the hotel crillon by the louvre is where franklin signed the treaty of paris...which is THE primary reason we're an independent country from britain. i bought my "negotiating" tie there for its symbolic value. there's a stone monolith thing in that busy intersection too where thousands of french aristocrats were guillotined, including marie antoinette.
places you absolutely must go to: versailles--it's breathtaking and so beautiful it'll almost make you cry. there's also a little villa there called the petite trianon or something like that. it has a huge garden like a maze where you can get lost.
montmarte--la boheme! the sacre couer basilica there has the best view of paris--better than the eiffel tower. it's also culturally significant as the once hotbed for the movement by starving artists. it's nice to chill there in the evening as people will still go there playing tunes on their guitars.
and i know this seems weird but definitely check out the famous cemetary in paris. oscar wilde is barried there, along with many very famous people like jim morrison.
other places of interest... i took the paris sewer tour because i was interested in napoleon (who designed it and called it his greatest but least recognized contribution) and victor hugo's les miserables--he knew the engineer and so the sewer routes he writes about are actually accurate. and if you have more time, i did my own literary tour to discover some of my favorite authors. richard wright lived there by notre dame...kerouac hung out there too. and arthur rimbaud...the genius poet who sparked the french symbolist movement as a teenager used to frequent les deux maggot (the two maggots--a cafe) with his lover the poet verlaine. jean-paul sarte and simone de beauvoir used to go there a lot too. paris also has a great museum with interesting wwii stuff--especially since germany actually rolled through france and through paris so easily.
i generally think europe is overrated, but i really enjoyed paris. wish i were there...
places you absolutely must go to:
versailles--it's breathtaking and so beautiful it'll almost make you cry. there's also a little villa there called the petite trianon or something like that. it has a huge garden like a maze where you can get lost.
montmarte--la boheme! the sacre couer basilica there has the best view of paris--better than the eiffel tower. it's also culturally significant as the once hotbed for the movement by starving artists. it's nice to chill there in the evening as people will still go there playing tunes on their guitars.
and i know this seems weird but definitely check out the famous cemetary in paris. oscar wilde is barried there, along with many very famous people like jim morrison.
other places of interest...
i took the paris sewer tour because i was interested in napoleon (who designed it and called it his greatest but least recognized contribution) and victor hugo's les miserables--he knew the engineer and so the sewer routes he writes about are actually accurate. and if you have more time, i did my own literary tour to discover some of my favorite authors. richard wright lived there by notre dame...kerouac hung out there too. and arthur rimbaud...the genius poet who sparked the french symbolist movement as a teenager used to frequent les deux maggot (the two maggots--a cafe) with his lover the poet verlaine. jean-paul sarte and simone de beauvoir used to go there a lot too. paris also has a great museum with interesting wwii stuff--especially since germany actually rolled through france and through paris so easily.
i generally think europe is overrated, but i really enjoyed paris. wish i were there...
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