A Crashing Bore

We spent a weeks in Paris 30-35 years ago, and counting two subsequent visits to Versailles and this trip, we have spent 13 days in Paris. Our original impression from 35 years ago remains unchanged-- skip it. There are so many better places to spend time in Europe that is a shame to waste time and money going to Paris. But you won't listen, will you? So here are some highlights of Paris, things you should not miss, if there are more famous sights not on my list.

First, there is one very good reason to go to Paris-- it is the closest airport to Versailles. Plan 1-3 days. You can rearch Versailles from the city via the RER.

There are some grand cityscapes from the quais opposite the Louvre to the Ile de la Cite, and the views of the Eiffel Tower from L'Ecocle Militaire and Trocadero. La Defense is a whole different world of spectacular modern architicture.

Our favorite spots are the two great museums of Impressionist art, Muse Orsay and Marmottan (metro: La Muette), La Defense at the La Defense exit of Metro Line 1, and the ancient Place de Vosges, strangely out of place in Paris.

The Hotel de Ville (City Hall) is the most interesting of the old buildings. The only church worth a visit is the St Chappell on a sunny day to see the stained glass windows. Notre Dame is typical Gothic pile with a long line to enter. St Germain de Pres is notable for its unusual amount of original decorations (times change in church decoration. Originally, Romanesque and Gothic churches were brightly painted on every available space. Then they went austere, with few examples of the original paint jobs remaining.)

The Champs Elysees and Etoile (the Arc de Triumph) are a total waste of time, except for the view from the Pl. de Concorde.

Best of all, skip Paris. Go to Prague.

Paris has a wealth of very expensive, very famous restaurants. So do all big cities. It is more interesting to eat in local joints (check the menu outside and pick places without an English version) which is where you best appreciate what all the fuss over food in France is about. I don't know how many days we have spent in France, but we have driven over 30,000 miles around the countryside and I'm convinced there are no bad, not even a mediocre restaurant in France expect McDonalds. These people know how to eat, rivaled only by Italy.

There is much hand wringing about the decline in the value of the dollar Bush's economic blunders caused, but compared to major US cites, it may not be so bad. A carnet, 10 rides on metro, cost about , and it get you all over the city. We spent -80 for dinner for two with wine. We did blow on lunch at the restaurant in the Musee d'Orsay-- two pastries and two ice teas-- for the delightful neo-Baroque setting.

Always expect rain in Europe. Celebrate when it is sunny, which is why the natives sit in all those outdoor cafes.

There is much hand wringing about the decline in the value of the dollar Bush's economic blunders caused, but compared to major US cites, it may not be so bad. A carnet, 10 rides on metro, cost about , and get you all over the city. There are other mettro deals on multi-day passes. We spent -80 for dinner for two with wine. We did blow on lunch at the restaurant in the Musee d'Orsay-- two pastries and two ice teas-- for the delightful Baroque setting. Bush's "Cowboy Diplomacy" has also made it increasing difficult to exchange currency, even travelers checks in Europe. Everybody used to want dollars, but no more. Use credit cards as much as possible.

Metro is the way to travel in Paris. There are single ride tickets for 1.5 Euros (2008 prices), a 10 ticket package for 11 Euros, and 1-3 day unlimited travel tourist passes which also includes discounts at many attractions, restaurants, and shops. It takes some planning to figure out what is best for your plans. We got through three days in Paris on two carnets (20 tickets). Remember that a ticket, once validated is good for 1½ hours. Hang on to it when you leave a station. You may get to use it again. Google "Metro Paris" for full details.

There are something like 18 metro lines. A good map of the metro system is indispensible. Connecting stations can require considerable walking. What the British call buskers, street musicans entertaining in hopes of a donation, concentrate on the vast Chatelet station, the tourist's key stop, where we encountered Dixieland jazz, a string orchestra playing Mozart, and a spectacular eight man gypsy band.

Metro tickets are also good for buses and the RER, the suburban railroad. Avoid the RER if you can reach you destination by Metro. RER trains run infrequently compared to Metro. On Metro, we never had to wait more than four minutes for a train. We had a 20 minute wait for RER, and the station operations are incomprehensible. Butt do not ethat the RER goes to Versailles and St Denis, which metro does not.

When you exit the Metro, look around the street for a brown sign pointing to your destination. How to get to sights is well marked by these signs. Look around at every intersection you come to. If there is no sign directing a turn, keep going straight. Once we figured that out, we stopped using our map.

If you want to walk the streets, the walking tours laid out in the Michelin Green Guide are as good as it comes. Plan your day to criss-cross the city by metro to rest your feet between sight-seeing walks. Paris is the only city in Europe where I prefer walking around its parks and gardens to walking the streets. That is becaues the streets of Paris have a depressinc similarity-- mile after mile of the same building. The best walks are along the quais as noted above, the very upscale neighborhood around the La Muette metro station.

Much has been said about the City of Paris' rent-a-bycycle scheme. 20,000 bycycles, and growing, and scattered all over the city at bike stations only 300 yards apart. They are cheap, but require a credit card with some kind of computer chip in it that not all US issued cards have. Check ahead. But beware, bycycling around Paris is NOT recommended for tourists, who experinece too many accidents while gawking at the sights. Walk instead, or take a bus or Segway tour.

L'Europeen is a rather large place for a brasserie. We saw four dinning rooms. It was obvious from the seafood stand L'Europeen operated out front that seafood was the speciality, but we had chicken and Choucroute Garni. The dinning room we were in was richly decorated with dark red wallpaper, dark wood, red leather chairs, and bright chandeliers. The Maitre de wore the traditional black tuxedo. In keeping with tradition, there was a separate Maitre de for each dinning room. A proper French Maitre de has a different job than one in America. In addition to taking us to our table and handing us a menu in English after asking, in English, "Would you like the English menu?", he dished up our food and supervised the waiters serving the room. For example, when the choucrute garni got overly hot, he directed our waiter to turn off one of the burners under the platter. The 2-3 waiters serving our room wore white shirts, black bow ties, red vests, black pants, with a white apron. L'Europeen is a good example of the classic traditional French restaurant scene.

It shows good manners in any country, especially in France, to make an effort to show the natives you are trying to do things their way. I do not ask for an English menu, but if offered, I accept. Anybody can translate a French menu with a good phrase book, and the staff will help. Apparently my French is slipping because the Maitre immediately offered us an English menu (years ago, I seem to have spoken French with a German accent. I once asked a concierge who kept insisting I was German, not American, why he thought that. He replied, "Americans cannot speak French as well as you do." See what fun it is to try to do things their way?). I got back in the game when the waiter came to take the order by ordering in French from the English menu. I screwed up one word. The waiter corrected it. I repeated what he said. He smiled and replied, "Bon" (That's good). Now look at how our meal has started. Before we even finished ordering, we had a happy smiling French waiter, not the surly stereotype. You get what you ask for.

The waiter asked if I was familiar with the dish I ordered. I replied, "I've never had it in France, but it is sauerkraut with pork and sausages." He was happy with that, and once you understand French waiters, you will understand that if I had answered, "no", he would have explained the whole meal in detail.

A proper French dinner is a pageant. After placing our order, the waiter brought an ice bucket and a stand for it to the table and placed a white hand towel over it, to wrap around the bottle so water from the melted ice does not drip when the wine is poured. Meanwhile, the Maitre was at a sideboard filling a carafe from a bottle of wine. When he was done, the waiter brought the wine for the tasting ceremony, and then poured us each a glass.

Next he brought to the table a double burner chaffing dish stand and lit the burners with a Bic lighter. While the Maitre was dishing up her chicken at the sideboard, the waiter placed my choucrute garni on the chaffing dish stand, a platter as big as two plates heaped 3-4 inches high with sauerkraut and boiled potatoes and on top of the mountain of sauerkraut, was a large pice of ham, a slab of bacon, and four different sausages. Then the Maitre took a fork and spoon and dished up a load of kraut on my plate. He topped off the kraut with the bacon and one sausage. While he was doing that, the waiter disappeared and returned with a jar of "moutarde", which he placed beside my plate just as the Maitre finished serving-- note the timing, everything in its place at the right time, part of the pageant. Only once have I ever had a bigger meal, a four course Italian dinner that took three hours to eat, including intermissions.

Choucroute garni (literally, decorated sauerkraut) is the classic regional dish of Alsace, which is, along with Paris and Lyon, one of the three great centers of French cuisine. Specifically, the restaurant served Choucroute Garni de Severne, sauerkraut and pork in the style of Severne, the town that more or less marks the northern end of the Route de Vin Alsace (see Journal on). Choucroute garni is often found in brasseries in Paris as the original meaning of brasserie was brewery, and most brasserie owners came from Alsace, the beer center of France. Beer is big in Alsace due to Alsace frequently changing hands between France and Germany over centuries of warfare. By the way, French beer is very good.

The most interesting thing about choucrute garni is how nicely each of the meats goes with sauerkraut and mustard. Choucroute garni is a decent example of one of the great characteristics of French cuisine-- putting things together such that the sum of the ingredients is different from and greater than the parts. Think of French onion soup. It is onions, water, and beef, yet properly combined, it is none of those, but something unique and greater than onion, water, and beef. To fully appreciate choucroute garni, it must be eaten so that your are chewing meat, kraut, and mustard at the same time. This combines the three into that mysterious sum that is greater than the parts. Cut a small bite of meat. Put some mustard on your fork. Scope up some kraut, spear the piece of meat, and put it all in your mouth.

What to drink with choucroute garni? I've never yet gotten around to trying it, but, considering its origins, beer has to be good (in the USA, go for a micro brew). We fix choucroute garni at home several times a year, and we found that the best wine to drink is a California Gewurtztraminer, which is sweeter than one from Alsace. In France, any white wine from Alsace will work. Start with a Gewurtztraminer, then try a Riesling. Any and all of these would also have been an excellent pairing with her chicken, so we ordered Rose because we were on a Rose kick this trip. Every chance we had, we drank Rose to explore an unfamiliar area of wine. Rose is not a great pairing with choucroute garni. On the other hand, it was a very nice Rose, and at $14 for a liter(a bottle of wine is ¾ liter), a good price.

If you grew up hating the common stinking American version of sauerkraut, be prepared for a pleasant surprise. European sauerkraut is a totally different experience (I like the taste of the German, Austrian, and Hungarian versions better than French because of the seasonings used). I'm glad I had a good, authentic choucrute garni once, but I don't think I'd order it again, except to maybe split it with somebody else.

Her Chicken Tarragon was excellent. A smallish half a chicken surrounded by excellent sauce was served on a diner plate. Unlike American chicken, this chicken had some flavor to the meat. To avoid cross contamination of flavors, the rather large accompanying serving of excellent mashed potatoes-- as good as I've ever encountered-- were served on the side, in bowl. Had his not been our last night in Paris, I would have gone back to L'Europeen and ordered it for myself the next night.

Including tax and tip, and a liter(a bottle of wine is ¾ liter) of the house wine, served in a carafe, dinner for two cost
$81(May 2008), which seems comparable to USA big city prices, if not a better buy. And this at a time when the exchange rate was the worst ever. By the way, menu prices in France as in most of Europe, are inclusive-- tax and tip is included in the shown price. Tax and tip added up to 27% of the total (the bill broke it out for our information).

For comparison purposes, shortly after returning home, we ate in Park City ,UT at a comparable restaurant that cost $125 for a similar meal. In September, 2008, we ate at a French bistro in San Francisco, again comparable, for $122. It is true you can break the bank on the meal in Paris, but you don't have to, and while prices are up, they are not much worse than at home.

The bottom line is that L'Europeen provides the opportunity to fully experience why France is the world's best place to eat- great food served with great service in an attractive setting at a reasonable price.

The Palace at Versailles is one of the world’s greatest buildings. Begun in 1624 as a modest hunting lodge by King Louis XII, the present grand palace took shape under Louis XIV between 1661-1689. Versailles has five parts: the Palace, the Trinanons, Le Hameau, the gardens, and the fountains. Allow 2-3 days to see it all.

1] There are several tours through the Palace, one home to 10,000 people, to see the grandly furnished public rooms glorifying the Sun King and the art galleries. If you can’t take them all, don’t miss the King’s Apartments and the Hall of Mirrors.

2] Queen Marie Antoinette got it into her head that peasant farming was a noble pastime, and had a little farm community built for her the gardens, Le Hameau, a 2/3 scale romanticized farm village where she could tend her sheep like any typical royal peasant.

3] The most interesting gardens are the flower beds between the Palace and the Apollo Basin. Beyond the Apollo Basin, the gardens are largely a classical representation of a forest– this is not a real forest, it is a garden planted as the gardeners thought a forest ought to look. The gardens suffered major damage in a wind storm a few years ago that destroyed many of the old trees. It is 3 km (almost two miles) from the Palace to the end of the gardens.

4] The fountains are the highlight of any visit to Paris, and should not be missed. A river was diverted to provide water for them, seriously affecting the water supply of Paris. Because of the strain the fountains put on Paris’ water supply, they are displayed only on six summer afternoons a year, roughly every other Sunday, May-September. It takes some planning. Try the Internet or the French National Tourist Office to get the days (and times) of the fountain displays and be sure to get the times for the Neptune Basin. To preserve water pressure in Paris, Neptune Basin, the largest of the fountains, does not run at the same time as the other fountains. For twenty minutes at the end of the displays, the Neptune Basin is the grand finale of the show. Sit on the hillside across from the fountain. Don’t miss it. It is a long walk to see all the fountains, and be there early for the display hours are just long enough to allow visitors to make the complete circuit.


5] The two Trianon chateaux have more grand rooms, but not as grand as the Palace. See all the Palace rooms first.


6] The justly famous Palace at Versailles so dominates the tourist scene that most visitors miss the charming old town itself. It goes without saying, see the Palace first, but while you are here, it would be a shame not to also take in the small town as well. The tourist’s town extends 3-4 blocks on either side of the Place des Armes and Ave. de Paris which runs from the entrance of the Palace to Paris, and much of it can be seen walking from the metro (RER) station to the Palace.

Lunch is easiest to get at one of the in town restaurants around the Place des Armes. These all seem to be nice places, but overpriced tourist traps-- you’re the tourist, and you are pretty much trapped, so enjoy.


Versailles is easy to get to from Paris by the Metro (RER line C). Use the walk from the Versailles RER station to the Palace to see some of the fine old city of Versailles, and some more of the Sun King’s extravagances (see journal Versailles- the town).

We’ve been to Paris twice, but to Versailles 3-4 times. That’s a clue about where to spend your time. Every time we have flown into one of the Paris airports and rented a car to see France, we have begun or ended our trip at Versailles. Forget Paris, but don't forget Versailles.