I Love Paris

Paris pleases the palate as it pleases the heart. Part of the romantic ambience of the City of Lights can be partly attributed to the great Paris flavors that you can practically get from every café or restaurant. Here are some of the best secret offerings of Paris for food lovers:

Gerard Mulot

Approach St-Germain and your nose will be able to follow the scent of melting butter as you stroll towards the black. Look for some white awnings plus the eye catching macarons tower and you know you are there. Go inside and there will be rainbow of colors from pink to shades of bright berries on tarts and boxes and boxes of pastries. Get what your heart wants and you can also picnic at the nearby Jardin de Luxembourg.

Benoit

This has been a secret restaurant that you ought to find when you have your Paris holiday. It has been in business for about a hundred years and the flavors have not faded thru time. The brasserie along Les Halles serves good portions of bread and pate on your table, and their puddings are phenomenal.

Rue Mouffetard

You can find Rue Mouffetard along the 5th arrondissement in Paris. It is also home to the street market defined as the best of its kind by Parisians. If you are daydreaming of cobbled Old Paris streets then this is the perfect place for you. Find your way through the small streets using the smell of yummy roast chicken as your guide. This is not a luxury market but it is the best if you want to experience the soul of Paris.

Café Cambronne

This is a busy café in Paris where everyday regular customers and walk-ins will make the air filled with clattering, clanging, and clicking of plate, cups, and utensils plus all the noises coming from the kitchen. The food is great from the steak, sausages, snails, and salads.

If you are having a Paris holiday and have covered most of the basics of the City of Lights, then you must see these modern marvels in Paris:

Palais de Tokyo

This is a museum of modern art and the exhibits are jaw dropping ranging from the bizarre, surreal, and whimsical. From the terrace of the museum, you will have a great view of the Eiffel Tower. They also have an excellent restaurant serving great food and drinks while soothing music plays in the background.

Musee du Quai Branly

MQB for short, this museum displays indigenous arts from Asia, Africa, Americas, and Oceania. The museum is housed in a building designed by Jean Nouvel which is famous for its cube installation for its facade. At the rooftop of Musee du Quai Branly is Les Ombres, a restaurant that has a ceiling of glass so you can enjoy the Paris skies. The view while dining is also spectacular as it is just a few blocks away from the Eiffel Tower.

Centre Pompidou

The building of this museum is an art by itself. It is the brainchild of Richard Rogers with the design follwing and inside out concept where the escalators are outside of the structure. It is home a huge collection of modern art with creations of Matisse and the great Picasso.

Historial Charles de Gaulle

This is a high tech museum meant to be an extension of the Musee de l’Armee. You will enjoy the tour of here since you will be using a device similar to an iPod which activates a voice tour as you enter the different halls. There is also a hall with multiple tv screens showing the life of General Charles de Gaulle.

The French cuisine is among the most famous food imaginable around the globe due to the creativity tapped in creating the gastronomic delights. There are several choices during your Paris holiday, you may opt to discover French haute cuisine prepared the great chefs in the top Paris restaurants, you can also explore the different regions of France and their specialties, or you can go for the avant-garde.

When you look at the traditional menu of the French cuisine, you have three parts. You have the hors d’oeuvres, the entrée, and you will be served the cheeses to finish the meal. It can get quite complex when you try to describe the French cuisine so we just came up with some tips to help you enjoy the French dishes more.

For starters or the hors d’oeuvre, you may get a serving of salad with some bacon or goat cheese. You can also choose from soupe a l’oignon or onion soup, different omelettes, and potage parisien.

The entrée will bring you to the main fish or meat dish. This will always be coming with some rice or vegetables plus all the yummy sauces to complete the dish. Commonly you will see on the menu entrecote served with white wine sauce, jambon, grilled andouilettes, duck in orange sauce, and the list goes on and on.

Cheese can also be complicated. Why? France has about 100 kinds of cheese! The best cheeses though are the Roquefort, brie, camembert, strong herb cheeses, and goat cheeses.

The desserts are heavenly as well. Choose from chocolates, creams, crepes and a lot more.

Choosing where to eat is also pretty much a challenge. You can go to a trendy restaurant praised by Paris travel guides or check out the traditional French bistrosl. There are also the brasseries or the taverns which serve the more traditional French dishes. There are also foreign restaurants in Paris which serves Asian, Middle Eastern, and other flavors from different corners of the globe. Do not forget the café’s for the French breakfast or snack.

Whether you’ve just moved in to Paris, or you’re passing by on vacation, using the Parisian metro railway can be pretty unnerving. Just looking at the map of Paris is enough to make you feel nauseous and alienated. It’s not so hard, though, once you’re introduced properly to the French capital.

First off, you need to understand how to use the railway ticket. A simple train ticket (t+) costs about 1.69 euros. This covers a one-way trip by train to the metro, by RER, by bus, or by the tramway. You can also choose connections on a single ticket (metro-metro, metro-RER, bus-bus) but not bus-RER and bus-Metro. Also, the transit shouldn’t last for more than 90 minutes from your initial validation.

Compared to London, public transportation in Paris is cheap. However, when you add the cost of all of those one-way tickets, you’ll spend a pretty hefty amount. You’ll save more money if you buy a book of 10 tickets (also called a carnet) which costs 11.60 Euros.

There are fourteen train lines in Paris. All of them are included in standard city maps sold all over Paris, with designated colors. You’ll easily find your way around Paris if you know the end station of the line you’re taking. In other words, you shouldn’t be too ashamed of using your map in public while you’re in Paris. It’s better than getting lost with poor French and a handful of coins in your pockets.

While you’re exploring the metro, make sure that you have your ticket with you until you’ve passed through the barrier exits. You may be required to pay huge fines if you lose the ticket before you reach your destination.

When you are in Paris, it is probably a correct statement to say that you are not going to have your own car, so you want to make sure that any transportation that you have allows your dog.  Taxis and cabs are normally the ones that do not want any animals in their cars, so make sure that you call and ask in advance – that way, you can be sure that you are not breaking any rules.

You also want to make sure that if you are going on the Metro or Bus that your dog, if small enough is in a lap carrier.  Larger dogs need to have a ticket with them, generally a children’s ticket.

You also want to make sure that you know where you can take your dogs.  Open air markets are places that pets are not allows and neither are restaurants or museums.

If you are going on vacation to Paris and you want to bring your pet, these next blogs are for you, for we are going to explore some of the challenges with bringing your own pets and what exactly you might need to look for.  For one, you want to make sure that wherever you are staying accepts pets.

In Paris, there are not that many places that will actually allow you to have a pet inside – especially hotel rooms, so this is certainly something that you are going to want to check on.  You also want to make sure that you do your research.

What this means is that you are researching exactly where you can take your pet – as that is going to be important as well.

A lot of people do not think that Paris has a whole lot of night life and I can tell you for sure – that, which is not the case at all.  There is a ton of night life in Paris, you just have to know exactly where to go and Flèche d’Or is definitely one of the best night clubs in the world.

This club was actually closed down for quite a time in order for it to get a full renovation, but I can tell you for sure that this particular club now is open and it is beautiful.  While the concerts might not be free, it is certainly incredible inside.

You want something different and unique?  Flèche d’Or is the club that you should visit!

One thing that you might not know about Paris is that it has a very small rail line that actually used to run a circle all around Paris and it was known as the Petite Ceinture.  This is a very, very historic place to visit and you can actually get a tour down the nature-filled beautiful railway if you just do your research.

This beautiful railway is something that has been around for quite some time now and honestly, it is a part of Paris history that a lot of people that live in Paris do not even know about.  The Petite Ceinture is beautiful and there are truly a lot of sights that you should see.

Just make sure that you do your research and I can promise that the Petite Ceinture is totally worth it!

Now that we have talked a little bit about the neighborhoods around Paris, the next step is going to be the panoramic views that Paris has.  To be quite frank, Paris is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful and it is certainly a place that you want to stop and smell the roses, especially with views like this one.

Another thing that you want to do when you are in Paris is make sure that you take a walk through all of the beautiful parks and gardens.  There are a ton of different and elegant parks and gardens and they are certainly essential whenever you are looking to walk around Paris.

Another free thing that you can do is make sure that you visit some of the many, many free museums, as this is definitely a way to save some cash!

One thing that you will notice about Paris is that it is by far one of the most expensive places to visit.  To be honest, if you do not save up a bunch of money, you might as well kiss those tickets goodbye and you might as well expect not to be able to spend a lot of money while you are there.  Paris is not for people on the budget – unless you are on a budget.

For those of you that are like me and traveling on a budget yet still want to experience everything, the next few blogs are for you.  We are going to explore Paris on a budget and make sure that everything that you do is inexpensive!

By far, one of the best things about Paris is the fact that you can walk anywhere and that you can truly get a feel for the city – that is why exploring the neighborhoods around Paris is so important!  Not only will you get to know the city, but you will absolutely fall in love with it!