Off the Beaten Path in Paris
Written: Oct 29 '00 (Updated Jan 24 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: The Most Beautiful City in the World
Cons: None at all
The Bottom Line: If you can only visit one city in Europe, choose Paris the city of romance, literature, history, art, and epicurean delights
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| Howard_Creech's Full Review: Paris |
What is it that gives a city that “International” flavor that both identifies it as the perfect example of a specific national culture, and sets it apart as a city of the world simultaneously? In the case of Paris, it was the cordial welcome, tolerant racial and moral climate, and Bohemian atmosphere of the city of lights after the devastation, destruction, death, and deprivation of World War One.
During the years between the wars, Paris attracted artists and intellectuals fleeing fascism in Spain and Germany, Communism in Russia, racial animosity in America, and censorship everywhere. The French capital opened its bars, cafes, and heart to the survivors of the “great war”, those with “out of favor” political views, and those whose religion branded them outsiders in their native lands. These expatriates became the “lost generation” the artists, musicians, and writers who defined the Jazz Age. Art thrives where a freethinking, intelligent, cosmopolitan, well educated, and enthusiastic public supports it. Paris has always nurtured artists with genuine respect and real affection that is equaled nowhere else on earth. A city that loves art and artists, will also love fun, encourage a little naughtiness, and may even have a darker or more macabre side. Listed below are some unique destinations in the “city of lights” I hope you find them entertaining.
Artistic Paris
Paris is a city that has inspired more world class photographers than any other; Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau, Brassai, Eugene Atget, Ralph Gibson, Man Ray, Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, and Helmut Newton to name just a few. Peruse books by these photographers, and then (with camera in hand) explore a few of the photographic settings that scream “PARIS”…..Luxembourg Gardens, the Flea Markets, the quaint buildings, winding cobblestone streets, and picturesque inhabitants of Monmartre, the Trocadero at sunset, the blinding white of Sacre Coeur set against an azure blue sky, or the somber Gothic perfection of Notre Dame. All will inspire photographs that are sure to dazzle family and friends back home.
Paris is the heart and soul of the French cinema, Jean Renoir, Jean Vigo, Rene Clair, Marcel L’Herbier, the Lumiere Brothers, Louis Malle, Georges Melies, Luis Bunuel, Robert Bresson, Jean Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, and many others made French film a major genre on the world stage. Actors Jean Paul Belmondo, Gerard Depardieu, Alain Delon, Jeanne Moreau, Bridgette Bardot, Yves Montand, and Charles Boyer showed the world a charming and refreshingly French point of view.
Visit some of the Parisian locales featured in well known films. 21 rue de Berri, where Jean Seberg picked up her bundles of the Paris Edition of the New York Herald-Tribune in Breathless the film that defined the “new wave” or visit the Eiffel Tower (Louis Malle’s Zazie dans Metro) the Trocadero (seen in both Sidney Pollack’s remake of Sabrina and Laurence Kasdan’s French Kiss) and the “classic” romantic Parisian locales seen in Billy Wilder’s original Sabrina with William Holden and Audrey Hepburn, or Phillippe de Brocca’s That Man From Rio (with Jean Paul Belmondo) which uses the streets of the city as a set, the film is a loving homage to the “Keystone Kops” and the “slapstick” comedies of Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton.
La Cinematheque Francaise 7 Avenue Albert de Mun (47-04-24-24) Founded in 1936 this theatre played a major and seminal role in the emergence of the “New Wave” cinema in the late fifties and early sixties. Call for information on conferences, retrospectives, genre films, double features, and other film related programs. A must see destination for true cinephiles.
Shakespeare & Co. 37 rue de la Boucherie. Sylvia Beach’s Bookstore was the literary heart of the “Lost Generation’s” Paris. In business for more than eighty years, the shop still sells new and used books. During the twenties and thirties expatriates Hemingway, James Joyce, Henry Miller, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, and others bought (and sold) their reading material here. Mrs. Beach loaned books and money to the occasionally destitute and sometimes hungry writers, who were often too poor to buy anything. Stop in and visit, buy a couple of books, and spend an hour or two soaking up the spirit of the “lost generation”.
Fun Paris
Hotel Baltimore 88bis Avenue Kleber (44-34-54-54) This is my favorite Parisian hotel, built in 1892 and designed by Gustav Eifel, the hotel is quaint, charming, centrally located, and has the distinction of making the very best Croissants in the city. I embarrassed my wife every morning at breakfast by calling the waiters back repeatedly for more “just out of the oven” croissants and steaming Café au Lait. The croissants are served piping hot and flaky, just add butter and a spoonful of Provencal fruit preserves and they are like a little bit of heaven. The Hotel Baltimore is one of Paris’ grand hotels, without the pretensions, expense, and arrogant service of some of its more famous competitors.
Bertie’s (named for Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort) is the Hotel Baltimore’s award winning Restaurant. Strange as it may seem in Paris, a city famous for attracting Englishmen trying to escape the cuisine of Great Britain, Bertie’s is a French homage to British cooking. The restaurant serves Roast Beef, Baked Pheasant, Yorkshire Pudding, and many other typically English dishes. The food is excellent, and the service is always first rate.
Rene Lalique, French jeweler, glassmaker, silversmith, and artist whose work helped define the “art deco” movement during the twenties and thirties. 11 rue Royale (01-53-05-12-12) Featuring jewelry, glass, silver, decorative items, and fashion accessories made from Lalique’s original molds and designs. Rene Lalique was most famous for fantastic art deco nudes in a variety of materials. Lalique influenced many artists including Raymond Loewey who designed the 1953 Studebaker Starlight Coupe and the 1962 Studebaker Avanti, both hallmarks in American automotive design.
Paris has two absolutely wonderful ”Grands Magazine” (Department Stores) along Boulevard Hausmann, near the Opera House and the Café de la Paix.
Galeries Lafayette 40 Boulevard Hausmann (42-82-34-56) is housed in a magnificent nineteenth century edifice with a beautiful steel and glass dome above an Art Nouveau staircase (photographers have been known to lie on the floor at the base of the staircase, with ultra wide angle lens mounted on their cameras, to try and get the effect of the dome and the staircase together). Beautiful displays of anything and everything a tourist could possibly want. Crafts, artwork, and trinkets from France, and her former colonies. Fashions from the most famous French designers, epicurean delights, wine, and gourmet rarities from around the world.
Printemps 64 Boulevard Hausmann, (42-82-50-00) This elegant store is filled with bargains and must have treasures from around the world. This is the best place to buy souvenirs of Paris. Printemps was built in the 1870’s at the height of the Belle Epoch. Don’t miss the stained glass rotunda, Brasserie Flo, (a wonderful little tea salon) or the incredible Deli, for those impromptu romantic picnics on the Ile de la Cite. .
Naughty Paris
The “red light” district of Paris is centered in and around the Rue Pigalle, at the bottom of Monmarte hill. This neighborhood was a favorite haunt of artists Toulouse Lautrec and Alphonse Mucca at the end of the nineteenth century. The location of such legendary establishments as le Chat Noire, la Lapin Agile, and the Moulin Rouge (birthplace of the Can-Can) with lots to see, and do.
The shows and revues at World Famous clubs like the Lido, and the Crazy Horse Saloon will entertain and titillate even the most jaded of tourists.
Le Lido, Avenue Champs Elysees, (40-76-56-10) Sort of like an extravagant “Holiday on Ice” review, except the girls are nude and naughty.
La Belle Epoch, 36 rue des Petit Champs (42-96-33-33) This venerable locale has been dazzling tourists for decades. Josephine Baker danced here in the thirties.
Crazy Horse Saloon, 12 Avenue George V (47-23-32-32) This club defined “naughty” Paris in the revolutionary sixties.
Moulin Rouge, 82 Boulevard de Clichy (46-06-00-19) Immotalized in John Huston’s Moulin Rouge with Jose Ferrer as Toulouse Lautrec. Flashy, “Kitschy”, and beautifully choreographed shows. Birthplace of the “naughty” Can-Can.
Macabre Paris (Just in time for Halloween)
Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise, Boulevard de Menilmontant (43-70-70-33) The world’s most famous (and most visited) “City of the Dead” The final resting place for Oscar Wilde, Isadora Duncan, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Yves Montand, Balzac, Proust, Chopin, Delacroix, Bizet, Gertrude Stein & Alice B. Toklas (no brownies these days) and hundreds of others, whose fifteen minutes have come and gone.
Cimetiere du Montmarte, 20 Avenue Rachel (43-87-64-24) Small, quaint, romantic, and picturesque. With a beautiful view of the city from Paris’ highest hill. The final resting place of Francois Truffaut, Nijinsky, and Degas,. The favorite “final destination” for many of Paris’ artists and writers. Well worth a visit if you dig cemeteries (sorry, I couldn’t resist)
Cimetiere du Montparnasse, 3 Boulevard Edgar Quinet (44-10-86-50) Here lies Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Guy de Maupassant , Saint-Saens, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, Man Ray, and Samuel Beckett (he’ll be here, “Waiting for Godot” until hell freezes over).
Catacombs of Paris. Place Denfert-Rochereau (This was called the “Place at the Gates of Hell”) Tours (not for the squeamish or faint of heart) (43-22-47-63) Beneath the streets of Paris is another world. During the middle ages, Paris experienced a major building boom, Notre Dame Cathedral and many other medieval monuments were built with stone quarried from the limestone strata beneath the city. Eventually more than 300 kilometers (about 185 miles) of tunnels and quarries lay beneath the city. By the end of the 18th century Paris was running out of space for burials, the Church graveyards around the city were often ten to twelve feet higher than the streets. A secret plan was put into effect, the graves would be quietly emptied and the bones moved to the catacombs. It is estimated that the remains of six to seven million people (Parisians call them the “Empire of the Dead”) line a stretch of the catacombs that is almost a kilometer (2/3 mile) in length. The bones are neatly stacked with skulls usually arranged at the tops of the piles. This is the only part of the catacombs that is open to the public
A Final Note
My first visit to France was in 1968. I was hitch hiking from Germany (where I was stationed with the U. S. Army) to Spain. I spent my first night in Nancy. The following morning, on my way to Dijon, I was lucky and caught a ride with a French plumber. We tried to converse, but with little success. After a short ride we took the turn off for Neufchateau, I assumed that he would stop and let me out, since Dijon was toward the south and he was turning west. However, he kept going, talking a mile a minute. I tried several times to explain that I wanted to go to Dijon, and that we were going the wrong way, but he just said “d’accord” each time, and kept driving.
I finally gave up and settled back to see what my Gallic kidnapper had in store for me. We came to the small village of Domremy, and just outside town he turned into a drive and pulled up to a small, very old, stone house. He stopped the car, waved his arms, and said something about Jeanne D’Arc and I suddenly realized that he had brought me to the birthplace of Saint Jeanne (Joan of Arc) something of his culture that he wanted to share with probably the only American he had ever met. After we had toured the house, he bought me lunch at a small Mom & Pop café in Domremy and then drove me to Dijon. Every visit since that time (and there have been many) I have found the French people to be very much like my plumber tour guide; friendly, expansive, generous, gregarious, and helpful
This review is part of the “Favorite International City” write-off, thanks to elorraine for inviting me to participate (this is my first write-off).
Here are the other participants in the “Favorite International City” write-off, please check out their reviews.
elorraine, jo.com, ptiemann, coldsteel7, ifif1938, VeeZee, bluehawq,
nollequeen, pianomam, SusanARI, doglover, ed_grover, jpmcgurk, augustwind,
ritalee76, bigtrouble54, Teardrop..., shan1, murasaki, sheann26, diverpam,
Joubert, _Cassandra_, Chinook, samadust, Stephen_Murray,
nightridrr2000 and Jiahong
If you enjoyed reading this European Travel Review, please read my other European Travel Reviews:
France
Paris
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The Camargue
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Venice
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Volterra
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Bomarzo
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Spain
Catalonia/Catalunya
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Germany
Bavaria (Oberpfalz)
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Belgium
Bruges
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Scotland
Edinburgh
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Yes
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Howard_Creech
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Member: Howard Creech
Location: Louisville, KY
Reviews written: 334
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About Me:
Photographer/Writer fascinated by Movies, Music, Books, American Diner Food, History, "Popular Culture", and Travel.
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