Joe Schwartz was the nom de plume of Joe Schwartz, né Schwartz. A native of
Manhattan's Upper West Side, Mr Schwartz felt profoundly, and sought to express
in his writings, that the greater part of the world compared unfavorably with
Murray's Sturgeon Shop, on 89th and Broadway. In January 2000, Mr Schwartz vanished suddenly
in South East Asia, or at least doesn't call home often enough.
Introduction:
Ahh, Paris. The City of Light has been likened to many things, but none seems so apt as that one breathtaking hot thang you were dying for, trailed after, who never said yes and never said no and who, in the end, might not ever have known your name. Sometimes, strolling down a broad boulevard under the chestnuts and blue sky, sun glinting, you could swear you're in solid with Paris, while other times, backed against the window of an overpriced drafty brasserie charged tourist rates for a cheese sandwich and utterly ignored, you suspect Paris might've been stringing you along the whole time. And then you think, was I ever in? Was I ever even close?
In fact being in, "branché", is what Paris is all about. A joint can be dead and dull but still keep its rep if the right people are there, if it's branché. Most Parisians will affect total ignorance about what spot is or is not branché. They will say they do not care if they go the endroits branchés or not. They are lying. It is inveterate, and it is the result of constant anxiety over not being branché and torment over the gut-feeling that there is a whole Paris unknown to them, showing its favors only to the elect. Those who are, in fact, in, will not use the word; they will say a scene is tendance, or say nothing about it at all.
As an American, you come from a long tradition both of hitting the right spots in Paris, and of missing those spots entirely. As Jefferson was heard to remark when he arrived as ambassador to Paris, "whey's all tha' hotties at?" Well they were all with Benny Franklin, who was living the good life and smothered in French kisses, while Tom holed up with his friend Ms. Hemmings. Franklin was the most popular referre ever in Paris, more than Clint Eastwood, more even than Jerry Lewis; Paris was all about the Benjamin. on the other hand, as a foreigner, you also have license to genuinely not give a shit about what's in and just enjoy yourself (like Tom and Sally), but you should recognize that this is rogue behavior here, and running through the streets in the rain twirling an umbrella is the province of Americans alone.
Should you want to find the scene au courrant, it is essential that you meet and interact with real live French people. There is no way in without them, except a great deal of money beauty and power. While Darren, the Australian with dredlocks you met at the youth hostel might be a great guy, hooking up with him is the surest way to find yourself with that umbrella on a Wednesday night. French of all ages can be forbidding at first, God knows, but they are not the disdainful monsters of lore; crack em and your new friends will surprise you with their generosity, hospitality, and when you catch that look of unease on their faces ('is this cool enough, should we be somewhere else...?') you can smile to yourself that you know you're where you want to be.
Paris is served by the best public transport system in the world, the métro. Clean, fast, convenient, it is a city planner's Vargas Girl. You are never more than 5 minutes from a mé stop or 30 minutes to the center of town. The only hitch is that the whole system closes down between 12:30 and 1 (the time of the last train is listed on the destination sign when you enter.) After that, you are at the mercy of Paris' pricey and underrepresented taxis. on a Saturday night, free taxis don't reappear until 3am, so be prepared to burn some shoe-leather after dancing, or to wait.
The Paris arrondissement system can appear at first as intuitive as the scoring system on a dartboard (the 17th is next to the 8th is next to the 1st. Right.), but you get used to it. The arrondissements begin with the 1st on the Right (north) Bank of the Seine, smack dab in the center of town, then swing up and out, uncoiling clockwise. The city is bounded by the Peripherique, a beltway that runs up against the extremes of the double-digit arrondissements. Most of postcard Paris the Louvre, the majestic quais along the Seine, the Champs Elysées, and the Arc de Triomphe --- is in or around the 1st and 8th arrondissements. Needless to say, this is also tourist Paris, more and more a spiritual extension of Disneyland Paris, and not where you'll want to be spending most of your time. The great big clubs like Le Queen and (correctly called "boîtes" boxes in French) are still to be found around here, but the funkier neighborhoods pop up all over the city without warning, like the little clown heads in the arcade game. It's best to disregard the linear order of the arrondissements and to think, instead, in terms of the neighborhoods associated with the number ie, the 1st is the Louvre, the 4th is the Marais, the 5th the Latin Quarter, the 6th St. Germain, etc. and then to bash the fucker like the party-mallet you are.
The Place de la Concorde the broad, beautiful plaza of obelisks and belle époque lamps on the western edge of the Tuileries gardens, is the bellybutton of the city, the border between the 8th and 1st arrondissement. It is the midway point of the Voie Triumphale, the happy trail which aligns the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs Elysées and the Palais de Louvre. Cross the Seine from the Place to the Left (south) Bank, and you're in the ritzy, meticulous 7th arrondissement, a place ministries and highpriced antique shops. The massive railway-station-looking building you're beholding is the former Gare d'Orsay, now the Musée d'Orsay, which holds most of the Louvre's 19th century collection. Away and to the east you'll see the Eiffel Tower standing astride the Champs de Mars, on the edge of the 7th. Push on as far as the Boulevard Saint-Germain and follow it east and you'll pass first through the Saint Germain district in the 6th arrondissement, full of great little boutiques and cafés, and then to the Quartier Latin, the student quarter, a vestige of medieval Paris, with the greatest density of tiny movie houses, cafés, and attitude in Western Europe. Cut back across the Seine here and you'll pass over the Île de la Cité and before the bright white façade of Notre Dame cathedral.
Up and to the east along the Rue St. Antoine brings you to the Marais ("the swamp"), a hip and gorgeous neighborhood of tight streets, 16th century mansions, and artsy bars. This used to be the Jewish quarter, but now it is equally, if not more, the heart of the gay scene, and you begin to wonder what the trim, chic gay men and the nervous, bearded orthodox make of each other as they brush past. The Marais offers the rare combination of a great place to poke around during the day for instance at the Musée de Carnavaletor the Musée Picasso[see culture zoo] or at Mariage Frères and a thumping night scene, at for instance Petit Fer à Cheval or Café du Tresor. Push on east along the shop-lined, aptly named Rue de Francs Bourgeois and you'll come to the splendid Pace des Vosges, an enclosed plaza of perfect harmony, and brace yourself for the bustle of the Place de la Bastille, at the mouth of the cool 11th, just beyond.
Bastille was the song of the Paris nightscene in the Eighties and still has a mighty draw, but the glitzy crush everywhere on the Rue Faubourg Saint-Antoine, left along the Rue de Charonne and most of all in the bombastically over-hyped Rue de Lappe has the hashed-out and has-been feel of a glam band of the same era that's "still rockin'". Look out for vomiting Dutch tourists. Half a mile to the north from Bastille, along the Boulevard Richard Lenoir you come to Menilmontant, and the rue Oberkampf. For the past few years, this non-descript little rue nothing at all to see in daylight has reigned uncontested as king of the bar scene. It, too, shows signs of wear and creeping Disneyland Paris, but the Café Charbon and Mecano Bar are still the place to be seen for those of us who crave it.
Right (east) along the rue oberkampf and a left along the Boulevard de Belleville brings you to the dizzying and increasingly coolifying immigrant swirl of Belleville (now in the 20th), where West Africans, Maghrebins (North African Arabs), Sephardic Jews, Chinese, Vietnamese and ever-orientalist white Parisian hepcats mingle in a Mos Isley-Cantina atmosphere. Right on the Rue de Belleville and left on the avenue Simon Bolivar takes you to the 19th and the uncharacteristic Parc des Buttes Chaumont, perhaps Paris' most beautiful park, designed for Haussman in the English Romantic style: craggy cliffs, Greek temple follies, the Sublime, that sort of thing. The 19th and the 20th, along with the 13th way in south in the left bank (which houses the Butte aux Cailles), are havens of radicalism in this otherwise solidly conservative town, and the electorate here loyally keep the French Communist Party in business. The Paris Commune of 1871 was fueled by the disaffected here and was put down here in bloody slaughter, costing the Communards upwards of 3000 lives.
To the west in the 18th, after the lowlands of the largely Arab Barbès, are the heights of Montmartre, still a charming, quiet place to get lost, with a number of its wooden moulins (windmills) still standing, and crowned by Sacré Coeur, the painfully gaudy, meringue-like church crowning the mont, can be glimpsed from almost anywhere in Paris.
Far and away to the south, in the 13th, is the hilly, charming, no-frills haven of the Communard spirit, the Butte aux Cailles, where students and workers unite. The proletarian spirit survives in simple Bistros like Chez Gladines[see eats], where folks are likely to curse the state and sing hundred-year old revolutionary ballads; many of the bars, in fact, take their name from the words of the Commune's anthem, Le Temps de Cerises. West of that, through residential no-man's lands, lies Montparnasse, the sometime haunt of the Lost Generation and now of aging, lost American expatriates. La Coupole, the preferred brasserie of the Gertrude Stein set, and its new Salsa-pumping lower-level are worth a look, however. The west of Paris the 17th and 16th arrondissements on the right bank, the 15th on the Left you can skip with minimal loss.
Only in Paris:
You've walked along the banks of the Seine, you've marveled from the Eiffel Tower at the endless vista of hazy roofs and shimmering domes, beheld the grandeur of the Louvre and then you think naked girls in high heels and garters. That's right, you haven't done Paris unless you've been to the one and only Crazy Horse Saloon (12 Avenue George V, 8th; m° Alma-Marceau or George V; 01.47.23.32.32; www.crazy-horse.fr, 2 shows nightly, 8:30pm and 11pm, 3 shows on Saturday; 560f orchestra, 450f Mezzanine, 290f Bar) the tackiest, wantonest, most exploitative (sexiest?) "erotic revue" this side of Bangkok, now 45 years old. Go to the show as an expression of irony, or put on an ironic expression to cover-up for going to the show no matter. The red-lacquer booths and drunk American businessmen cannot draw your eyes from young ladies hand-chosen by Alain Bernardin for the perfect conical-uniformity of their breasts; take that, Rockettes.
If the Crazy Horse is what the French can do to our Radio City Christmas Pageant, Mariage Frères (30 rue du Bourg-Tibourg, le Marais 4th; m° St-Paul; 01.42.72.28.11; 10:30am-7:30pm daily, MC, V; 37-59f pot of tea) is their interpretation of teatime. With well over 200 different kind of teas, each to be served at the proper hour, at its own precise temperature, it's kind of like a perverse Grandma-sensualism behind the potted palms. The pistachio financiers are delicate, the warmed scones scrumptious, and the tea-based gelées better than you dreamed they could be. Also the place to buy that classy souvenir the folks are expecting.
Chocolat à l'ancienne: If you'd known this existed when you were 5 you would have cried the house down till you got some. It's not hot cocoa it's the apotheosis of chocolate, cooked over a low flame with whole milk, vanilla, rum and other goodies from Willy Wonka's confectionary. Only get if à l'ancienne is specified.
For the historical rubber-necker in you, head over to the Place de l'Alma (m° Alma-Marceau), where, in the traffic tunnel beneath a replica of Lady Liberty's torch, Lady Di was hounded to her death by paparazzi (graffiti on the gilded flame will tell you where exactly). Here, Paris' history is repeating itself: officials have allowed this symbol of liberty to become a de facto shrine to her Ladyship, and it is now plastered-over with hundreds of awfully begrieved notes in every language. Never before have so many cared so much for no one.
Paris to choke on
Nothing proves you got class like sneering at what others love and spoiling everyone's good time, and being snotty about something famous and adored by millions in the Queen of Cities is your ticket to haute society. You have our support in turning up your cultured sniffer at the following (feel free to add to them):
Sacré Coeur
A monstrosity. "Wedding cake architecture", the common epithet, doesn't go far enough; you can do better. Gaudy and inescapable when it was built, it now spoils much of beautiful Montmartre with its spillover, a massive funicular for those too feeble to scale the "mount", and the vendors it breeds, selling painting after painting of it, infect bedrooms in Idaho with its likeness; plus it squanders prime real estate.
A failure of a building named for one of the beautiful in the world (in Rome), reknowned for who's under the floor (Voltaire, Zola, Hugo among others) and for the mathematician Foucault hanging a pendulum from its dome; a jumble of imbalanced classical elements, built of flinty stone, and possessed of a vast, echoing and cheerless interior. The 'gods' enshrined here are the French grands hommes, so you can add hubris to its sins, too.
The stretch of the Bastille scene where the Euro set like to go, excessive neon, cheerless bouncers and heavy covers give you an inkling of the lame goings-on within. Wouldn't be caught dead there, plus it closes early (2am to a joint).
Buddha Bar
70f drinks, table after table "reserved" for someone other than you, an insulting and exoticizing "theme", beefy guys in silk turtlenecks at the bar not giving even an inch, let alone yielding a spot, we recommend it anyway [see bar scene]. Why? Well, contempt often masks some form of envy, ask Freud.
Serge Gainsbourg
We American philistines never understood why everyone took the polka soundtrack, humorless lyrics, Brigitte Bardot moans and husky, off-key voice of Serge himself so seriously in the sixties, but the added reverence and nostalgia he inspires nowadays just about makes the phenomenon intolerable. The best response to the veneration is to say you understand entirely, you feel exactly the same way about "The Loving Spoonful."
Garçon means 'boy':
The café waiter these days, monsieur, not garçon is one of the obnoxious fixtures of Paris life. Yes, he may mock you if you don't understand French. Yes, he will present your coffee with an exaggerated flourish that comes off as somehow even more insulting than just plopping it down. No, he will never come back with your change. Jean-Paul Sartre, the now largely ignored father of Existentialism, wrote many of his works in cafés [see Café de la Mairie in hanging out] got evidently just as pissed as us. In "Being and Nothingness" he used the waiter as an example of someone who vanishes so completely into his role as "waiter" that he ceases to be a person. You may think you can lube him up like we do the DMV guy back home: a wink and a smile which says, "yeah, I feel for you, crappy job." But he's not acting like that cause he hates his job; au contraire, it's cause he takes his job just a wee bit too seriously. This stickler-mentality is what many a French lefty will unflinchingly call 'petit bourgeois': the train conductor will absolutely demand proof of age if you buy the youth-rate ticket, the baker will give you a baker's singsong "Bon-jour" every time. Javert, the mean old inspector in Les Misérables, was doing the same thing when he hunted poor Jean Valjean to his death for a stolen loaf of bread; visit the Daumier room at the Musée d'Orsay [see Culture Zoo], and see if those pinched little bureaucrats don't seem to be over-playing the part. Still true, still annoying as hell.
5
things to talk to a local about:
Paris: Parisians are more than half in love with their city, and each has a stomping-ground all his or her own. It's a great way to learn more about the place and its history, and watching them go on and on is kind of endearing.
Globalization: if they're young, they're probably against mondialisation and the immanent decline of things French and domination of all things American. The fish in the barrel are multi-nationals and fast food; the unlikely hero is José Bové, the shepherd from the south who bulldozed a McDonald's in 1999.
What a racist, terrible country France is: the prejudice against Maghrebin (North African Arab) immigrants is often very severe, and the plight of the sans-papiers (illegals) is the cause célèbre of the young left. But should you dwell on French attitudes towards its colonial past too long, you'll find yourself having to concede...
What a racist, terrible country the US is: if possible, the French are even more obsessed with race in America than the Americans. Nod your head, agree, rail freely against your homeland. This will bring the conversation around to...
American movies: Best in the world by common consensus. The French don't only love Clint Eastwood, they love Westerns you've never heard of, Marilyn as a serious comédienne, Hitchcock, and probably know far, far more than you about, say, Ernst Lubitsch. Smile condescendingly, even patriotically.
BD:
No, you filthy-minded one, you, BD stands for bandes desineés, or comic books. If you keep a copy of Frank Miller's Dark Night or of The Watchmen stashed in the back of your bookshelf, here you've got nothing to be ashamed of. In France, graphic novels and comix of all types are not just the province of the Trench coat Mafia crowd; straight-laced, attractive people bury their heads in their spines, too. Maybe it all began with Tin Tin, that Belgian colonialist adventurer with the raver's do, or maybe the prestige of a genre-straddling artist like the visionary Moebius made it ok to come out of the closet, but BD are everywhere, in almost every sizable bookstore. The FNAC at the Forum Des Halles [see stuff] has a reasonable collection, but by far the store with the most PoW!! BANG!! is the Libraire d'images (84, Boulevard Saint-Germain; 5th, 01.43.25.25.68 m° Cluny-La Sorbonne; 10am-8pm mon-sat, 12pm-7pm sun.). If it is B&D, or other naughty BD you crave, the Libraire has bin after bin on the lower level. A more refined (and raunchier yes, they go hand in hand in the land of the Story of o) collection can be thumbed through at L'oeil du Silencein Montmartre (94, Rue des Martyrs; 18th, 01.42.64.45.40; 11am-11pm daily, no CC.), which has also got a great spoken word and avant-garde music selection.
A walk within a city within a city:
"Old Paris is no more (the shape of a city changes more swiftly, alas! than a man's heart)." That's what Baudelaire, the pre-emanent flâneur (stroller) of all time, wrote of his town in 1857. Flâner is a kind of foot-dragging, ponderous stroll, a trance that Paris induces in the curious and restless. But following Baudelaire's lead, we can hardly send you strolling down the lacquered-up and packaged central boulevards of Paris, picturesque as they may be; the trick is to see the city as it changes. And nowhere is it changing more swiftly, in as many different directions and under as many different influences than in the volatile, varied and exuberant north east corner of the city
Start at the tourist hub of Place de La Répbublique, where the 3rd, 11th, and 10th arrondissements collide, and take the rue du Faubourg du Temple up, heading east. You are still solidly in white Paris when you come to the Square François Lemaitre. This placid retreat from République is where the canal St. Martingoes underground, to reemerge at Bastille. Stroll up the canal aways, cross over the bridge and come back, return up Faubourg du Temple. As you continue on, you'll notice the number of Chinese take out places multiplies, complemented by halal boucheries and, increasingly, little stores selling low-rate international phonecards for the lonesome and far from home. When you come to the rue Bichat, on your left, you may want to take a quick jaunt up to the Hôpital St-Louis, built in 1607, a massive and austere structure still penned in by surrounding buildings as Nôtre Dame used to be. Return on up the rue Faubourg du Temple as it starts to climb. When it crosses the Bd. de Belleville, you've arrived in, yes, Belleville, now the 20th Arrondissement. To your right is the hugely popular local Chinese restaurant President, with its guardian lions and glitzy red and gold décor. Try to grab a seat if you're hungry, otherwise, hang a right along the Bd. de Belleville and you'll find yourself, after a few steps, deep in Arab territory. on Tuesday and Friday mornings, this wide boulevard becomes an African market, with bought stack carefully balanced on the buyers' heads. on your right there are many inviting pastry shops, where the goods are sold no-nonsense style in their baking trays, amid bare walls and blazing white light. Should you need to book a flight to Mecca, you'll pass several agencies that specialize in it. When you get to the rue Timbaud, you can turn and head down to Le Timbaud [see bar scene] should you so desire, or continue to rue oberkampf, just beyond. If you continue on the Bd. de Belleville, it will take you to Père Lachaise cemetery [see culture zoo]. or, cross the boulevard and head back in the direction from which you came. You'll notice on this side of the block several cafés with stars of David; this little stretch, between rue des Couronnes and the rue de Belleville, is a de facto Tunisian-Jewish ghetto. Should you want to venture into any of the forboding, dingy streets to the north, you'll see the little ghetto with none of the leavening charm of the Marais continues up and around the little lanes beyond. Swing a right on the rue Ramponneau, further along Bd. de Belleville, which hides La Forge, an artist and neighborhood activist squat in an old foundry, at no. 23. The same road carries you up toward the Parc de Belleville, where you can look down over where you've come from. Walk back down the slopes of the the park along the rue Julien Lacroix, make a quick right on the gully of the rue de Belleville (check out the plaque commemorating the fabled birthplace of Edith Piaf at no. 72), make a left onto the broad, winding av. Simon Bolivar. Ascend, and you'll find yourself right at the gate of the Parc des Buttes Chaumont[see neighborhoods], and in ritzy, Haussmann Paris real estate.
With
so much of Paris' population in cafés so much of the time, the question arises:
don't these people work? The
answer to which is: sort of. With a
freshly-minted law enforcing a 39-hour max. work-week, 3-course lunches, 12%
unemployment and the many government jobs pushing full-time pay for what we
vulgar capitalists would call part-time hours, Parisians have a lot of time to
dawdle (though there are indications that some of the more picturesque
café-dwellers are in fact in the paid employ of the French Tourist
Bureau). Idle hands are the
traveler's playground, however, and if you're going to get in with the locals,
the cafés and salons de thé where they
linger and try to look serious doing very little are the spots to do it. Right
off the Rue de Rivoli, with a view of the Seine and the dome of the Institut de
France across, Le Fumoir (6 rue de l'Amiral-de-Coligny, 1st;
01.42.92.00.24; m° Louvre or Louvre-Rivolie; 11am-2am,daily; AE, MC, V) is how you imagined Paris would
be like and how it isn't, actually.
With the yellow blinds pulled against the day, this long, ersatz-30's
speakeasy is peopled with just about everyone who's anyone: cigar-chomping
suited men in leather smoking chairs, tall, gesticulating stubble-cheeked
artists, and the occasional dumbfounded onlooker. The rear room holds a reading library and all-day-longers,
chowing on the pricey but more than palatable food. Just the opposite effect is had at Le Reflet (6 rue Champollion, 5th;
01.43.29.97.27; m° Cluny-La Sorbonne. 10am-2am daily. MC, V) in the Latin Quarter, a cramped
little room opposite an arthouse theatre of the same name, with cine-décor that
failed the moment it went up. It's
still one of the best places in Paris to work on your novel, have an espresso,
maybe a little tempeh-salad, flirt with the waitress, and meet the coolest and
most low-key of the University student-set.
Right on its
heels, however, is the Café de la Mairie (8 pl
St-Sulpice, 6th; 01.43.26.67.82; m° St-Sulpice or odeon; 7am-2am
Mon-Sat; daily in June. No credit cards), in the 6th arrondissement. Don't let the mustard-yellow ceiling,
naugahyde banquettes and fluorescent lighting throw you in its very
unreformed early-60s way, this is one of the local egghead faves. The glass-enclosed terrace has the best
seats for the occasional manifestation in the Place de Saint Sulpice, and the second level is that holy grail
of the Paris cafés a great non-smoking section.
By the Jardin des Plantes on the far eastern end of the Latin Quarter is the
big exotic draw for the student set, the tea room at La Mosquée de
Paris (39 rue Géoffrroy-St-Hillaire, 5th, Tel.
01.43.31.38.20 m° Censier-Daubenton,
9am-Midnight daily MC, V) is hypercool (pronounced: ee-pehr-kul). The waitstaff gets a little hyper here,
and snappy, too, and you can't blame them: there is something almost blasphemous about this funky student crush at the low copper
tables, downing delicious spiced-almond tea and baklawa under low-hung brass
lamps. Here's the perfect place to
acquaint yourself with the one line of Baudelaire's everyone in town seems to
deploy: "calme, luxe et volopté".
If there's not quite enough calme there for you, hoof it past the Jardin des Plantes
back over to the Institut du Monde Arabe [see culture zoo], where a
less scenesy but just just as plush salon on the ground floor
serves up equally as good spiced tea and pastries.
Right next to the Musée Picasso [see culture zoo], a little north of the center of the Marais, the
kitschy portraits on the
wood-panelled-walls of L'Apparement Café
(18 rue des Coutures-St-Gervais, 3rd; 01.48.87.12.22; m° Filles de
Calvaire or St. Sebastien-Froissart; Noon-2am, Mon-Fri; 4pm-2am Sat;
12.30pm-midnight Sun; MC, V) give the place a homey feel, as do the dinner-table and board games in
the rear. But L'Apparement's
mongrol character is it a lounge? a café? A home? seems to unnerve the neat and tidy Art Dealer crowd;
you may feel the urge to explain that one reclines on a sofa, usually sans cellphone.
The narrow, moody Canal St.
Martin, with its stunted trees, tall green
locks, high pedestrian bridges and quiet, is becoming a refuge for cool
Parisians fed-up with cool hunting, and those stalking them. Before elbowing your way into L'Atmosphère [see
live music scene] stop at Chez Prune (74 quai de Valmay, 10th
01.42.41.30.47 m° Republique, 7:30am-2am Mon-Sat, 10am-2am Sunday, no Credit
Cards), a funky
corner café-bar with reggae in the air, and check out the beautiful, happy
inhabitants in their still-untrammelled environment; and then trammel.
The upper reaches of the canal
widen into the Basin de la Villette in the 19th; here, a converted boathouse
right on the wide cobblestone quay is now a small, ultra-modern multiplex
theatre owned by the arthouse chain Mk2.
Stop into the restaurant inside, the Rendez-vous des Quais (10
quai de la Seine, 19th; 01.40.37.02.81 m° Stalingrad; winter 11:30am-1am
daily, summer 10:30am-2am daily; AE,MC,V) with its awkward, sloping cement roof, low lights and cozy
atmosphere, have a frothy café crème while you enjoy the view. Skip the food, though.
In autumn and winter, Paris gets
grey, dreary and a little on edge, and people busily withdraw into their
newspapers, cafés and chocolats. In summer, however, you should have no
trouble finding spots to do nothing in and locals to not do it with; nearly
every café puts out tables, and most every plaza or park is full with the most
jaw-dropping layabouts you've seen.
Primest spot to spark up a conversation is either the Place de la Sorbonne, either on the Place
itself or in one of the many cigarette-smoke clogged cafés with their
carrel-like rear mono-booths, or immediately inside the Sorbonne (Sorbonne III
and IV), in the courtyard (m°
Cluny-La Sorbonne). The gorgeous Place des Vosges
(m° Bastille or St-Paul), until
recently a solemn, residential cloister, is where the cool and beautiful from
the Maraisnow come to warm
themselves and spread the wealth.
on a windswept day, throw on a flapping trench coat and embrace your amour
in the Tuilleries Gardens (m° Concorde, Tuilleries or
Palais-Royal) it's what they were made
for. Though it's a little nasty,
what with the fumes from the highway and that foam-and-brown-city-river-water
flushing by, the banks of the Seine
are always elbow-to-elbow with Frogs in their silly little speedos in the
warmer months. A less Coney Island
feel is found along the shady banks of the up and coming St. Martin
Canalin the 10th
and 19th arrondissements.
Pick-up ultimate games happen on the grass of the Bois de Vincennes,
just on the eastern edge of town (m° Château-Vincennes).
Women, as always, will have an easier time of the meeting-game than men;
in the event of a Pépé le Peu situation, "laisse-moi tranquille"
(leave me alone) is the phrase to utter to your randy drageur (pickup artist).
You
can't come to Paris and skip the museums; visiting the Louvre at
least is a duty akin to getting blitzed on St. Patty's, or cursing at
taxi-drivers in New York. But as
if recognizing that the clogged, stodgy museums of old and their overwhelming
collections had made this duty into somewhat of a chore, Paris has revamped the
old venerables over the past decade or so, and learned the importance of not
just throwing everything it's got which is, pretty much, everything -- at you
at once. The Louvre's interior has
been completely redone, to great effect, and most of her nineteenth-century
collections has been moved across the river to the airy Musée d'Orsay. The key to these behemoths is small
bites. Two hours will do you,
don't feel you have to down the whole thing. Moreover, if you've come for the Van Gogh self-portraits or
Whistler's Mother (in the d'Orsay) or the Mona Lisa and Winged Victory (in the
Louvre), be prepared to share the 10 square feet before them with no less than
3 million others. Both museums
hold treasures you might not have known on largely neglected wall space, and
masterpieces with less name-recognition are often stashed in
side-galleries. If you still feel
enervated by the biggies, a number of smaller or single-themed museums the Musée
Picasso, the Musée de Cluny inspire rather than
exhaust. Musée
du Louvre (99 rue de Rivoli 1st ; 01.40.20.50.50;
m° Palais-Royal or Louvre-Rivoli, Mon, Thur-Sun 9am-6pm, Wed 9am-9:45pm
Closed Tues 45f; after 3pm 26f.) Divided
into 3 wings Richelieu, Sully and Denon; a tenth of each will take you several
hours. To avoid the
it's-too-much-the-world-is-closing-in-on-me freakout, it's best to decide
beforehand what you're going to see.
Some ignored prizes are a
Van Eyck Madonna and Child in the last room of Northern Painting (in
Richelieu), and a Hellenistic crouching Venus in the Greek Antiquities (in
Denon). Go after 3 for the
cut-rate ticket and you'll still have plenty of time. Musée
d'Orsay (1 rue de
Bellechasse, 7th ; 01.40.49.48.14; m° Solférino; Tues, Wed, Fri 10am-6pm; Thurs 10am-9:45pm Thurs; 9am-6pm
Sun, Closed Mon; 40f; 30f 18-25
and on Sunday, free under 18) Same
deal as in the Louvre: plenty to see, many to dodge. The impressionists and the post-Impressionists are all on
the top level, and so are the mobs with their audio-phones. off the main concourse on the ground
floor, and especially off the sculpture deck on the mezzanine are many smaller
galleries of greats like Daumier and Courbet and wackos the curators didn't
know what to do with. Drink deep,
then take a deep breath and enter the fray before the Monets, Van Goghs,
Toulouse-Lautrecs, Caillebottes.
Don't miss the art nouveau wooden chamber in the rear. The Eiffel Tower (Champ de Mars, 7th;
01.44.11.23.45, 01.44.11.23.23, m°: Bir-Hakeim www.paris.org/Monuments/Eiffel;
Jan- Jun 12 9am to 11pm; June 13-Aug 9am-midnight; Sept-Dec 9am-11pm; 1st
level 20f, 11f 4-12, 2nd level 42f; 21f 4-12; top 59f; 30f
4-12 AE. MC, V.) Decidedly
the most famous structure on earth, the jury's still out on whether this
massive erection is in good taste or not.
The mighty anchorage of the base is perhaps the most impressive aspect. More a showpiece of materials and
engineering to come that a functional building -- it was built to be torn down ten years after construction
, the Tower foretold the rise of steel-framed construction in the 20th
century. The Jules Verne
retro-restaurant on the second level is worth a gander but not a bite, and the
views from the observation deck can't be beat. No tossing of monogrammed berets permitted, Rusty. Musée
Carnavalet (23
rue de Sévigné, 3rd 01.42.72.21.13 m° St-Paul, tues-sun
10am-5:40pm, closed mon; 27f; 18-25 and students 14f50; AE, MC, V.) Housed
in a creaky and beautiful old hotel particulier in the center of the Marais, this is one of the best places to orient
yourself to the feel of French
history. Paintings and artifacts
tell the story of the periodic demoltion and reconstruction of the city over the
past 500 years, from the Catholic riots of the 16th century, to the
Revolution, to the Commune, while many of the salons that stood in the way of Haussmann's wrecking ball
are displayed in all their gaudiness.
Musée
des Arts d'Afrique et d'oceanie (293 av. Daumesnil, 12th ;
01.44.74.84.80; m° Porte Dorée
Mon, Wed-Fri 10am-5:20pm, Sat and Sun 10am-5:50pm, closed Tues; 30f, 20f
18-25 and on Sunday, free under 18) Not
the most PC of museums, okay, but this storehouse of imperialist treasure is
probably one of the coolest.
Stored in this unfrequented corner of the city, Vanuatan slit-gongs,
West African masks and live crocs a-snappin' in the basement (just like in your
nightmares) will wow you, albeit with a guilty conscience. Saïd would have a field day with the
deco building alone. Musée
de Cluny (6 pl.
Paul-Painlevé, 5th 01.53.73.78.00; m° Cluny-La Sorbonne Mon, Wed-Sun 9:15am-5:45pm, closed Tues
28f, 18f 18-25 and on Sunday, free under 18. No credit cards) An
old cloister itself occupying the ruins of a Roman bath have in turn been
converted into a place of cool serenity.
Its splendid medieval collection is out-graced by the central, conical
chamber that houses the radiant five tapestries of The Lady and the Unicorn, an allegory of the 5 senses. Between the oh-so-delicate fondling
fingers of the lady, and the collar around the neck of her pet chimp, the
tapestry depicting touch gives a whole new meaning to "would you like to touch
my monkey?" Musée
Picasso (Hotel Salé, 5 rue de Thorigny, 3rd 01.42.71.25.21;
m° Chemin-Vert; Mon, Wed-Sun
9:30am-5:30pm, closed Tues. 30f; 20f 18-25 and on Sunday, free under 18) The
master's progress from hard-toiling figurative nobody (until he was exactly 15)
to experimental superstar is housed here in one of the best art museums in
town. If you thought Pablo was all
about Cubism, or blue depressed people, or or horny minotaurs, or, well, all
about any one thing, you'll change your tune once you've been exposed to the
whole sweep of his staggering output.
If knocked off your feet you can always get your balance back while you
fathom Genius next door at L'Apparement Café [see hanging out]. Unlike
the opera Bastille or the Louvre Pyramid, the modern structure of l'Institut
du Monde Arabe (1 rue des Fossés-St-Bernard, 5th; 01.40.51.39.53;
m° Jussieu; 10am-6pm Tue-Sun,
Closed Mon, May 1. Museum entrance, 25f; 20f 18-25s, students, over 60
(30F and 25F during exhibitions); free under 18; (shop and bookshop) AE,, MC,
V) is an uncontested
success, a wedge shaped, ultra modern metal and glass library-cum-gallery-cum-salon
de thé-cum-cultural emblem, the whole
southern façade is a reinterpretation of a traditional Arab lattice-work
screen, with light-responsive diaphragms that let through just the right amount
of dappled light; good permanent galleries and great traveling shows, pleasant
tea room, great bookshop. Cimetière du Pere-Lachaise (bd. de
Menilmontant, 20th; m° Pere Lachaise, 8am to 6pm, Mon-Fri, 8:30am-6pm
Saturday; 9am-6pm Sun; Free admission, Free map at newsstand) The ultimate shrine to the dead white male
Balzac, the dead white gay male Proust, dead white female George Sandalone,
the dead white gay woman Gertrude Stein, side by side with Alice B.
Toklas. And for those not represented, it holds a relic of the
revolution: the Mur des Fédérés, where over a hundred communards were gunned
down in 1871, demolishing (or just delaying?) the revolution. Another
interesting cemetery, though not for gold-diggers, is the cimitière de
Montmartre (m° Blanche, same hours), with an elevated Jewish
section and many dates terminating in 1944, the year of the deportations. Notre Dame Cathedral (Pl.
du Parvis Notre Dame, 4th; 01.42.34.56.10 m° Cité; 8am-6:45pm daily, free;
towers: 10am-4:30pm daily; 35f, 25f 12-25, free under 12, no credit cards) The scaffolding has just come off the façade after an
elaborate "photonic disencrustation." The verdict? The old dame's
white and shiny, just like in her youth, but she looks a little shorter and
more commonplace after the dye-job.
The tympanum still boasts perhaps the most impressive last judgment ever
sculpted. That
the French eat so well and stay so thin and hale is the constant gripe of the
non-French world. The New York
Times has even taken to publishing "studies" about the salutary effect of wine
to account for the low incidence of obesity and heart-disease in a country
known for its heavy sauces and cheeses.
Balderdash, say we. Hate
the French all you want, they know something about how to eat. Take a lesson from them, and put aside
if you can any imported habits, be they the quest for skim milk, a preference
for "grazing" or any other form of gastronomic xenophobia; you'll find it's
cheaper to eat meaning several courses with wine and coffee than not, and
you may even feel trim and well in the end. Breakfast
out is difficult to find. Your
hostel or hotel will probably serve a "continental" breakfast coffee, orange
juice and half a baguette with jam.
Many cafés offer cheap boiled eggs early (pre 8am), but after that it's
a café crème and a croissant (or a yummy pain au chocolat), often consumed while standing at the corner café,
or grabbed on the run from the local boulangerie (bakery).
Lunch is usually a sit-down, leisurely affair with at least 2
courses. Most businesses close for
an hour or more at 1pm, so the staff can déjune properly.
After that, no noshing till dinner, eaten late-ish. Depending on the place, it's usually
wise to go in for one menu (what
we call a prix fixe, not to be
confused with la carte, our
'menu') or another. You usually
have the option of a 3-course meal, entrée (appetizer), plât
(entrée) and dessert, with wine
and coffee included, or a cheaper 2-course menu, with a choice of entrée and plât,
or plât and dessert, plus wine and coffee. Tax and tip are included, so the price you see is the price
you'll pay. The French menu system is generally adopted even by non-French
restaurants as well.This makes even the splurge restaurants far more reasonable
than an upscale joint back home.
There is no French word for "heaping": the helpings served are smaller
than you'd find stateside and are expected to be consumed in full. The waitstaff will think you want
mineral water if you just ask for it; perfectly potable tap water is brought
when you order "un carafe d'eau." You
can and people do come to Paris to do nothing but eat. There are fat books devoted only to
eating in Paris. Timeout publishes
an updated Eating & Drinking guide yearly. There are of course great Chinese and Thai restaurants
(particularly in the Chinatown in the13th arrondissement) and
Turkish shawarma stands here, and whatever other cuisine you could
imagine. The selection below is cuisine
typique that is, regional French and old,
established immigrant cuisine: the sumptuous, the old reliables, the underrated
and the various. If you're dying
for a quick bite, the falafel stands along the rue des Rossiers in the Marais
is dotted with them side by side, each personally sampled by the
author and each as good as the next.
The same is true for the crepe stands everywhere, with uniform prices
and quality even outside the Louvre itself. Cheap: You may have to line up for Polidor (41 rue Monsieur-le-Prince, 6th; m° Odéon 01.43.26.95.34
Mon-Sat Noon-2:30pm, 7pm-12:30am,
Sun until 11; No credit cards. 60-80f plat) a
popular, charming, century-old bouillon (, Brothhouse, worker's
dining hall) in the Latin Quarter.
once you're seated here, choose what you want and snap out your order
quick-like, and don't ask what's in what and can you get a... else you'll get
an earful from the bouillon-Nazi-waitresses. Excellent down home cooking, like
tender veal in crème fraiche, or magret de canard, served in a brusque but
warm-hearted atmosphere, beside chatty grad student types. In
the heart of the Butte aux Cailles, is
the teeny, rugged bistro Chez Gladines 30 rue de Cinq Diamants, 13th
; m° Corvisart or Place
d'Italie 01.45.80.70.10;
Daily Noon-3pm,
7pm-midnight; Closed
August, No credit cards.
50-90f plat)
with peanut shells on the floor, big clay-bowl-fulls of country salads, and south western and
basque dishes like canard à la basquaise
are tossed over the head of that happy couple sharing the bench with you. Have a beer, put your elbows on the
oil-cloth and chow with abandon. Doable: If you've wandered the streets of
Montmartre, but'll be damned if you'll eat with the hordes around Sacré Coeur,
you're in luck: wander all the way around the eastern, sheer slope of the mount
along the rue Ronsard, past the little pagan grottoes cut into the rock, and
you'll arrive at L'Eté en Pente Douce(23
rue Muller, 18th; 01.42.64.02.67; m° Château-Rouge; noon-midnight
daily; plat 60-80f, MC, V) Here you can lunch on
light, simple salads or smoked fish, or one of the fresh mushroom specialities
of the proprietor, and linger for hours over a good pot of tea on a sunny,
crowded terrace at the foot of the mount.
Little-known to tourists but a favorite of the locals, down here you get
all the charm of Montmartre without a glimmer of a single gaudy spire of the
cathedral. Just north of the Marais, charming Chez
omar 47 rue de Bretagne, 3rd;
m° Arts et Métiers 01.42.72.36.26 Mon-Sat
Noon-2:45pm-midnight; Sun 7pm-Midnight;
60-100f plat offers simple,
reasonable couscous dishes with anything but a simple crowd. By 9pm every table of this unassuming,
ragged old brasserie is packed with glitterati and artists from the nearby
galleries. Show up early and then
get kicked out by omar himself when the crush starts, once you've stuffed
yourself on chicken or lamb couscous and flaky merguez sausage, and drunk your
fill of the perfumed Algerian-vintage wine. Splurge If
you've grabbed a cheese sandwich at something that said 'brasserie' on the front
window, you have been cruelly mislead; just off the place de la Bastille, Bofinger
(5-7 rue de la Bastille, 11th; 01.42.72.87.82 m° Bastille Mon-Fri Noon-3pm, 6:30pm-1am; Sat and Sun
Noon-1am 80-150f plat, 119f
Weekday Lunch Menu, 179f Dinner Menu all weekl AE, MC, V.) is the real thing, with rich dark wood
panelling, brass banisters, and serious, attentive waiters in black-tie,
standing hands clasped. Built in
1864, this was the first, and remains one of the most magnificent examples of
the brasserie, the Alsatian-style restaurant serving choucroute (saurkraut dishes) that gained popularity after the
Franco-Prussian war. Come for a late night dinner, 11ish and linger either in
the bright, busy main dining room under a high stained-glass dome, or on the 1er
êtage (second floor) in quiet rooms with
magnificent in-laid wood tableaux. The 179f menu is a steal (try the île flottant (floating island) for desert), and the choucroute, like the jarret du porc, are served with a heaping plate of buttery saurkraut. Be sure and reserve on the
weekends. A
desolate side street full of tailors and Chinese takeout spots hides the
extraordinary, almost trop 404 (69
rue de Gravelliers, 3rd ; m° Arts et Métiers; 01.42.74.57.81
Mon.-Fri Noon-2:30pm, 8pm-midnight; Sat and Sun Noon-4pm (brunch);
8pm-midnight; closed 2 wks in
Aug. AE, MC, V. 80-120f plat) where the
Arabic inscriptions in the high stone wall, the floor cushions and low tables,
the weepy Arab ballads and the open stove transport you to a very comfy, if
pricey corner of the Sahara. The
unusual, spicy tagines (clay-pot stews) cooked with olives or dried fruits are
a little much at 110f, but you've got to see the dare-me-not-to-scald-you
long-distance tea pour-off at the end of the meal. The mint-almond tea's pretty great, too. Not
far from 404 in the third is another gem, if not so glittery. Au Bascou (38 rue Réaumur, 3rd;
m° Arts et Métiers
01.42.72.69.25 Mon-Fri Noon-2,
8-1030; Sat 8-10:30 closed Sun, Aug 24, Dec 2 - Jan AE, MC, V 90-130f plat) offers the salty, earthy and rich cuisine of that
independent-minded bunch in a quiet bistro setting that belies the excellent
food and service. Robust,
glad-handing proprietor Jean-Guy Loustau personally oversees the presentation
of dishes such as chipiron baby squid and rice over crisp
grilled spinach, or the axoa de veau, a
slow-cooked lamb stew.
Eccentricities come out quietly M. Loustau's handlebar moustache gives
the first hint, then his transplanted velvet movie seats, then the free Basque
liqueurs he keeps pushing on you... With so much happening all at once, and new venues gaining
props with the seasons, listings and papers are indispensable. The best all-around listings are in
l'officiel des Spectacles, a weekly that comes out every Wednesday, and can be
had at any newsstand for 2f. The
list is exhaustive, better and cheaper than its competitor Pariscope, which has
the plus, however, of Timeout weekly listings. If you read French, even just a smattering, the monthly, funky
mag Nova (10f) has a "hot guide" with day-by-day cool picks; if you're finding
that your highschool French leaves you dumbfounded by anything out of the mouth
of someone your age or younger, the "hot guide" has a regular "fast forward"
list of the words of the month. In
English, Timeout recently started putting out free quarterlies, with a sparer
list of events, special features, and decently cool venues. Each has also got a map in the
back. The free English monthly
FUSAC hasn't got much of anything except listings for apartment shares and
short-term availabilities [see crashing];
same goes for its geeky competition, Paris Voice. Both can be found just about everywhere, or in front of
Shakespeare & Co. [see pages]
if you have no luck. Web-wise, Paris
is at least 5 years behind the states, and there is, sadly, no equivalent to
our beloved Citysearch. Timeout's
website ( www.timeout.com/paris ) is slim pickin's indeed and basically a
teaser for its guidebook. The
official tourist site, www.paris.org, is
functional if you want to check exhibition times or dates, but it's far simpler
to buy one of the weeklies above than to go on line. The
bar is the site of Paris nightlife; it is here that Parisians feel most at
home, mugging under the dim lights, dangling Gauloises and Marlboros from their
puckered-lips and foppish fingers, and frightening their little dogs. Clubkids and music lovers there are
plenty as everywhere, but the bar allows the Parisians to show off what they've
got going on, and hide away what they don't (like rhythm [see club scene]). The
bar's centrality has bred a huge assortment to choose from, from the Mega-bar
complexes like Buddha Barand Boca
Chica, to age-old student
holes-in-the-wall like Le Piano Vache, to decadent converted dance halls or strip clubs like Café Charbon
or Folies Pigalle[see club
scene], and there are several distinct
scenes to choose from. Dress code
varies, but is generally more formal than the states, and you can't go wrong
with black; the bucket-jeans with dragging, shredded cuffs and sneaks (except
if they're a bright pair of New Balance) probably won't wash. Still
hip after all these years, rue Oberkampf,
the main drag of Menilmontant, is lined with bar after bar, stretching up and
toward Belleville. Monday and
Tuesdays are slow here, but after that it can feel like the whole youth of
Paris tries to squeeze their way into this narrow little lane. The biggest and baddest of the lot here
are Café Charbonand Mecano
Bar, only a few buildings apart from each
other definitely jammed full of the coolest and drop-deadest of the 18-22
set. Café Charbon (109 rue Oberkampf, 11th
; 01.43.57.55.13; m° Parmentier or Ménilmontant; 9am-2am daily. MC, V) Further
up along oberkampf, just after it crosses the roundabout of Boulevardard de
Belleville and down a sneaky side-street to the right is the rue de Panoyaux, the chillest corner of Menilmontant. Here you'll find the solid, spacious
and far calmer Lou Pascalou, 14 rue des Panoyaux, 20th;
01.46.36.78.10; m° Ménilmontant; 9am-2am daily; MC, V) a local fave and the place to come
if you're actually interested in preserving your vocal cords, and not just pretending to comprehend Jean-Claude's responses to your
questions. With
the all the disorienting scenesiness of oberkampf, it can be shocking to
realize you're a hop, skip and a stagger away from Belleville and its distinctly un-French buzz. Except for the occasional nose-ringed
student here to come face to face with l'Autre, Belleville, beginning, really, on the next
street parallel to oberkampf, the rue Timbaud is a great place to wander aimlessly, but can
be forbidding. If you have the
courage, grab a coffee and a pastry with the exclusively Arab, male and middle
aged crowd at anyone of the coffee bars along the Boulevard de Belleville (which might not be the best of
ideas for a young woman, but it's up to you). Though not the mecca of integration many tout it to be,
Belleville does boast more genuine mingling than elsewhere in Paris. Try the Le Timbaud (99,
rue, Jean-Pierre Timbaud, 11th; 01.49.23.08.96; m° Couronnes; 7:30am-1am
daily, 6pm-6am during Ramadan; AE, MC, V) for
just such a place, absolutely blasting West African tunes to its far from
exclusively arab clientele, featuring live Jazz, African or Rai after Ramadan,
and appropriately skeptical about (but nonetheless welcoming to) you. Deep in the 13th, among the workers
of the world, the Butte Aux Cailles is coming into its own, and is
where to get the cheapest beers and minimal of English. After a meal at Chez Gladines [see eats], run around to the corner to
Le Merle
Moqueur (11 rue de la Butte-aux-Cailles, 13th;
01.45.65.12.43; m° Corvisart or Place d'Italie; 5pm-2am daily; AE, DC, MC,
V), where the bamboo
plants choke on smoke and the French pop is played unabashedly; your new friends will tell you when to
show up at the anti-Chirac rally. Students who can't bother to shave
and put on tie still go out in the Latin quarter, and the student dive is Le Piano Vache
(8 rue Laplace, 5th; 01.46.33.75.03; m° Maubert-Mutualité; noon-2am Mon-Fri; 9pm-2am Sat,
Sun. MC, V), on an medieval street on the
northern slope of the Pantheon.
Dingy and wonderful, with plastered walls charred as an icon, A DJ spins
Wednesday through the weekend, but Friday American Rock night -- somehow feels
the most French. And if you're feeling homesick, run
around to the Violon Dingue (46, rue de la Montagne Sainte Genevieve, 5th;
No phone; m°: Maubert-Mutualite; Sun-Thurs 6pm-1:30am, 8pm to 3:30am
Sat. and Sun, Lower level, 4:30pm to 3:30am Fri and Sat; V, MC) ,
designed and run by a Minnesotta local and ex-Navy man, where you can NFL
whenever on season, get blitzed beneath old tin coors signs and sports
pennants, to the sweet sounds of James Brown on the juke. The Violon is a perfectly replica of
that college bar you either went to everynight or absolutely refused to step
foot in, except for the converted wine cellar in the basement and hey (*hick*) what's that funny language you guys're
speakin... On the western edge of the Latin
Quarter café Oz, 5th ; (184 rue St-Jacques, 5th;
01.43.54.30.48; RER Luxembourg, m° Cluny-La Sorbonne; 4pm-2am daily. MC, V) on a main street , is where to get your
Australian-fix if the qupotient was too low at the hostel. Travel yarns, sleepy 1am chess games
and Fosters is what you'll 'ave 'ere, mate. The Marais can have a sultry, New orleans feel
at night, and a number of slick venues and american-style bars have opened up
along the gay old-timers. The
truly petit Petit Fer à Cheval (30 rue
Vieille-du-Temple, 4th; 01.42.72.47.47; m° St-Paul. 9am-2am
Mon-Fri; 9am-2am Sat, Sun. MC, V) with its tin ceiling, zinc bar and
old Paris charm is one of the best bars in the area, if you can get in. Were the Talented Tom Ripley to seduce
you and bed you, kill you and steal your identity, he'd put the make on
here. Just around the corner in
wide, cobbled cul de
sac is the very
young and very cool Café du Tresor (5 rue du Tresor, 4th ; 01.43.26.62.93 ; m° St-Paul,
2 :30pm-2am daily ; MC,
V)with a
stocking-capped DJ spinning the latest house grooves in his little booth, and
sultry jailbait on every divan. An
entirely different set is found at Buddha Bar (8, rue Boissy d'Anglas, 8th; 01.53.05.90.00;
m° Concorde; 6pm-2am daily AE, V, MC) the transcendent shrine of the BCBGers (bon chic bons
gens), that unique creation of modern French society: yuppies with ascots. Though not as exclusive, of course, as
the clubs privées many of this
crowd belong to, Buddha Bar is where the Donald might decline shaking hands
with Lenny Kravitz or his entourage.
Dominated by a huge Golden Buddha, and filled with strains of sitars,
double violins and other signals that you're firmly in France, this massive
split leveled, grotto-like and hugely pricey restaurant/bar in the 8th
still has to be visited at least
once. And
then, of course there's the Bastille scene,
where you'll wind up despite yourself and where a goodtime can still be had
with selective vision. The spawn
of the European Union still congregate here and subject themselves to the
unjustifiably snooty whims of the door along the rue Faubourg-St. Antione at La
Fabrique, SanZSanS, Barrio Latino, and the whole sleazy stretch of the Rue de Lappe
[see Paris to choke on]. If you must, you might as well at Boca
Chica (58 rue de Charonne, 11th; 01.43.57.93.13; m°
Ledru-Rollin. 11am-2am daily. AE, MC, V) where the "latino" pretensions of the Bastille scene are
brought to fever pitch and the vivacity, genuine fun-lovingness and tasty tapas
make you feel hotta' than they do in Granada. Low tables, painfully loud Cesaria Evora remixes and burnt
umber are the call of the hour. Down
and out: Hemingway,
when he was here, strolled through Jardin de Luxemboug (6th,RER
Luxembourg)
snatching up pigeons and wringing their necks for dinner. But that was Ernest for you. What should you do without a sou? First of all, find a place to
crash. The only nest in town that
won't charge a dime is the upstairs at Shakespeare & Co (see pages), where with a little charm and any broke genius can get himself a
foam mattress for the night surrounded by books and an incredible view of Notre
Dame [see culture
zoo]; you'll have to sell your
services, however, whatever you claim them to be: a poem, a drawing, a tune, a
oh, you naughty boy!
At said bookstore are yellowed and broken-spined English books for 2 or
3 francs; sitting on the banks of the Seine, the roof of the l'Institut du Monde Arabe [see culture zoo] overlooking the city, the Parc des
Buttes Chaumont (19th,
m° Buttes-Chaumont),
The Place des Vosges (4th, m° St-Paul) or in the Tuilleries
Gardens (1st, m° Tuilleries) it can feel that Paris is best viewed from an empty
pocket. All
the churches in town are free: St. Eustache (1st, m° Les
Halles) at Les Halles
still stands in its unrenovated glory, and the three tiered art nouveau gallery
of the synagogueon the rue
Pavée, in the Marais (m° St-Paul) , designed by Hector Guimard
himself, is definitely worth a look (but be sure to cover your head!). Many of the larger museums are free the
first Sunday of the month. Any and
every café will let you linger over a café, which at most will cost you 18f,
and the sips of ambiance are absolutely free. Club scene
The
Paris club boîte is a bit of an
unnatural graft onto Paris' civilized nighttime langueur, and this can make some of its excesses the
scoping, the over-the-top grind-ing, and the leaping up and down on the
cushions a little embarrassing to witness. The best dancers here are inevitably not nationals, but the
Americans, Spaniards and boogying huddled masses who flock here en
masse. Unless you are gorgeous, famous, or know someone (and, hey,
don't sell yourself short), it can be hard to get into the big, branché
clubs along the Champs Elysées
or elsewhere. There is no list to
lie and say you were left off of, and smoothtalking the bouncers is certainly
harder in French. Most branché nighthawks receive private invitations to parties in
the mail in lieu of being put down on a list. If you're dying to get into one of these joints, getting
your mits on one of those invites is the best way; the velvet rope parts the
minute they check it out. The
king of these boîtes branchés is Les
Bains (7, rue du Bourg-l'Abbé, 3rd; 01.48.87.01.80;
m° Réaumur Sébastopol; 11.30pm-5am daily; Restaurant 8.30pm-1am. Cover 100F.
Drinks 70F. AE, MC, V) with
an upstairs restaurant that doubles as a roped-off VIP room (read: models and
those who can bed 'em, like celebs).
The fifty-somethings prowlers stand around looking scared as those only
slightly less beautiful than their sisters upstairs (or else still unsigned)
cavort before their eyes downstairs.
A former bathhouse, the intermittent open pools function largely as ashtrays
these days. Wed's glam parade,
when the glam beats are laid down is the night to come, otherwise it's
generally house. If Les Bains is King, God save Le Queen (102,
avenue des Champs Elysées, 8th; 01.53.89.08.90; m° Charles de
Gaulle étoile, George V, Franklin Roosevelt; Daily 11:30 to dawn; Cover 100F
Fri, Sat, 50f Mon, Free Tues-Thurs; exclusively gay on Thurs, Sat, and Sun; V,
MC, AE), where the
most outrageous element of the Paris gay scene taught its straight brothers and
sisters to get down. Still
ostensibly a queer club (meaning women might be scrutinized at the door longer
than they're used to), this is where the big wet kiss Paris has decided to
bestow on its queer demimonde is sloppiest. Huge, with go go dancers, nets 6 foot transsexuals and
ear-shattering techno mixes, there is no better dance floor in Paris. For full out delicious drag, Monday is
the night to see Paris Burning, while Wednesday night's 'Respect' party hosts
name DJs like Jef K. Up
in Pigalle, the seedy, times squaresy area south of Montmarte, Folies
Pigalle (11, pl Pigalle, 9th;
01.48.78.25.56; m° Pigalle; midnight-dawn daily, on weekends, till noon.
Cover 100F; MC, V), once a strip joint, has managed
to spin tassles into gold (or at least lamé). Not nearly as plugged in as Les Bains or Le Queen, a younger crowd comes here to enjoy itself on the runway and pit, and
talk far less about enjoying themselves on their portables on the
pavement outside. The weekends are solidly techno, while Sundays from 5:30 11
see the United Colours of Gays tea dance, a pseudo-belly dancing event which
the youngsters just can't seem to resist in this town. The only option for
straight ahead dancing along the oberkampf
strip is Cithéa (112-114, rue Oberkampf, 11th;
01.40.21.70.95; m° Parmentier; 10pm-5am
daily; Shows 11pm Wed-Sat. Admission free Mon,Tue, Sun; 30F (buys you a drink)
Wed, Thur; 60F Fri, Sat; MC, V) a small space with a fifties-marquee
exterior that does triple service as a bar, a live venue [see live music scene]
and a club. Cithéa feels a bit like the disco at the University
Student Union, but on a good night.
Here you will come to understand why oberkampf doesn't have more dance
spots, however; no matter how deep a groove is playing, the would-be Jean Paul
Belmondos from across the street at Café
Charbonkeep the same wiggle, and that
same, "oh god I need a toilet" demi-crouch, tune after tune. If you have the teensiest bit of soul,
you will be scoped and asked to give lessons. Great selection of Acid Jazz and Stevie and Prince. A recent, slightly unholy
renovation has added a Latin café downstairs at La Coupole (102, bd de Montparnasse, 14th,
01.43.20.14.20, m° Vavin; 7:30pm-2am daily,
dancing 11:30pm-4:00am Tues-Thus; 100f cover + drink, AE, V, MC), the famous
Montparnasse brasserie where Hemmingway and all those cats never once heard,
let alone boogied to, Gypsy Kings house remixes. Yet the spacious, tiled lower level is now an all-out salsa fiesta on the weekends. It may be worth heading all the way down to Montparnasse to see the famous dining room, which, though slightly disfigured by the renovation, retains the famous murals commissioned in exchange for free drinks from artist-regulars. Should you grow weary of the Parisian craze for the
traditional, with all its meandering 'world' rhythms that are easier to talk
about than dance to, Rex Club (5, bd Poissonnière, 2nd;
01.42.36.83.98; m° Bonne-Nouvelle; 11pm-dawn Wed, Thur, Fri; 11.30pm-dawn
Sat; Cover 60F Wed; 70F Thur-Fri; 80F Sat; AE, MC, V) will rev you up with techno and
house, pumped out with no apologies, on a bass system so seismic you'll be
asking "what is that do you
hear that?" the whole day
after. This is the house that
Laurent Garnier built, to many the father of techno, and DJ Charles Schillings keeps
the tradition hard and heavy on Friday night's Automatik; Garnier himself spins
when the spirit in the machine moves him.
Housed in a wing of the m°polis-esque, Art Deco Rex moviehouse, the
Rex may not be as hot as it was in the nineties, but it's true to its
roots. And
if you've brought your electric-red patent-leather dancing shoes with the
4-inch heels, you can Salsa into one of Edith Piaf's haunts, La Java
(105, rue du Fbg-du-Temple, 10th; 01.42.02.20.52; m° Belleville;
11pm-6am Thur-Sat. Cover 60f-80f
Thur; 100F Fri, Sat; AE, MC, V) unquestionably the best thing about Paris' Latin craze. Salsa, meringue and tango-ers who
actually know what the hell they're pack it into this classic old dance hall,
with a great wide lacquered dancefloor and period tables, lamps and bandstand,
for a sweatdrenched thca-tcha-tcha on the weekends. A live Latin horn band is followed by a DJ. And
a good idea whose time may have finally come are the péniches, small party boats, may of which
have theater, live shows and clubbing after the curtain. The vast majority are moored and stay
that way at the distant, eastern 13th (m° Quai de la Gare or
Bibliotèque), on the quai just down from the new massive Bibliotèque Nationale, the allée Arthur
Rimbaud. one of the best of the lot is Batofar (13th,
01.56.29.10.00; 8pm-2am Tues-Sun; free-60f; MC, V, dancing starting 11:30 or
after show), but new venues are opening
here all the time, on wooden junks or rusty tugboats. Crashing: Wonderful
thing about Paris: even though you know there are people rich people --
staying at the Crillon and at the Plaza Athenée, with the billowing drapes and
the French doors, and the silver coffee set beside the bed in the mornings,
there are midrange and budget options of such charm and taste you never need
eat your heart out with envy; clever way of stemming class war, too. But as Paris chokes up with tourists
from early spring to mid-summer, it's definitely best to book in advance. Rates may vary with the seasons,
too. If you're planning on
lingering while the novel gels in your mind, the FUSAC free magazine (in English) has ads for shares,
apartment exchanges and short-term sublets, many of which, in the suburbs or
less fashionable areas of Paris, might be worth your time. Splurge A
favorite hotel for the study-abroad crowd in the Latin Quarter is the Hotel
des Grandes êcoles, 75, rue du Cardinal Lemoine, 5th;
01.43.26.79.23 m° Cardinal Lemoine;
single or double 530-690f;
triple 670- 790f; quad 890f; extra cot 100f; breakfast 45f; MC, V) shutting out the noise of the city with many large rooms
with exposed rafters and other little country touches, opening onto a large
cobblestone courtyard, where
breakfast can be taken in the summer.
When fellow guests start asking if maybe you know their son, he's
studying French at the Sorbonne, and he's just about your age, this becomes the
perfect spot to perfect your incomprehension of English. All rooms have shower, toilet and
phone. Doable: Probably the best deal in the Latin
Quarter is the Hôtel Esmerelda (4, rue St. Julien le Pauvre, 5th;
01.43.54.19.20 m° St Michel; single 160-420f; double 450- 490f; triple 550f;
quad 600f; breakfast 40f; no credit cards) which, despite its name and the view of Notre Dame,
is the place most reminiscent of Balzac's Maison Vauquer we visited, with a sickly-sweet decrepitude to the
velvet, the ubiquitous plants, the cat, and the ancient, warped floors. The rooms are smaller and more rickety
than at Grandes êcoles, but they've got facilities, too, and less of the
industrially sanitized feel, too. For
an ultramodern, ultrahip option the Hôtel Beaumarchais (3, rue oberkampf; 11th;
01.53.36.86.86 m° Filles de Calvaire; Single 350- 400f; double 450-500f;
suite 700f; breakfast 30f; AE, MC, V) has just opened for those who simply cannot get enough
oberkampf in their life. Clearly
designed to be party central, it was on its way when we visited, with the sleek
New York ultra-modern hotel look, in primary colors, albeit a little
stage-set-y. Toilets and Showers. Around
the Place Des Vosges in the Marais, where you'd exepct rates to soar, are a
number of elegant hotels that seem miniaturiazed, small beds, small elevator,
and shrunken rates. one such is
the Hôtel Pratic (9, rue d'ormesson, 4th; 01.48.87.80.47,
m° St-Paul or Bastille; single
230f w/toilet; double 280 w/toilet, 380 w/shower, 420 w/both; breakfast 20f;
MC, V) a fairly dull
and spare place, exceptional only for the vague sense that you've just eaten a
little pill that's made you 1¼ times as big as everything in the
room. With a prime location on the
peaceful Place du Marche Ste Cathérine, just a walk away from the heart of the
Marais. Cheap
Nearby,
on the far side of the Rue St. Antoine, are some of the most luxuriant,
pristine hostels you'll visit, run by the Maison Internationales de la
Jeunesse et des Étudiants (www.mije.com;
01.42.74.23.45)in three spic and span,
renovated 17th century addresses with three addresses: Le
Fauconnier (11, rue du Fauconnier, 4th, m° St- Paul), Fourcy
(6, rue de Fourcy, 4th, m° St-Paul) and Maubuisson
(12, rue des Barres, m° Hotel-de-Ville; rates for all 3 are: dorm 140f
per person, triple rooms 150f per person, double rooms 170f per person; private
rooms 220f per person, + 12f membership fee; breakfast included; no credit
cards) with the right mix
of teenage tourgroups, spooky loners and surprisingly attractive traveling
duos, along with the indespensible attentive, efficient cleaning staff. It can be trick to find the fourcy
address, housed in an converted convent: the huge, unmarked double doors on the
rue de Fourcy have a smaller, almost hidden door that opens up into an immense
courtyard. Great vaulted breakfast
room in the basement, too. Some
have called Paris the largest mall in the world, and it's true that there are
more opportunities to part with a franc here than almost anywhere. You can buy the very latest fashions
at the very highest prices -- along the Blvd. Saint Germain (6th), or
any of the designer outlets on its endless sidestreets. That diamond-studded, lizard-skin
pocketbook you've been hankerin' for, along with the platinum clip at Place
Vendome. But Paris also has
incredible bargains, especially considering the strength of the dollar over the
past few years. So after you've
drooled outside the shops in Saint Germain or in the 1st, it is
actually very worth your while to visit the two mega-department stores au
Printemps (64 bld. Haussman, 9th; 01.42.82.50.00; m°
Havre-Caumartin; 9:35am-7pm mon-wed, fri, sat; 9:30am-10pm thur. Ae, mc, v) and Galleries Lafayette (40 bd. haussmann, 9th,
01.42.82.30.25; m° chausée d'antin 9:30am-7pm mon-wed, fri, sat 9:30am-9pm
thur, AE,MC,V), its more veteran and
expensive cousin, and pick up name brands and knock off at significantly less
than you could find them for in the states. The
shrine of stuff is the all in one FNAC (forum des halles, 1st;
01.40.41.40.00; métro les halles10am-midnight, mon-sat, AE, MC, V) where your one-stop shopping could
include every cd you've ever wanted, a book from every major literature in the
original language, a new stereo and a comic book (see BD). But
for the young and impressionable traveler, the shopping experience is found at the Puces on the outskirts of
town. The Puces "fleas" is where the flea market got its
name. At the Puces de
Clignacourt, the largest of the lot, there is an endless labyrinth
of permanent stalls here's where you can buy that rococo walnut fourposter
bed you've been dying for and bin after bin of the best and cheapest junk in
France; where you can get, say, every incarnation of the Michelin man since
1970 for 10f the bunch. OPutside
the Puces de Clignacourt are vendors hawking pot bowls, army navy surplus,
knock-off jeans but also, almost unbelievable vintage clothing finds; leather
jackets that would run into the high hundreds in a soho boutique can be gotten
here for 200f. To get to the Puces, take the no. 4 métro to Porte de
Clignacourt, and follow the traffic signs toward the puces. This will take you under the
Periferique highway, and into a knot of people on the other side along the
avenue de la porte de clignacourt; keep elbowing your way through and, on your
left, a small lane will appear, and you found 'em. The puces are open 7am-6pm sat-mon. Get there early. Gay Scene: Increasingly, Gay Paris is openly just that, and straight
Paris' exotic thing of the month is to watch while Paris is flaming. But the
straight world's frenzied fetishism of venues like Le Queen [see club scene] and its
mass intrusion into the Marais
can feel a little obnoxious to those who were there before, and veterans may
want to seek refuge at one of the many gay spots that still pride themselves on
being somewhat exclusive.
Gay-bashings or outright bigotry are unheard of in this cosmopolitan
city; if there is still prejudice here, you may sense it in the over-use of the
adjective pedé "fag" by heteros to describe a venue or style. But then again, this insensitivity may
be nothing more than a nasty reflex on the part of the straight French boys who
are often confused for the other team (as in the refrain: "is he gay? Maybe
he's just French...") The Centre Gai et Lesbien (3
rue Keller, 11th; 01.43.57.21.47; m° Ledru-Rollin; 2pm-8pm
Mon-Sat, 2pm-7pm Sun)
is a popular meeting ground, information center and activist HQ with a café
where you're free to peruse the plentiful materials and flyers stashed
around. Many of the main parks and
public spaces become prime cruising ground after dark. Note especially the quays of
the Seine, the Parc Des Buttes
Chaumont, and the Tuilleries
Gardens. The endless paths of the Bois de Boulogne are daytime cruising spots, but at night, the park
is turned over to exquisite, and exquisitely butch (no joke: blade-wielding)
Brazilian transvestite prostitutes, who've driven straight cocottes from the
Bois entirely. Even
with the intrusion of Straight Paris, the Marais retains the West-Village or French-Quarter sensuousness that
characterizes the best gay neighborhoods.
The main stretch, up the rue Vielle de Temple, is half straight/half
gay, and maybe yielding to the former.
But the area further west, closer the m° stop Hotel de Ville, is
still dominantly queer and dotted with blacked-out windows, mysterious
goings-on and campy cabarets. Bite
your tongue and enter Le Cox, (15
rue des Archives, 4th 01.42.72.08.00, m° Hotel de Ville; 1pm-2am
daily; no credit cards) one of the more popular additions to the check-out and pick up scene, a
roomy café/bar where you can, ahem, log on in the rear (double
entendre is inescapable here). Amnesia
(42 rue Vielle du Temple, 4th; 01.42.72.16.94) m° Hotel de
Ville; 10:30am-2am daily; MC, V) catering
equally to the gay/dyke crowd, as well as to the requisite straight hangers-on,
is a local favorite, split level, with sofas and a less severe, body-conscious
vibe. Les
Scandeleuses (8 rue des ecouffes 4th;
01.48.87.39.26 m° Hotel de Ville or St. Paul; 6pm-2am daily, MC, V) on a small street with a yeshiva
and several jewish markets, is a laid back, arty dyke bar with the
post-industrial installation look, and the cropped-hair, lipstickless grrrls to
match. At
night, Queen[see club scene] is still the address for lumberjacks who put on
women's clothing and hang around in bars; if any boy has packed a fabulous
rhinestone gown especially for his entrée to Paris, here is where
she can make her grand entrance. Pulp
(25 bd. Poissonnière, 2nd; 01.40.26.01.93; m° grands boulevards,
midnight-dawn wed-sat; 50f cover weekends, AE, MC, V) the dyke club of Paris, is poised to
become the next Queen, so brace
yourself girls. More intimate than
the former, with more emphasis on Latin and less robotic dancetracks Literary
Scene This is the town of the revered writer.
Shrines are built for Zola, Hugo and Balzac, and even formerly fringe
authors like Rimbaud and Genet are now solidly ensconced in street names and
public statues. It is also where most American authors of note came at
least once, and Poe, Faulkner and Dos Passos had their place on the shelf
reserved by French attention paid to them. You may think the time of all
this is long gone, now that America is no longer depression-stricken and the
former French virtue of cultural turbulence has receded in favor of a placid,
tourist haven; and by and large, you'd be right. But folks here still take exercise of
the mind very seriously; no (or little) Patricia Cornwell on the métro for
Parisians! Most girls and boys you
see will be reading finer literature and philosophes like
Lévi-Strauss or Bergson. What to
do if you're not up to cultural speed? There are several excellent
English-language bookstores, with as wide a selection as you'd find at the best
back home; here you can find in
English that last novel of the comedie humaine you've always meant to read, or even English books by that Paul Auster
guy everyone's talking about. W H Smith (248, rue de Rivoli,1st 01.44.77.88.99; m° Concorde;
9:30am-7pm, mon-sat 1-7pm sun, MC, V, AE) Village
Voice (6, rue Princesse, 6th; 01.46.33.36.47; 2pm-8pm mon, 10am-8pm
tues-sat, 2-7 sun, MC, V, AE) If
your French is any good, you might want to catch Derrida or Alain Finkelkraut
lecture; lectures are announced on the bulletin boards on the inside of
Sorbonne III, just off the Place de la Sorbonne, and held all over the city in
various branches of the state universities. If you are a francophone, you
don't need us to tell you that the Latin Quarter is rotten with fantastic
bookstores (librairies) which put their
English counterparts to shame.
Best spots to work on your novel are still in the Latin Quarter, too, at
Café de la Mairie and Le Reflet
(midday, when they're deserted) [see hanging out]. You and half the folks in there. Cyberworld
Paris
is distinctly behind the times cyber-wise, but it's catching up as it has on
every American-led fad, with a great deal of style. A number of portals will be opening soon which will, at the
same time, function as ISP's free of charge a great idea. And the internet magazine, though
nowhere near as widespread as it is stateside, is gaining ground, with a lot
more attitude than oldtimers like slate.com or salon.com can muster. In French, Paris Nova has an on-line
shadow, Novaplanet.com (www.novaplanet.com)
with listings, bizarre links, a nova radio station, and picks distinct to its
online incarnation. As webspeak is
largely English anyway, you should have little difficulty navigating the site. A
similarly attitude-soaked site is www.thinkparis.com,
a would-be citysearch.com without quite the scope but with chatty reviews and
an emphasis on the English-speaking 20 somethings of Paris. Timeout's website www.timeout.com/fr/ is a little clunky,
and has no sections distinct from its guide, but is worth visting if you can't
get your hand on one of its free supplements. For rave and techno party news, visit the all French but
rather simple www.france-techno.fr/
where you can find out where the local quasi-legal raves are being thrown and
enter your e-mail on its mailing list.
And in case you haven't run into enough pissed limeys at Café oz or the
Violon Dingue, www.net-europa.com/gap/
gives an extremely Anglo-slanted portrait of "Paris' best pubs." The
Cybercafé is another idea the French won't accept until they make it their own,
and here are 3 distinct riffs. Cyber
Café Latino (13, rue l'Ecole Polytechnique, 5th; 01.40.51.86.94;
m° Maubert Mutualité; 11:30am-2am Mon-Sat; 7pm-9pm 40f/hr for internet
access Sun; MC, V, AE),
except for the insistance on latino-chic, is about how they do things back in
the motherland, with fruit smoothies and tapas: 6 Macs on simple work desks, in
a spacious room, with the salsa just turned up high enough so that you can't
hear the guy beside you mutter for the 80th time that he doesn't
understand how to log off. With a
Venezuelan staff that speaks neither French nor English. You may think you're in an 80's arcade
revival at very small, very spare Clickside (14, rue Domat, 5th;
01.56.81.03.00; www.clickside.com; m° Maubert Mutualité or Cluny-La
Sorbonne, Mon-Sat 10am-midnight, Sun 1pm-11pm;11 pc terminals, 45f/hr for
internet access, MC, V, AE), where the future French Steve Jobses squander their intellect on the
latest video games, sampled here for a small fee (at an elaborate pricing
system) (prorated, as
opposed to the Latino). This is no
nonsense gamesplaying; the café part seems almost like an afterthought. And the big geniuses behind the Webbar
(32 rue de Picardie, 3rd;
01.42.72.62.50; www.webbar.fr/; m°
Filles du Calvaire; 11:30-2am, daily; 40f/hr internet access, 12 pc's, MC, V,
AE) want you to
understand that their complex is not a cybercafé it's a, well, you can figure
it out. Certainly more
business/suit oriented, the two level, bar/café/gallery also addresses the
scourge of French-computer illiteracy with private lessons, in a tactfully
private room. The requisite Salsa,
Jungle and world beats laid down by, of course, DJ Replicant. A
note to the notebook carrier: though it may appear French phone plugs are
compatible with american ones, they're not: the order of the wires you see in
the clear plastic head are reversed. There's nothing for it but an adaptateur,
best bought at home, but findable at the FNAC (see stuff). Live
Music: Paris
was patron to Jazz's cutting edge in the 40's an 50's, but since then we
haven't consistently been able to depend on their taste, to say the least.
Sometimes they treat a fledgling comer seriously take Charlie Parker and
raise him to his rightful place, and sometimes they elect others say Serge
Gainsbourg [see Paris to choke on] or
Celine Dion (for which we've got to accept partial responsibility) and treat
them with the same seriousness.
The current object of Parisian's studied reflection is World music. This catch-all genre can designate
almost anything at best it lumps together respectable Ska, Algerian Raï,
Gypsy fiddlers and klezmer acts, all of which take to the stage here these days
to increasing interest at venues like Satelit' Café or Péniche Makara. or,
it can denote something truly dreadful, like a red-suspendered Frenchman
singing in broken Arabic to the accompaniment of a gypsy violin, a Jewish
clarinet and a wandering tabla, which, sadly, is known frequently to mar the
same venues. It's hit or
miss. The same is true of jazz, as
the more squeak-and-honk species of "experimentation" is increasingly preferred
over melody. Jazz
L'Atmosphère (49 rue Lucien Sampaix, 10th
01.40.38.09.21; m° Gare de l'Est; Bar 11am-2am; Tue-Fri; 5pm-2am Sat, Sun;
Sets 8pm Tue-Sat; 5pm Sunday, no cover, no credit cards) a tiny bistro/café/bar on the
canal St. Martin is one of the best venues out, its very density forcing some
energetic blowing out of home-grown talent, and sometimes inspiring, fanciful
solos, though the influence of ornette Coleman is a little overwhelming. Linger over a glass of wine before the
first sets starts the weekend crush can be impossible -- and go for the first
set, and then retire to Chez Prune [see hanging out] World/Jazz/Funk/Soul
While
the atmosphere at l'Atmospherecan run
to the ponderous, Cithéa(see club
scene), whether a funk, reggae, world or
jazz show is on, makes sure its groove is front and center. With the hot crush, the groovy
baselines and the occasional barri sax, Cithea can make you never want to go
home again and with the DJ spinning funk faves after the set, you won't have
to till dawn. Should
you require a chiller ambiance with the possibility of release into the
oberkampf mayhem, repair to the Satellit' Café (44 rue de la Folie Méricourt, 11th
01.47.00.48.87; m° oberkampf; www.sattelit-café.com;
8pm-3am tues-thus; 10pm-6am fri, sat;
shows 9:30pm tues-thus) where
the acoustic World acts range from downright slamming, to self-serious
crud. The space itself, with its
black walls and glow-in-the-dark glactic murals, feels like an 11 year-old's
dream of an club. When the
friendly staff switches on the turntable over the long weekends, it can be a
swinging floor, too. The
péniches Batofar[see club scene] and Makara
(quai de la Gare, 13th, m° Quai de la Gare; 01.44.24.09.00;
7pm-2am tues-sun; shows 9pm
tues-sun, 30-50f cover, MC, V) are rarely at
least not yet packed, and can host some of the more varied world and funk
acts, everything from Flamenco to Funk.
The multi-act shows are long, and loud. Rock
A
favorite of the Nova-reading set, the beguilingly eclectic Café de la Dance (5
passage Louis Philippe, 11th, 01.47.00.57.59; m° Bastille; Shows 8:30pm most nights; 80f-120f
cover, no credit cards) is impossible to characterize, booking fast and furious rock acts like
the Cramps as often as it pushes its Arab pedigree, the mood of this dank,
stony place can shift from Chateau Dracul to Soho London between gigs. The high quality of the acts is worth
the price, as are the funky young things who shell it out nightly. Nearby, the tight but hip Réservoir
(16 rue de la Forge Royale, 11th; 01.43.56.39.60, m° Faidherbe-Chaligny; Bar 8pm-2am daily; showa 11:30pm tues-sat; no cover, AE, MC,
V), with its is a
slicker affair, hooked deeply into the music biz and its double-breasted,
picky-ringed sleaze factor. It's
still one of the better place to hear hot labels trying out the newly-signed on
a beautiful, made-up clientele on Thursdays, and one of the Paris layover bips
on the migratory path of newly-hot musicians. Need
to Know: Currency: The
franc is the coin of the realm, but the euro is being phased in by 2002. Best of all is to use ATM's, which give
the best rates and charge no fee.
Both airports have 24hr bureaux de change. At the Gare du Nord, where the RER B from Charles De Gaulle
Airport arrives, there is a Thomas Cook (6:15am-11:25pm daily,
01.42.80.11.50) Public
Transportation: 48f "carnet" buys you ten métro tickets; if you're sticking
around, a monthly, which can be used as often as you like (in zone 1, the urban
center) is 279f. The trains to the
suburbs, the RER, also run through the center of town and can be quicker,
tickets must be bought separately and prices vary. Keep your yellow RER ticket you'll need it to get out from
the tracks. Two can and often do
-- slip through the turnstiles on one ticket, but checks happen, so careful
[see fuzz box]. First and last train (between 5 and
6am, and 12:30 and 1am) are listed on the platform signs. Taxis are your only option then, and on
Saturdaynight there aren't enough. Health: the 24-hour American Hospital is just out of town
in Neuilly (63 bd.Victor-Hugo; Bus 82; 01.46.41.25.41). The direct emergency line is
01.47.47.70.15. Pharmacies: a 24hr pharmacy that delivers is Pharma Presto
(01.42.42.42.50) delivers for 150f
from 8am-6pm, 250f after. Otherwise
the Pharmacie des Champs (84 av de
champs Elysées, 8th
01.45.62.02.41, m° Georges V) Emergency
Nos. Police 17 Fire
18 Ambulance 15 Bike/Moped/Whatever
Rental: Atelier de la Compagnie (57 bd de Grenelle, 15th
01.45.79.77.24, m° Dupleix, mon-fri 10am-7pm, sat 10am-6pm, MC, V, AE) rents
scooters for 250f/day, 950f/ wk, and motorcycles from 340f/day, 1500f/ wk
requires 14,000f refundable deposit, w/valid driver's license. American
Express: 38 av. De Wagram, 8th
01.42.27.58.80, m° Ternes; 9am-5pm Mon-Fri) Telephone:
Country Code 33, City
Code 01 (prefix to every no. in paris, from overseas drop the 0) Information,
12 International
operator (USA) 00.33.12.11 AT&T
08.00.99.00.11 MCI
08.00.99.00.19 Sprint
08.00.99.00.87 Phonecards
télécartes can be bought at most
tobacco shops, magazine stands and any post office, in 50f or 120f
denominations. Airports: Charles
de Gaulle (roissy) 01.48.62.22.80 Airlines:
Trains: general
info for all trains: 08.36.35.35.35
Bus
Lines out of the City:most buses arrive
at Gare Routiere Internationale du Paris (28 av de Général-de-Gaulle 01.49.72.51.51 m° Gallieni) in the suburb of bagnolet Getting into Town: You'll most likely be arriving at
Charles de Gaulle, 20 miles north of town. International flights arrive at Aerogare 1, and a bus will drop
you at Aerogare 2, where there is direct access to the RER, the suburban train,
and cheapest way to get into town (48f).
RER B leaves four or five times an hour, between 5:20am and 12 am. It takes about 45 minutes to arrive in
Paris, at Gare du Nord. From there
there is direct metro sevice. Rules
of the Game Fuzz Box
is a beautiful
space, a belle époque dance hall
with a long wide bar, gas-lamps, tall mirrors and 20ft. ceilings, and the DJ
spinning house and jungle vinyl gives a nice counterpoint; the perfect spot to
linger and neck with a coquette
or French lover-boy before a wide audience at 3am. Mecano Bar,
(99 rue oberkampf, 11th; 01.40.21.35.28;
m° Parmentier or Ménilmontant;
9am-2pm Mon-Sat; 10am-2am Sun; AE, MC, V ) despite the name, is far from a
'tool shed' (though with the bus engines and monkey wrenches hanging from the
ceiling, it does overreach for the "theme bar" thing), and its more convivial
layout leads to more mixing between tables and spontaneous dance(for more of
this lip-biting, fist-pumping, endearing French phenomenon, hop across the
street to Cithéa[see club scene]). Mecano hasn't quite got the same
erotic-patina as Charbon, and attracts a slightly younger crowd, but is just as
wildly popular. A slightly older,
more meditative crowd can be found across the street at Café Mercerie (98 rue Oberkampf, 11th;
01.43.38.81.30; m° Parmentier or Ménilmontant; 5pm-2am Mon-Fri; 3pm-2am Sat,
Sun; MC, V) with its
oversized sewing machines and stripped walls, and back lounge.
The English bookstore also sells American and British magazines and newspapers
With a helpful, bilingual staff and more academic stock
Shakespeare & Co. (37, rue de la Bucherie, 5th 01.43.26.96.50;
m° Maubert-Mutualite, or St Michel; noon-midnight daily; no credit cards)
The heir to the famous bookstore/colony that self-published Joyce's Ulysses when
all others refused; used and new books; free bunks in the attic (see crashing)
Orly
01.49.75.15.15
Air France buses (60F) leave as frequently between 6am-11pm daily, from both
aerogares, but stop at more locations.
The Roissybus (45F) has the same schedule and drops you near the place
de l'opéra
Taxis, the only possibility on off hours, will cost around 200f w/no traffic,
but upwards of 300f if taken during the day from the train station- same. The other airport, orly, 15miles to the south, is divided
into orly-Sud (international flights) and orly-ouest (domestic flights). From
here you can catch the orlyval shuttle train (6am-10pm Mon-Fri; 7am-11pm Sat,
Sun) to RER B station Antony (57F together), and from there to Paris. or there is a shuttlebus to the RER
C station Pont de Rungis, from where you can catch the orlyrail train to
central Paris (30F). Trains run every 12 minutes, 5.45am-11pm daily, and this
will take a few minutes longer.
The taxi ride will cost the same and take as long as from DeGaulle.
from the bus station- take the
number 3 métro line from gallieni into town.
All
6 train stationsGares d'Austerlitz,
St.Lazarre, Montparnasse, d'Est, d'ouest and du Nord, are also major métro hubs
and have direct access to it.
There is no enforced drinking age in
France, but neither are there great drunks; people consume moderately and get
drunk with great composure. It's
only tourists you'll hear shouting yoo hoo while under the influence. Getting hooked up with any sort of
narcotic is like everything here, a matter of who you know; everyone we spoke
too who was carrying knew someone who knew someone, and we would definitely not
recommend you head out to the rough streets of the banlieues, the only area in Paris where it's hawked in the
street. In most public parks, like
the Champ de Mars around the Eiffel Tower, you'll find kids sneaking a toke,
though busts are extremely rare.
The
French are, except for the occasional demonstration or revolution, a docile,
law-abding bunch. Sure, les
flics, (or les cilfs in versl'in, the Parisian pig-latinesque slang) are as despised here as
everywhere: the students make a show of detesting and provoking them, reminding them of May '68 and calling
them fascists; but compared to other big cities, Parisian cops are a scant,
mild presence. You can slip in and
out of the métro or the RER without paying, or park illegally, and many do, but
if you get caught, good luck talking your way out of a ticket; in their inhuman
devotion to rules and regulations, les flics are just like café waiters [see garcon means
"boy"] and every other French civil servant. outside the city there is a separate
police force, the Gendarmie, known to be surlier, more heavily armed and more
corrupt, so watch yourself on the highways.
March/april
Banlieue Blues (Seine St-Denis,
01.49.22.10.10, Free-150f)
Big
funk fest in the suburbs, known to attract nobodies and somebodies with soul
Early
April
Festival
du Film de Paris (Cinéma Gaumont
Marignan, 27 av des Champs Elysées, 8th 01.42.65.12.37, m° Franklin
Roosevelt, 35f/day, 150/wk)
Directors,
actors and writers from all over the world come to show their films, speak them
and about themselves, and look for a distributor.
Fête
du Travail, May Day (May 1)
Taken
very seriously, with a big parade of the proletariat and trade unions,
colorfully losing their chains together.
June
21 Fête de la Musique (01.40.03.94.70)
Every
street of the city is packed with busquers playing every conceivable genre of
music, while big names (James Brown and Sting have come in the past) take to
the plazas for free outdoor shows
End
of June