a couple of days with a quite brilliant Melbourne couple I've known for a confusing amount of time now. (And I don't just describe them as brilliant just because they can read this, but I do have more breathless phrases to ascribe to them if necessary.) Without them I probably wouldn't have experienced half of the rich little things the city offers, like antique markets, hidden little gems of bars... and Disneyland. The little things.
So that's the end of my journey. I'm not sure what to feel about going home. There'll be routine and a certainty of what I'm doing the next day, which can leave my brain free for other more creative things than how to navigate a particular city's metro system. Unfortunately, my brief forays onto The Age website seems to only tell me petty things that don't really matter (a fact previously masked by proximity) and it makes Melbourne seem so... provincial. But yes, the world is a big place. Maybe I'll get hooked on this travel thing after all.