5 ms·

Basically it's when you realize that it's just another bullshit town. (Though personally, I still love Paris.)

superfx 12y ago
For me the biggest shock about visiting Paris the first time was that it was a "real city", and not a boutique town where everything is perfect and manicured. Although, what was most impressive about it was the fact that a real city could be so nearly perfect and manicured (at least the rich parts).
- tormeh 12y ago
  Oh, I understand you haven't seen the toilets on the subway stations then.
  - superfx 12y ago
    I did say "nearly" ;-)
- aikah 12y ago
  well the center of Paris is pretty much like that, a big tourist attraction. Unfortunatly,for tourists, a lot of great places are not in the center of Paris. Paris has great parks,especially in the south east where there is a crazy place called "Parc Floral". It's unfortunate that it is not well known to tourists. A few good places : - le Parc Floral (in Vincennes , South East,you can spend the day there you wont regret it). - le Parc de la Vilette - see Paris from the sky with "les ballons de Paris" - the garden of Versailles (dont bother visit the castle itself,it's crap,on the other hand the garden is HUGE ) - go to the Latin neighbourhood ,have a dinner there , then walk down the "quais" , a lot of people their partying. In my opinion if you want to meet new people you should go their. There are thousands of stuffs to do in Paris in Summer,and a lot of them are free.Also each first Sunday of each month, museums are free,so you cant visit the Louvres or the Pompidou center for free,some other museums are free at night,...
ejr 12y ago
It's the same feeling I had while visiting New York. Madame Tussauds and MOMA were wonderful and yes, it has some other very nice parts like Grand Central Station. I didn't feel ill enough to leave America, but I did feel let down a tad.
archagon 12y ago
I kind of had the opposite reaction. ("Paris syndrome syndrome"?) I kept hearing from tourists that Paris was a shitty town, Parisians are rude, nobody in France likes Paris, etc. But after spending a few weeks there, I really grew to love the place. The parks were lovely, the food was great and inexpensive (if you went to the markets and bakeries instead of always going out), the weather was fantastic, and it was a perfect walking city. Nobody was ever rude to me, though perhaps it's because I always approached people with my broken French before requesting to switch to English (if needed). On the other hand, I expected to love London and Barcelona, but they fell flat for me.
- vitd 12y ago
  Same experience here in Paris - everyone was super nice. We'd occasionally talk to Americans who said everyone was rude to them, and we couldn't figure out why. We found London to be quite nice, too, fwiw. (Both the people and the city.)
- gajomi 12y ago
  >the food was great and inexpensive I have never been to Paris proper, but I do enjoy French cuisine, and so was hoping that you might be able to add a quantitative dimension to this comment (as in €X for Y)
  - archagon 12y ago
    Well, I didn't go to restaurants much, so it may not qualify as "French cuisine" in your eyes. But you could get a world-class baguette[1] in almost any part of town for about a Euro, same with croissants, and produce at the markets for... well, basically a negligible amount of money. I remember getting a small bag of delicious donut peaches for about €1/kilo. The same peaches were €4/kilo at the supermarket. (As an aside, pretty much all the vine tomatoes I ran into, even the ones at the supermarket, tasted amazing, as if they were just harvested from someone's garden. The only time I had that experience in the US was when we grew our own tomatoes.) Cheese shops were abundant and had fantastic selections, though I don't remember the exact prices. (They were very reasonable.) You could buy a whole rotisserie chicken for €7 or less if you knew where to look; I got these a lot and used the bones for stock. (Tragically, I think I still prefer Costco chicken!) There was a lot of canned terrine, rillettes, pate, etc. in the specialty stores (€5 or less), and a can could last you a week. You could also get them at the butcher shop, but I never found one close to me that had them. Pastries at some of the world-class bakeries were very expensive — €7 to €10 per piece — but they literally looked like jewels and it was worth it for the occasional indulgence. I had many lunch picnics at the parks and it was fantastic every time! Oh, and obviously, there's lots of wine, but I'm not much of a wine drinker so I didn't investigate too much. Good beer was surprisingly cheap, though: I found a supermarket near me selling Chimay Blue for €2/11oz. [1]: Literally. There's an annual contest! http://parisbymouth.com/paris-top-baguettes-for-2014/ http://parisbymouth.com/paris-top-baguettes-for-2014/

For me the biggest shock about visiting Paris the first time was that it was a "real city", and not a boutique town where everything is perfect and manicured. Although, what was most impressive about it was the fact that a real city could be so nearly perfect and manicured (at least the rich parts).

tormeh 12y ago
Oh, I understand you haven't seen the toilets on the subway stations then.
- superfx 12y ago
  I did say "nearly" ;-)
aikah 12y ago
well the center of Paris is pretty much like that, a big tourist attraction. Unfortunatly,for tourists, a lot of great places are not in the center of Paris. Paris has great parks,especially in the south east where there is a crazy place called "Parc Floral". It's unfortunate that it is not well known to tourists. A few good places : - le Parc Floral (in Vincennes , South East,you can spend the day there you wont regret it). - le Parc de la Vilette - see Paris from the sky with "les ballons de Paris" - the garden of Versailles (dont bother visit the castle itself,it's crap,on the other hand the garden is HUGE ) - go to the Latin neighbourhood ,have a dinner there , then walk down the "quais" , a lot of people their partying. In my opinion if you want to meet new people you should go their. There are thousands of stuffs to do in Paris in Summer,and a lot of them are free.Also each first Sunday of each month, museums are free,so you cant visit the Louvres or the Pompidou center for free,some other museums are free at night,...

ejr 12y ago

It's the same feeling I had while visiting New York. Madame Tussauds and MOMA were wonderful and yes, it has some other very nice parts like Grand Central Station. I didn't feel ill enough to leave America, but I did feel let down a tad.

archagon 12y ago

I kind of had the opposite reaction. ("Paris syndrome syndrome"?) I kept hearing from tourists that Paris was a shitty town, Parisians are rude, nobody in France likes Paris, etc. But after spending a few weeks there, I really grew to love the place. The parks were lovely, the food was great and inexpensive (if you went to the markets and bakeries instead of always going out), the weather was fantastic, and it was a perfect walking city. Nobody was ever rude to me, though perhaps it's because I always approached people with my broken French before requesting to switch to English (if needed). On the other hand, I expected to love London and Barcelona, but they fell flat for me.

vitd 12y ago
Same experience here in Paris - everyone was super nice. We'd occasionally talk to Americans who said everyone was rude to them, and we couldn't figure out why. We found London to be quite nice, too, fwiw. (Both the people and the city.)
gajomi 12y ago
>the food was great and inexpensive I have never been to Paris proper, but I do enjoy French cuisine, and so was hoping that you might be able to add a quantitative dimension to this comment (as in €X for Y)
- archagon 12y ago
  Well, I didn't go to restaurants much, so it may not qualify as "French cuisine" in your eyes. But you could get a world-class baguette[1] in almost any part of town for about a Euro, same with croissants, and produce at the markets for... well, basically a negligible amount of money. I remember getting a small bag of delicious donut peaches for about €1/kilo. The same peaches were €4/kilo at the supermarket. (As an aside, pretty much all the vine tomatoes I ran into, even the ones at the supermarket, tasted amazing, as if they were just harvested from someone's garden. The only time I had that experience in the US was when we grew our own tomatoes.) Cheese shops were abundant and had fantastic selections, though I don't remember the exact prices. (They were very reasonable.) You could buy a whole rotisserie chicken for €7 or less if you knew where to look; I got these a lot and used the bones for stock. (Tragically, I think I still prefer Costco chicken!) There was a lot of canned terrine, rillettes, pate, etc. in the specialty stores (€5 or less), and a can could last you a week. You could also get them at the butcher shop, but I never found one close to me that had them. Pastries at some of the world-class bakeries were very expensive — €7 to €10 per piece — but they literally looked like jewels and it was worth it for the occasional indulgence. I had many lunch picnics at the parks and it was fantastic every time! Oh, and obviously, there's lots of wine, but I'm not much of a wine drinker so I didn't investigate too much. Good beer was surprisingly cheap, though: I found a supermarket near me selling Chimay Blue for €2/11oz. [1]: Literally. There's an annual contest! http://parisbymouth.com/paris-top-baguettes-for-2014/ http://parisbymouth.com/paris-top-baguettes-for-2014/