Paris City Of The World
Paris is a preferred European destination for many Americans. Paris being the main destination in France, is the gateway for most travellers coming by airplane. As a gateway city, Paris ends up with tons of guests who spend time within that city unaccompanied. Not only is it a great tourist destination, it serves the purpose of being one of the major cities in France and Europe for trade. Many French companies have major offices in Paris. It is this mix of business and leisure that help make Paris a cosmopolitan city.
Paris can be reached effortlessly from several cities around the USA. Most of the US carriers who serve Europe as well as Air France offer numerous non-stop flights to the Paris area airports. From Houston, you have a choice of two flights, four if you count the code shared flights stuck between Air France and Continental. (Continental and Air France each operate a single flight with flight numbers from both airlines.) LAX on the west coast as well as numerous east coast cities serve as US gateway cities. If you are in London, it is promising to hop on the “Chunnel” and take a high speed train between the two cities.
My Experiences
To my surprise, on my last visit I found the folks in Paris far friendlier than I remember them from my visit 16 years ago. English seems to be spoken more now than when I was there last. It could have been the local holiday period bringing joy around the world, or just a change in way of thinking towards those pesky American tourists who pour money into their economy.
During our stay, I was extremely glad to be treated so well by the desk agents in our hotel, and the wait staff at the restaurants we determined to visit. Our hotel was a small boutique hotel selected by my wife’s co-worker who was with her on the excursion to Istanbul. She and her now husband visit Paris often, in fact she even has family there, so she chose the hotel for its old-fashioned setting and the nearby park. Unnecessary to stay the staff treated us very well, and spoke perfect English. The desk agent even made sure that when we headed back to the airport that she came out and spoke in French to the driver of our taxi to make sure he knew exactly where we were going.
We stayed and dined primarily in the Latin quarter. In this area, we found several small cafes that served up great French food. One late afternoon we went down a boulevard full of relatives run restaurants where menus were displayed in the windows. As we looked at menus we were approached by the servers and owners all contribution to serve us a great meal, either from the menu or they will make up a meal of our choosing. My wife was pregnant so we did not drink any of the French wine while there. We did benefit from some great food from the menu. (Unluckily I ended up coming down with the flu by the end of the weekend, which made for a long flight home.)
During one of our full days spent in the city was filled up with a city tour. We found one of the open top, double decker buses used by tour companies. I believe we ended up on the red bus as it seems like there were yellow busses, from another tour company doing the same tour. The entire circuit takes about two hours if you do not hop off and back on. We determined that hopping off at a pair of the sites was value it. In fact, we chose our stops earlier than the tour got going. That permitted us to plan out our day. (Weather was incredibly cold and miserable so on foot was not too much fun.)
We stopped at the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and close to a business centre where cologne shops were all over. If you have allergies those shops can be tough on your body. The tour guide on the Red bus was great. She explained the meaning of what we saw as we drove round the city. We cruised down several main streets. We cruised along the side of the waterway which has many beautiful sites along its banks. The tour guide pointed out the numerous architectural styles we encountered on our tour. All around the Red Bus was a great way to use a day.
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