This was our first trip to Paris. We brought our kids along which I would definately do again. I brought lots of advice from this forum along. Some of my thoughts:
Paris is very beautiful. Very little litter on the streets. Everything seems very old, but for the most part well cared for.
The Eiffel was my least favorite part. Very crowded. Lines were loooonnnnggggg! We waited in one line for the ticket. Then went to the second floor and had to wait for the elevator again. Then we had to even wait to get back down. Lots of waiting here. We did it once. I did not care to go up again.
I loved St. Chapelle. The stained glass windows were beautiful.
I loved the Sacre Couer area. We ate crepes at a cute corner restaurant and they were very good and inexpensive (we had five people with us for every meal). We also ate pizza up there and that was good too.
The patisseries on just about every street were soo good. Those little cakes were not very expensive (maybe three euros each?)
Versailles was pretty but also very crowded. It happened to rain that day so not too many people were in the gardens outside. Maybe that is why the inside was crowded. We rented the tour on earphones. That was the best thing we did there.
We ate ice cream at the %26quot;spot%26quot; on the Isle de Louis? right? Very good ice cream. Berthillion.
We bought the carte orange on the metro. I was totally confused before I went concerning the whole metro system. Some of the exchanges were tricky but this worked out well for us. Our last day was a Monday so we bought a carnet of tickets for that day only.
Bring an umbrella. The weather was beautiful but on several days all of a sudden in the late afternoon it would downpour. And I do mean downpour.
Paris was a neat city to visit and I think I would like to go back someday. Even for our kids. They enjoyed it too.
Good luck to all of you getting closer to going. Bring good walking shoes.....
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Funny that you didn%26#39;t see any litter in the streets. There are exceedingly few things that I dislike about Paris, but one of them is the litter. It reminds me of 1970s New York City, before the big clean-ups. I can%26#39;t imagine why the Mairie can%26#39;t figure out a way of cleaning up all the trash. Even the doggie presents on the sidewalks don%26#39;t bother me as much as the junk left by us humans! For heaven%26#39;s sake, there are trash cans all over the place and those wonderful sanitation workers (the %26quot;little green men%26quot; as I call them) that do such a great job. If only everybody else would cooperate with them to improve the living environment in Paris.
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Seriously, there was very little litter we saw. Especially since we flew back through New York City and had to take a shuttle from JFK to LaGuardia. ON the shuttle ride I noticed tons and tons of litter on the New York streets.
And only a few dog poops on the streets in Paris. I did learn to step over the dog pee that I started recognizing by the way it ran down from a post or pole into the street....The whole dog thing was pretty neat to see though too. We saw tons of dogs, some not on leashes. And not one of them in the street. We saw dogs everywhere from the metro to the bus to the little grocery stores. They were very well taken care of too.
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I returned 2 weeks ago and I also did not see litter. And I saw very little dog poop. I did, however, see alot of dogs. Which I loved. My hotel faced Place Dauphine and I watched the dogs chase each other around while I ate my breakfast. I noticed alot of West Highland Terrier dogs there. Oh, and I kid you not.. the very first dog I saw after arriving and emerging from the Metro --- was a french poodle! How appropriate!
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Hey, way2go, glad you enjoyed your trip!! How long would you say that you queued for the Eiffel Tower in total, I want to make sure that I allow enough time in my itinerary (actually I%26#39;m not bothered about going up, but my husband is), as we are only there for 3 days.
Thanks
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I%26#39;m guessing both of you stayed in the more touristy %26quot;hot spots%26quot;. I think the city does its best to clean up the litter in those areas, but not such a great job in the neighborhoods.
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We went to the Eiffel tower on a Tuesday, which may be why it was so crowded - the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays I think. Anyway we spent probably three hours altogether there. Bring a coat to the top as it was kind of cold up there.
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Yup, I did. I was on Ile de la Cite.
Loved it there.
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Oh, and in regards to the Eiffel Tower discussion.. I guess I lucked out as I didn%26#39;t queue at all. I only had about 3 people ahead of me to buy a ticket. I bought a ticket to the top and I had to wait for the elevator to come back down for about 5 minutes. But thats it.. everyone who was waiting for the elevator were able to get on that one. And I went there just before sunset.
But I also went earlier this month, so as it gets warmer I know the line gets longer.
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Hi thanks for your info on Paris.
We are going to Paris on 5/27 for two weeks. We exchanged our US timeshare for a Marriott near Euro Disney. Its just my wife and myself and we plan on taking some day tours to London and Bruge, Belgium. About how far is Disney from the center of Paris and any other thoughts.
Al Kaplan
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HI there - I was in Paris early March and didn%26#39;t queue at the Eiffel Tower at all - it opened at 9.30, so I planned an early breakfast in the restaurant around the corner (I think it was called Le Tour Restaurant) and then strolled over for the 9.30 opening.
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