With tickets for Taylor Swift going for $2000 each, we thought about how we could see her without coughing up like a lung. I found floor tickets for $600 each in Paris, so I snagged them.
Now we're in Europe,... seems like a shame to just turn around and go home... So, revisiting our Central Europe itinerary; Budapest, Vienna, Krakow, Warsaw and Berlin with a side trip to Amsterdam to get some biking in!
PARIS
Paris - 36 hours around an event
I love Paris. I speak enough of the language to ingratiate myself to the locals, it seems. And because if been to Paris a half-dozen times I've started to figure out how to get the most out of short visits
First, it doesn't matter which arrondissement you are in. It's an easy city to trans navigate, made more so by Lime Bikes, which you can rent like an Uber. The metro is easy to use, too, and a good idea, especially during high traffic times.
I love the less touristy areas, so though it's worth a trip to the Latin quarter and Mont Marte, walking or riding through La Mares and its pedestrian-only streets is buzzy and a good way to experience all of Paris’s food choices.
On that, I have an American mindset on snacks and coffee that I will try hard to get over. I love fast, fresh dining in bowls assembled in front of me, but Europe isn't there yet, ESPECIALLY Paris. They want you to sit down and order, even if it's just a coffee. On a nice day, you should, too. It's part of the Paris experience. I don't smoke, and I feel like I should make it look so appealing.
Other than the smoking, I am figuring out why they are generally more fit in appearance. It's not the gyms, which have some appeal but are not part of the landscape the way they are in the US. It's the fact that you still buy your groceries from neighborhood markets. On our street there were two butchers, two green grocers, a fish monger, a cheese vendor, two bakeries, a pasta store, flower stores too… boulangeirs with prepared meats, it means there is no processed food readily available… you have to make a special trip to the mini market for that. And you could almost figure out where you were blindfolded… the yeasty baking bread and croissant, the cheese, the roasting meat and fish mongers all with their distinctive smells.. especially the flowers.
We did two days of pretty intense walks. The second day was interspersed with rides to lighten the legs.
We landed Saturday morning and checked in. We stayed at the Le Metropolitan Tribute Hotel in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower in the 16th Arrondissement. That made a great jumping-off point as gardens and museums are just down the street. You need museums because Paris can be Gray and rainy. When it's nice out, don't go to museums. WALK !! It was too nice when we were there to go to museums. So we powered through our Jet Lag and went down to the Eiffel Tower, to the Tuilliaire Gardens, Notre Dame, Champs Elysee, and to the Arc de Triomphe.
Day two set us on a mission to pick up a friend's left-behind shopping bag in the Latin Quarter, so we rode there and walked across the bridge through La Marais, a street market, up to St George and Mont Marte before heading back to get ready to see Taylor Swift at the La Defense arena.
Getting from any arena after a concert is like another lifetime - the high is gone, and you’re just trying to get home. A cab driver wanted to charge $150 to get us back to Paris. No Ubers around. So we took the Metro. Easy. Lots of trains. We met lots of other fans. At Arc de Triomphe, we changed trains, and what ensued was a literal ant farm, walking 10 minutes underground; up, down, up again, over, turn, turn again, out into the vestibule, through another turnstile (good thing I kept the paper fare chit), down, down, over and down and up and down… I kid you not.
That, Ladies and Gentlemen, is 36 hours in Paris. Groggily, we moved on, piled our belongings into Uber, and headed to Orly.
