So I don't have a lot of money, and having a job in publishing means...not acting like you will have a job forever. I tried not to be ridiculous with my money, but I did find a few things that I felt were worth spending more than 15 Euros on.
Splurging in Paris:
Bike About Tours -- 30 Euros
I love bicycle tours. I do them anytime I can. You get a little bit of trivia, a little bit of exercise, lots of fresh air and sun, all while getting the lay of the land. But if you're going to do a bike tour, you want to do it in a small group because:
1. it's safer to be in a smaller group and
2. there's less of a chance that you'll be with some talky fuckers who want to show off the history they learned from the back cover of their Lonely Planet guide.
I'll be honest -- the Bike About Tour, while small at 7 or 8 per group, was still larger than I like my bike tours. But it's the smallest one you'll find in Paris. Do the Bike About tour on your first day in town and you'll be able to find your way around in no time. (I'd never do one of those Fat Bike Tours, which I saw in Berlin. They are always rolling 20+ deep -- no fun.)
The secret garden shtick is a bit much, but the tour goes through mostly car-free streets on the left and right banks. The little red Dahons are fun to roll around on -- and if it rains, you can all just fold 'em up and get on the Metro.
Paris is a wonderful city for cycling -- lots of cushy bike lanes, flat, well-paved terrain and if you've got a credit card with a chip, you can participate in their amazing Velib' bikeshare program.
Added bonus: as advertised on their site, the Bike About Tour guys, American Christian and New Zealander Paul, are très adorbs (and très married). Still, who wouldn't want to spend a few hours chasing fit, tan boys around Paris on a bicycle? [Disclaimer: I've crushed out on every bike guide I've ever had.]
My favorite moment was when we were cycling in an alley in the Marais in front of a piece of the old wall. Our cluster of bikes was blocking a little Renault or whatever it was from getting through. The driver honks at us.
DRIVER: [Leaning out the window] ASDLKFJ!@#%#@# [In French]
PAUL: [With a casual smile] Me fou, ah.
DRIVER: ASDFKLWEFLKJSDKLJ! [In French]
PAUL: [To us cyclists] Alright, why don't you guys come a bit forward.
After the little car made its way through the alley to the intersection, the DRIVER stops, makes eye contact with all of us, grinning, and emphatically sticks his middle finger up in the air before driving away.
PAUL: That's just the French way of saying good morning.
P.S. I had to catch my flight right after the tour, so Paul and Christian made sure I ended with enough time to get to the airport. I cut it close, which was nobody's fault but mine, but if the two of them hadn't kept an eye on the time for me, I would have missed the plane. Of course, at the time, I was like, hm, getting stuck in Paris an extra day doesn't seem too bad to me.
Bike About Tours
Vinci Car Parking 4, Rue Lobau 75004 Paris
+33 (0) 6 18 80 84 92
Metro: Hotel de Ville
Office Hours: 10am- 7pm daily
Tea at Le Mariage Freres -- About 15 euros
I'm sure it's not the most serious tea house in Paris, but it's still fun to be able to try one of dozens of flavors of Le Mariage Freres teas, which I absolutely adore. The Fleur D'Oranger Oolong was just the right temperature, and the Maria Callas recording in the background was playing at just the right decibel level. 9 Euros for two madeleines is totally ridiculous, but the matcha financier was pretty tasty. The room is on one of those super quiet corners of St. Germain on Rive Gauche. I loved the dark wood shutters and giant palm fronds against saffron mottled walls -- very Casablanca. The waiters wore white, I wore blue.
Mariage Freres
13 rue des Grands-Augustins
(0)1 40 51 82 50
3-course lunch at L'Ami Jean -- 35 euros
Looking at the website, I assumed L'Ami Jean would be a white tablecloth gastrolab with tall food, hungry models and the rich men who try to impress them. It wound up being a rather homey bistro, with a terribly-printed menu and little handheld chalkboards announcing prettily scripted specials.
I don't really know how to describe what I ate there because my food magazine French was no help. In any case, I can't remember any of the menu well enough to look up what was in my food. Poivrade, farcie, morue, that's all I got -- the rest of those pretty French food words confused me.
I just ordered what the lady next to me was having -- a beautiful globe artichoke stuffed with a swampy mix of mussels and teeny brown mushrooms. Then a piece of cod, perfectly cooked and seasoned, with herbs and poached apricots and some kind of foam and topped with a thin ribbon of bacon. It was served with a jam jar full of what I thought was aioli but turned out to be mashed potatoes so full of cream you could drizzle it.
And for dessert, grilled strawberries on a skewer, bursting with juice, with a little savory taste of whatever preceded them on the fire. These were served with an icy quenelle of slightly bitter grapefruit sorbet, a dot of whipped cream, creme anglaise, and toasted pistachios and walnuts. It was one of my fave desserts ever and something that I will have to replicate (simplified) at home.
The food was killer, but what I loved most was watching the middle-aged French lesbian couple next to me smack their lips and roll their eyes over the food. A French mother and daughter who were similarly ravishing their food winked and joked with the couple from across the room. It reminded me of New York and made me wish my French was better.
View Paris in a larger map
To be continued...
Splurging in Paris:
Bike About Tours -- 30 Euros
I love bicycle tours. I do them anytime I can. You get a little bit of trivia, a little bit of exercise, lots of fresh air and sun, all while getting the lay of the land. But if you're going to do a bike tour, you want to do it in a small group because:
1. it's safer to be in a smaller group and
2. there's less of a chance that you'll be with some talky fuckers who want to show off the history they learned from the back cover of their Lonely Planet guide.
I'll be honest -- the Bike About Tour, while small at 7 or 8 per group, was still larger than I like my bike tours. But it's the smallest one you'll find in Paris. Do the Bike About tour on your first day in town and you'll be able to find your way around in no time. (I'd never do one of those Fat Bike Tours, which I saw in Berlin. They are always rolling 20+ deep -- no fun.)
The secret garden shtick is a bit much, but the tour goes through mostly car-free streets on the left and right banks. The little red Dahons are fun to roll around on -- and if it rains, you can all just fold 'em up and get on the Metro.
Paris is a wonderful city for cycling -- lots of cushy bike lanes, flat, well-paved terrain and if you've got a credit card with a chip, you can participate in their amazing Velib' bikeshare program.
Added bonus: as advertised on their site, the Bike About Tour guys, American Christian and New Zealander Paul, are très adorbs (and très married). Still, who wouldn't want to spend a few hours chasing fit, tan boys around Paris on a bicycle? [Disclaimer: I've crushed out on every bike guide I've ever had.]
My favorite moment was when we were cycling in an alley in the Marais in front of a piece of the old wall. Our cluster of bikes was blocking a little Renault or whatever it was from getting through. The driver honks at us.
DRIVER: [Leaning out the window] ASDLKFJ!@#%#@# [In French]
PAUL: [With a casual smile] Me fou, ah.
DRIVER: ASDFKLWEFLKJSDKLJ! [In French]
PAUL: [To us cyclists] Alright, why don't you guys come a bit forward.
After the little car made its way through the alley to the intersection, the DRIVER stops, makes eye contact with all of us, grinning, and emphatically sticks his middle finger up in the air before driving away.
PAUL: That's just the French way of saying good morning.
P.S. I had to catch my flight right after the tour, so Paul and Christian made sure I ended with enough time to get to the airport. I cut it close, which was nobody's fault but mine, but if the two of them hadn't kept an eye on the time for me, I would have missed the plane. Of course, at the time, I was like, hm, getting stuck in Paris an extra day doesn't seem too bad to me.
Bike About Tours
Vinci Car Parking 4, Rue Lobau 75004 Paris
+33 (0) 6 18 80 84 92
Metro: Hotel de Ville
Office Hours: 10am- 7pm daily
Tea at Le Mariage Freres -- About 15 euros
I'm sure it's not the most serious tea house in Paris, but it's still fun to be able to try one of dozens of flavors of Le Mariage Freres teas, which I absolutely adore. The Fleur D'Oranger Oolong was just the right temperature, and the Maria Callas recording in the background was playing at just the right decibel level. 9 Euros for two madeleines is totally ridiculous, but the matcha financier was pretty tasty. The room is on one of those super quiet corners of St. Germain on Rive Gauche. I loved the dark wood shutters and giant palm fronds against saffron mottled walls -- very Casablanca. The waiters wore white, I wore blue.
Mariage Freres
13 rue des Grands-Augustins
(0)1 40 51 82 50
3-course lunch at L'Ami Jean -- 35 euros
Looking at the website, I assumed L'Ami Jean would be a white tablecloth gastrolab with tall food, hungry models and the rich men who try to impress them. It wound up being a rather homey bistro, with a terribly-printed menu and little handheld chalkboards announcing prettily scripted specials.
I don't really know how to describe what I ate there because my food magazine French was no help. In any case, I can't remember any of the menu well enough to look up what was in my food. Poivrade, farcie, morue, that's all I got -- the rest of those pretty French food words confused me.
I just ordered what the lady next to me was having -- a beautiful globe artichoke stuffed with a swampy mix of mussels and teeny brown mushrooms. Then a piece of cod, perfectly cooked and seasoned, with herbs and poached apricots and some kind of foam and topped with a thin ribbon of bacon. It was served with a jam jar full of what I thought was aioli but turned out to be mashed potatoes so full of cream you could drizzle it.
And for dessert, grilled strawberries on a skewer, bursting with juice, with a little savory taste of whatever preceded them on the fire. These were served with an icy quenelle of slightly bitter grapefruit sorbet, a dot of whipped cream, creme anglaise, and toasted pistachios and walnuts. It was one of my fave desserts ever and something that I will have to replicate (simplified) at home.
The food was killer, but what I loved most was watching the middle-aged French lesbian couple next to me smack their lips and roll their eyes over the food. A French mother and daughter who were similarly ravishing their food winked and joked with the couple from across the room. It reminded me of New York and made me wish my French was better.
View Paris in a larger map
To be continued...
I went to Paris, for the first time, by myself several years ago. The stars had lined up in a spectacular way - I had received a buy-out from my job (not a spectacular job, but I left with a year's salary), I had just lost 35 pounds, and I was a couple of months away from my 40th birthday. Wow - I just reread that last sentence a few times... It was all I expected it to be, and less - and more. Anyway, on the point of going to Paris (or anywhere) by yourself: I suppose for some of us there's a period of waiting for things to happen. Well of course things happen. But perhaps not the things you wanted/expected to happen. So you make them happen. Good for you.
I went to Paris, for the first time, by myself several years ago. The stars had lined up in a spectacular way - I had received a buy-out from my job (not a spectacular job, but I left with a year's salary), I had just lost 35 pounds, and I was a couple of months away from my 40th birthday. Wow - I just reread that last sentence a few times... It was all I expected it to be, and less - and more. Anyway, on the point of going to Paris (or anywhere) by yourself: I suppose for some of us there's a period of waiting for things to happen. Well of course things happen. But perhaps not the things you wanted/expected to happen. So you make them happen. Good for you.