Expatriotical

Episode 61: The Hightlights of Paris- Part 2

• Chandra Alley

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Welcome back to the second part in a three-part mini series on hitting the "highlights" while visiting Paris. In today's episode there are some hidden gems, surprises (including things to see/do), AND a special giveaway!

Plus listen for today's "Chan Select", which happens to be one of Chandra's "go tos" when she's hungry and on the "go" in Paris.


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"Live and Travel in the Know" with Expatriotical!

Bienvenue, Benvenuti, and Welcome to Expatriotical, the podcast for expats, travelers, and other adventurous souls. I’m Chandra Alley and after living as an expat with my husband and 4 children in two different countries for 6 years, I’ve learned the arts of pivoting during pitfalls, traveling tastefully for less, and soaking in amazing new cultures without losing your own.


Join me, as we dive into the joys and challenges of travel and the expat life in every episode!


Hey everybody! Welcome back to the second part of our Highlights of Paris mini series! Let’s jump right back in. We ended the last episode talking about the Atelier des Lumieres being great for a rainy day activity.


And because this is Paris and rainy or poor weather happens frequently here. I have made a list of things to do when maybe your outdoor plans get canceled, and getting into one of the bigger museums or that sort of thing seems too daunting.


The first one is to go to the area called Places des Vosges and visit the Victor Hugo Museum. It's free, and it's super cool. It's where the author, who wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Misérables, lived and presumably worked. It's a lovely house, and at the bottom of it they have installed a café, where the service is friendly and the food is delicious and it’s a great way to cap off your visit there.


Another place to visit on a rainy day is the Carnvalet Museum. Again it's free, and it's super cool because its exhibits actually tell or show the history of the city of Paris dating back to before medieval times, they’ve got a lot of old and very cool things. So all the artifacts you see and even archaeological things, such as a Neolithic dugout canoe, which I thought I had remembered was told to me was like the oldest boat ever, but it might not be the oldest it after I've looked it up, but it is certainly very old.


Anyway, it's a pretty quick visit and it's very very cool.


And then this next thing that I want to tell you about a lot of Parisians themselves, don't even know about. And it's the Passages Couverts, which means covered passageways. These were actually created to avoid taxes, a couple hundred years ago, maybe a few hundred years ago, but basically it's like an outdoor mall that has a ceiling. That doesn’t do it justice because it’s so much cooler than an outdoor mall, or a galleria, but I think it could be that the name “galleria” comes from these. It’s possible. And before the redesigning of Paris, by Napoleon the third and the architect Haussman, there were over 100 of them and these passages offered a way to get around the city without getting wet. Now there are only 20. Some of them actually say the word “passage" or passage before their name and some of them are called “galeries” or galleries.


But here is a list of several that you can visit. Galerie Vero-Dodat, Galerie Vivienne, Passage des Princes (which is pronounced princes in English, in case you need a visual), Galerie Colbert, Passage des Panoramas, and Passage Verdeau.  Those are just a few there are definitely more, but I've been to all of the ones that I listed and they're so interesting. Some of them are now food halls, one of them is filled with crafting things and different odds and ends, some have higher end, clothing, and honestly it's just a really cool thing to see.


OK, so now as I look at my list, I have one, two, three, four more categories to talk about. But this next one is really short. And it's about places to eat at. It's sometimes hard to recommend on a person's vacation all the places they should try, because in Paris, there are so many options! So what I'm going to do is make all of the “Chan Selects” for eateries here in Paris available to you.


I think I've established by now that I am a big fan of food, I mean we're on episode 61 and over half of the “Chan Selects” are eating establishments. So if you would like this list of favorite eateries tested and tried by myself and my family, sign up for my newsletter by going to expatriotical.com and putting your email address in at the bottom of the page and clicking “submit”. As a thank you I will be sending you the entire list of “Chan Selects” for Paris eateries in a reply or later email.


The only other thing I'm going to say about places to eat is I think that if you have never tried them, you really should try… escargot. Now hear me out. The thought of snails is not super appetizing. Let's be honest, but honestly that's not what you taste when you eat them. Especially when they're done really well. You get the best butter in the world, because that's all France knows how to make is amazing butter (and I don’t mean that they don’t make other amazing things- I mean that they just don’t know how to make bad butter), and then there’s garlic and a little bit of salt and some herbs, and they are really delicious. So it's more like thinking you're eating let's say scallops that are in a buttery, garlicky, herby sauce.


Also, as a quick study, you could listen to Episode 52: Favorite Foods Since Becoming an Expat, and hear more about the different French stuff that I’ve enjoyed. And don't worry, I will have a “Chan Select” at the end of this episode and in the third and final episode of this little mini series and they will all be Paris and or France related eateries. OK, enough of food, let's move on to parks and Gardens.


The first gardens to mention are the Tuileries Gardens. They are some of the biggest gardens and most well known and they're very accessible as they lie along two different metro stops, and are adjacent to the Louvre. I particularly like the Tuileries Gardens in the winter when they set up the Christmas market, but in general, it makes for a nice place to eat lunch, take a walk, people watch, and relax.


Next are the Luxembourg Gardens. This is probably one of my favorite places to go with guests that have kids, as there is a very large playground that is gated and has so many activities for kids of different ages. It does cost two euro per person to enter, but you can stay there as long as you like. They have a very clean bathroom with soap and all the things to wash your hands with, there are swings, a ginormous slide, a zip line, sand and excavating tools, you name it!


And of course, in the Luxembourg Gardens there is the famous fountain where you can rent a toy wooden sailboat and sail your boat for about 6 euro for half an hour. This is also the garden where the Medici fountain is, and there are multiple “Chan Selects” which are not far from this park.


Next is Park Monceau, which is nestled in between the 17th and 8th arrondissements of Paris. The park boasts of a beautiful pond area complete with pillar ruins and weeping willows, a great playground, a workout area and an area to skateboard in, grassy areas to picnic on, and as my kids will attest to wonderful trees to climb in.


And finally, I'm including this because it's kind of a ‘to do’ thing and a garden mixed in one. And that is the Rodin or Rodin Gardens. Now this one you have to pay to go to if you're an adult (I think it’s only 14 euro though), but children are free, and that gets you entry not only into the gardens with many of the beautiful statues, including The Thinker, that Auguste Rodin created, but also access to the house or small mansion that he lived in. The gardens are beautiful, the museum is pretty cool, and it's something that could be coupled with going to Hotel Invalides as it is right next door. That is also the area where there are a lot of embassies for different countries, so sometimes you can end up encountering roadblocks and guards, and that’s simply because somebody quote unquote important is probably visiting in the area.


OK, everyone at this point we have two more categories but one of them I can give so much detail to that I decided that I will be saving it for our third episode. And that category is “Day trips from Paris”. So stay tuned in the next week or so and I will have our third episode dedicated to easy day trips that you can do while you're in Paris.


And that means that the final category is “extras”. These are just extra tips that I want to share that will make your trip or visit to Paris easier and hopefully more enjoyable.


The first one was actually our “Chan Select" for Episode 4: Hospitalizations – Child Edition. And it’s called The Choice of Paris, which is Xenia, the best tour guide in Paris’s, company name. A lot of these recommendations and tips are coming to you because I've been on a tour where Xenia told me and the other ladies and gentlemen in the tour group all about them. Such as the Victor Hugo museum, the passages couverts, Carnvalet museum, Hotel Invalides, I mean literally probably close to half of these places or things to do, I've been to with Xenia. I'm going to be honest that she is really busy and booking a private tour with her is challenging. You need to know well in advance that you're coming to Paris because she doesn't have many extra slots available in her schedule. But if you go to thechoiceofparis.com you can reach out to her and see if she is available for a tour during your stay.


And the next little “extra” that I want to tell you about is the Bonjour app and using the public transportation with a Navigo Easy pass.


Paris or the Il de France as the county, let's call it, that Paris is in- is called. Recently changed the way it priced and configured public transportation tickets. And actually, it's made things a lot easier in some respects. They have grouped buses and trams together, and then metros and trains together, including the RER. For a metro or train ticket that goes all the way out to zone five, you really don't need to understand what that part means, just know that that's the edge or border of the Ile-de-France County, it costsmonly €2.50. And for a bus or tram ticket it costs two euro.


For those with a smart phone, which is almost everyone that's an adult usually, you can simply download the Bonjour app and purchase tickets on your phone. And for everyone else, which is probably your children, you can purchase a Navigo Easy pass and load it with all of your tickets or rides. And you can actually do this from your phone if you’re getting ready to get on a bus and there’s not a kiosk available. Paper tickets are becoming used less and less, and in fact, you can no longer purchase bus tickets on a bus, only at a qualified kiosk or station.


And the the last item in the “extras” category it’s actually pretty fundamental. At least for the French culture. And that is that whenever you first walk up to someone you say “bonjour.” This is so crucial in this culture.


It is a sign of respect and acknowledgment. In America, I can simply walk up to somebody in a store and say, “excuse me, sir” and that is considered polite. But not in France. Culturally the first thing that you should say is “bonjour”. And then, after that, you can jump into whatever it is that you want or need to say.


I’m going to be really honest and say that at first I was frustrated with this, because I thought I was being polite, but once I realized how important it is to them, and that's something that you even see French moms and dads raising their children to do and say, I simply realized it was a point of having good manners.


So now I do my best to always remember to say “bonjour” and then I might still say excuse me, “excuse est moi”. I won't launch into a whole French lesson, because I'm certainly not qualified to teach French, but I will say that that is a key. And just as an added bonus, Learning to say “thank you” which is “merci” in French is a really nice added touch.


Of course there's a plethora of other small phrases you could try to learn, but if you have no time or desire, “bonjour” and “merci” will get you a long way. And that's it for today!


Now you might be thinking, “But Chandra, you forgot about Versailles!” Au contraire mon amie, on the contrary, I'm going to group that under “Day trips”, cause it can be quite a haul to get out there, especially if you're in the middle or on the east side of Paris. So once again, I will encourage you to tune in, to an upcoming episode, probably not next week. I have a special interview episode coming up next week, but the next week where I list five fantastic day trips from Paris!


And now for today’s “Chan Select”. It is probably one of my favorite places for grabbing a quick bite and you can find it not only all over France, but in other countries as well. AND it comes with a funny story.


The first time I ever had, I was in the London Heathrow airport. I'm going to spell the name and then I'm going to say it the way I first pronounced it. It's spelled P – R – E – T space A space M – A – N – G – E – R. And so being the American that I am and seeing it for the first time in England, I called it Pret a Manger. Having no idea what a Pret was, but I knew what a manger was, I know the Christmas story!


So that’s the way I pronounced it for years until my friend, Nathalie, whose mother tongue is French, but speaks a multitude of other languages, kindly corrected me, as it was not the first French word that I had butchered and she had helped me with. 


It also helps to now have the understanding that “Pret” P-R-E-T means “ready” in French, and the word “a” when it stands alone means “to” in French, and the word M – A – N – G – E – R or “manger” means “eat” in French. But even after Nathalie correcting me and having French lessons, the first year we were here or maybe more, I was actually calling it Pret-a-Manger and it was only recently when I heard a friend who is American, but speaks French fluently say Pret a Manger because you can't have two vowel sounds next to each other like that in French you have to say the “t” even though in the masculine form it’s normally silent, I realized I had still been saying it wrong, and honestly, I still do say it wrong.


Maybe that's funnier to me than everyone else, but just wanted to share a story so that if you see their sign, you can get a good chuckle before you go in.


Anyway, Pret-a-Manger is one of my favorite ready-to-eat cafés. They not only have delicious, cold sandwiches, salads, and wraps, but you can get a hot soup, or a hot, let's call it croissant wrap, where there are red peppers, cheese, and falafel wrapped up tightly in a golden crusted croissant type bread.


Their prices are great, their coffee is very good, and you can also find them everywhere. Back when we had our annual passes at Disney, many times we would go out in the morning, eat in the car on the way, then we would have lunch in the park, and then on our way out of the park in the train station that literally dumps you off at Disney's front door, that's the RER A, for your information, there is a Pret-a-Manger. So as long as we got out of the park by around 6 PM maybe 7 PM, it was usually still open and we could grab dinner for the car ride or the train ride sometimes back home.


And now for our quote of the day. It comes from the book The Paris Wife by Paula Mclain, which is a fictionalized account of the first wife of Ernest Hemingway. For those that don't know, Hemingway spent several years after World War I, with The Lost Generation, a group of artists and authors who were making their way in Paris. And he wrote The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms while living in and also just after leaving Paris.


He was obviously mesmerized by the city, and thus whether it's his character that said this quote, or his wife's, I honestly have not read The Paris Wife yet, the quote is very fitting. It says, “Though I have often looked for one, I finally had to admit that there could be no cure for Paris.”


I suppose there are different ways to look at that quote. But the way that I choose to look at it is that Paris is a city that once you visit, once you see the City of Lights, it's hard to cure that feeling!


That's it for today, everyone! Just a reminder again that if you would like the complete list of all of the Paris eatery “Chan Selects" so that you have a great list to go with you when you come to visit Paris, please go to Expatriotical.com and signup by inserting your email address in the field at the bottom of the home page and hitting the subscribe button!


Thank you all so much for listening and I can't wait to meet you back here again next week. Until then, this is Chandra Alley reminding you to “Live and Travel in the Know" with Expatriotical!