Trocadero. Veer right onto av. Paul Doumer. Free. Open Mar 16-Nov 5 M-F 8am-6pm, Sa 8:30am-6pm, Su 9am-6pm; Nov 6-Mar 15 M-F 8am-5:30pm, Sa 8:30am-5:30pm, Su 9am-5:30pm. Last entry 30min. before close. Conservation office open M-F 8:30am-12:30pm and 2-5pm.
PLACE DU TROCADERO
SQUARE
One of the most bustling hubs in the 16th, Pl. du Trocadero offers one of the best views of the Eiffel Tower. Street artists dance to a melange of hip-hop and pop, vendors push their wares on foot, and angsty youth mill about with skateboards. The nearby cafe Carette has some of the best hot chocolate in Paris (€7).
Trocadero.
Batignolles
There’s a reason the 17ème isn’t a go-to tourist destination. Sights in the traditional sense are few and far between here, but the mostly residential neighborhood and its juxaposition of bourgeois and working class Paris is still worth exploring. The lively Village Batignolles is a highlight; stretching from boulevard de Batignolles to place du Dr. Félix Lobligeois, the area is lined with hip cafes and populated by locals who believe in afternoon drinking. During warmer months, rue de Levis turns into an open-air market, and the local groceries and boutiques park their carts of bananas and hang their canopies of frilly skirts outside to tempt passerby.
SQUARE DES BATIGNOLLES
SQUARE
Formerly a hamlet for workers, and then a storage sight for illicit ammunition, Square des Batignolles is now an English-style park where the trees grow wild, unfettered by neutoric French trimmings and metal bars. Monet once sat here to paint the Gare St-Lazare train tracks, before heading over to a favorite cafe at 11 rue de Batignolles. Today, less illustrious but just as ambitious artists line its winding paths, watching the local joggers go by. The gently flowing river and pooling lake make the park an idyllic respite from the bustle of the city.
Brochant. Walk down rue Brochant. Cross pl. du Charles Fillion Free. Open M-F 8am-9:30pm, Sa-Su and holidays 9am-9:30pm.
Montmartre
One of Paris’s most storied neighborhoods, Montmartre was once home to lots of famous artists. Today, the Place du Tertre, a former artist hangout, is dominated by drunk portraitists instead. From the hills of Montmartre to the seedy underworld of Pigalle, there’s plenty to see here, and plenty of English spoken.
HALLE ST. PIERRE
2 rue Ronsard
MUSEUM
01 42 51 10 49 www.hallesaintpierre.org
Halle St. Pierre is a one-of-a-kind, abstract art museum located right down the street from the Basilica. Exhibits are constantly rotating, so the museum is naturally hard to pin down. The art on display tends to be a bit far out. One of Halle St. Pierre’s more recent exhibits was on “Art Brut Japonais,” or Japanese Outsider Art; during our visit, a standout among the many mind-bending works was a series of dirty pairs of underwear, or as the French call them, slips. Luckily they didn’t smell. Halle St. Pierre also houses rentable workshops, a top-notch bookstore, and a constantly crowded cafe. The museum section is not closed off, so the soft din of cafe chatter accompanies any museum visit.
Anvers or Abesses. €7.50, students €6. Open Sept-July daily 10am-6pm; Aug M-F noon-6pm.
CIMITIÈRE MONTMARTRE
20 av. Rachel
CEMETERY
01 53 42 36 30
A particularly vast cemetery, Montmartre was built below ground on the site of a former quarry, and stretches across a significant portion of the 18th arrondissement. It is now the resting place of multiple famous people: painter Edgar Degas, artist Gustave Moreau, writer Emile Zola, saxophone inventor Adolphe Sax, and ballet dancer Marie Taglioni are among the long-term residents. Fans leave ballet shoes on Taglioni’s grave, and coins, notes, etc. at some of the other famous gravestones. The Cemetery itself is in disrepair; several graves have broken windows, and could use some maintenance and cleaning. The mischievous crowd of the Red Light District is surely to thank for this.
Place de Clichy. Free. Open Nov. 6-May 15 M-F 8am-5:30pm, Sa 8:30am-5:30pm, Su 9am-5:30pm; Mar 16-Nov 5, 8am-6pm, Sa 8:30am-6pm, Su 9am-6pm.
BASILIQUE DU SACRÉ-COEUR
35 rue du Chevalier-de-la-Barre
CHURCH
01 53 41 89 00 www.sacre-coeur-montmartre.fr
Situated 129m above sea-level, the steps of the Basilique offer what is possibly the best view in the whole city. This splendid basilica first underwent construction in 1870. Its purpose? To serve as a spiritual bulwark for France and the Catholic religion, under the weight of a pending military loss and German occupation. The basilica was initially meant to be an assertion of conservative, Catholic power, commissioned by the National Assembly. Today, the Basilica sees over 10 million visitors per year, and is accompanied by an attendant list of tourist traps; outside the Basilica, beware of men trying to “give you” a bracelet or other tourist trinkets, because they’ll start to yell emphatically that you have to pay them once you don’t. The Cathedral itself is home to two souvenir shops. The Museum has some interesting artistic and architectural features: its slightly muted Roman-Byzantine architecture was a reaction against the perceived excess at the recently constructed Opéra Garnier.
Lamarck-Caulaincourt. Free. Open daily 6am-11pm. Mass M-Sa 11:15am, 6:30pm, 10pm; Su 11am, 6pm, 10pm.
Buttes Chaumont
Sights in Buttes are pretty much limited to the Parc des Buttes and the unique Parc de la Villette, a former meat-packing district that provided Paris with much of its beef before the advent of the refridgerated truck. In 1979, the slaughterhouses were replaced with an artistic park, and voilà. Architect Bernard Tschumi’s three-part vision took 461 teams from 41 different countries to complete.
PARC DES BUTTES-CHAUMONT
PARK
This awe-inspiring neighborhood park shrewdly uses impressive, man-made topography to make visitors feel like they’re in Atlantis—or some kind of movie. Napoleon III commissioned the park in 1862 to quell his homesickness for London’s Hyde Park, where he spent a good deal of time in exile. Construction of the park was directed by designer Adolphe Alphand, whose main triumph was the park’s central hill, with its breathtaking exposed crags. The park’s area has been a well-trafficked part of Paris since the 13th century, but before Napoleon III it was famous for very different reasons. Once the site of a gibbet (an iron cage filled with the rotting corpses of criminals), a dumping ground for dead horses, a haven for worms, and a gypsum quarry (the source of “plaster of Paris”), the modern-day Parc des Buttes-Chaumont has come a long way. Today’s visitors walk the winding paths surrounded by lush greenery and hills, and enjoy a great view of the 19ème, 20ème, and the rest of Paris from the Roman temple at the top of the cliffs. The lower rungs of the Parc provide a lovely and shaded respite on a warm summer’s afternoon. Families, rebellious teens, and runners constitute the park’s main demographics.
Buttes-Chaumont. Free. Open daily May-Sept 7am-10:15pm; Oct-Apr 7am-8:15pm.
CITÉ DES SCIENCES ET DE L’INDUSTRIE
30 av. Corentin Cariou
MUSEUM
01 40 05 12 12 www.cite-sciences.fr
If any structure in Paris has ADHD, it’s the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie; to call it a multi-purpose complex would be an understatement. The Cité houses the fabulous Explora Science Museum, one of the top destinations for the children of Paris. Highlights include a magnificent planetarium, a movie theater, a library, a massive cyber cafe, and an aquarium. The whole structure is an architectural tour de force. Outside of the Cité is the enormous Géode, a mirrored sphere that essentially looks like a gigantic disco ball, but somehow doubles as the Cité complex’s second movie theater; the 1000 sq. m. surface provides ample screen space. To the right of the Géode, the Argonaute details the history of (you guessed it) submarines, from the days of Jules Verne to present-day nuclear-powered subs. If the Argonaute looks like a real naval submarine, that’s because it is. The exhibit is fantastic, but will cost you a little extra. At Level -1 in the Cité, you’ll find consultati
on areas for jobs and health; while not exactly a fun outing with the kids, this stuff can be useful if you’re looking for a job or wondering how to stay healthy during your time in Paris.
Porte de la Villette. English or French audio tours included. Formule summer (access to all aspects of the Cité) €21, reduced €19. Explora+Planetarium €11, under 25 €8. Argonaute €3. Cinaxe admission €4.80. Explora+Geode €17.50, reduced €14, under 7 €9. Open M-Sa 9:30am-6pm, Su 9:30am-7pm. Argonaute open Tu-Sa 10am-5:30pm, Su 10am-6:30pm. Cinaxe open Tu-Su 11am-1pm and 2-5pm; showings every 15min.
Belleville and Père Lachaise
CIMITIÈRE DU PÈRE LACHAISE
16 rue du Repos
CEMETERY
01 55 25 82 10
One of the most prestigious cemeteries in Paris, the Cimitière du Père Lachaise is the biproduct of innovative public health codes and 19th-century publicity stunts. Cemeteries were banned inside of Paris in 1786 after the closure of the Saints Innocents Cemetery (Cimitière des Innocents); the cemetery was located on the fringe of Les Halles food market, and local officials came to realize that this (shockingly) presented a health hazard. Père Lachaise, in the east of the city, was the biggest of the new cemeteries outside of the city’s center, the others being Montmartre and Montparnasse. As any tourist who has visited the 20th arrondissement knows all too well, the 20ème is far removed from the heart of Paris, and the cemetery didn’t attract many burials immediately after its creation. In a savvy marketing move, administrators made a grand spectacle of moving the remains of two renowned Frenchmen, Molière and La Fontaine, to Père Lachaise. The strategy worked. Thousands of burials occurred at Lachaise over the next few years, and the cemetery now holds over 300,000 bodies, and many more cremated remains. Today the well-manicured lawns and winding paths of the Cimitière du Père Lachaise have become the final resting place for many French and foreign legends. The cemetery’s over-occupied graves house the likes of Balzac, Delacroix, La Fontaine, Haussmann, Molière, and Proust. Expat honorees include Modigliani, Stein, Wilde, and—most visited of all the graves at Père Lachaise—Jim Morrison.
You’ll notice that many of the tombs in this landscaped grove strive to remind visitors of the dead’s worldly accomplishments. The tomb of French Romantic painter Théodore Géricault bears a reproduction of his Raft of the Medusa, with the original painting now housed in the Louvre. On Frédéric Chopin’s tomb sits his muse Calliope, sculpted beautifully in white marble. Although Oscar Wilde died destitute and unable to afford such an extravagant design, an American admirer added bejewelled Egyptian figurines to his grave in 1912. Despite an interdiction on kissing the tomb, dozens of lipstick marks from adoring fans cover Wilde’s grave today. Upon entering the cemetery, you might feel a distinctly bohemian “vibe.” Well, that’s because The Doors’s former lead singer, Jim Morrison, holds permanent real estate here at Lachaise. Apparently the crooner remains popular even in death. Honored with the most visited, though rather modest, grave in the cemetery, Morrison’s final resting place is annually mobbed by hundreds of thousands of visitors. Admirers bearing beer, flowers, joints, poetry, Doors’ T-shirts, bandanas, jackets and more surround the resting place of their idol daily.
The monuments marking collective deaths remain the most emotionally moving sites in Père Lachaise. The Mur des Fédérés (Wall of the Federals) has become a pilgrimage site for left-wingers. In May 1871, a group of Communards, sensing their reign’s imminent end, murdered the Archbishop of Paris, who had been their hostage since the beginning of the Commune. They dragged his corpse to their stronghold in Père Lachaise and tossed it in a ditch. Four days later, the victorious Versaillais found the body. In retaliation, they lined up 147 Fédérés against the cemetery’s eastern wall before shooting and burying them on the spot. Since 1871, the Mur des Fédérés has been a rallying point for the French Left, which recalls the massacre’s anniversary every Pentecost. Near the wall, other monuments remember WWII Resistance fighters and Nazi concentration camp victims. The cemetery’s northeast corner provokes greater solemnity than the well-manicured central plots’ grand sarcophogi, so take playful activities elsewhere.
Père Lachaise, Gambetta. Free maps at the Bureau de Conservation near Porte du Repos; ask for directions at guard booths near the main entrances. From Apr to mid-Nov free 2½hr. guided tour Sa 2:30pm. For more info on “theme” tours, call 01 49 57 94 37. Open from mid-Mar. to early Nov. M-F 8am-6pm, Sa 8:30am-6pm, Su and holidays 9am-6pm; from Nov. to mid-Mar. M-F 8am-5:30pm, Sa 8:30am-5:30pm, Su and holidays 9am-5:30pm. Last entry 15min. before close.
FOOD
Île de la Cité and Île St-Louis
The islands are dotted with traditional dimly-lit French restaurants, ideal for the couples who walk hand in hand down the quais. But the old heart of Paris is now the tourist center of Paris, and a romantic meal here comes at a price. Expect to pay more than you would for an equivalent meal on the mainland—or just settle for some ice cream. Île St-Louis is perhaps the best place in Paris to stop for a crêpe or a cool treat while strolling along the Seine. And until you’re rolling in dough, or dating someone who is, a snack will have to do.
BERTHILLON
31 rue St-Louis-en-l’Île
ICE CREAM
01 43 54 31 61
You just can’t leave Paris without having a bit of this ice cream. The family-run institution has been doing brilliant marketing work since 1954, but it’s not all false advertising; Berthillon delivers with dozens of flavors that cater to your every craving. If you can’t stand the epic lines, you can get pints of the same stuff at nearby stores.
Pont Neuf. 1 scoop €2.20, 2 scoops €3.40, 3 scoops €4.80. Open Sept to mid-July W-Su 10am-8pm. Closed 2 weeks in Feb and Apr.
CAFE MED
77 rue St-Louis-en-l’Île
RESTAURANT, CRÊPERIE
01 43 29 73 17
There may not be doctors in attendance, but they’ll fill that hole in your stomach and won’t charge you an arm and a leg for your visit. One of the cheapest and most charming options on the isle. The 3-course menu is an astonishing deal.
Pont Marie. 3-course menus at €10, €10,50, €13.90, €19.90. Weekend special tea €6. Open M-F 11am-3:30pm and 7-10:30pm, Sa-Su 11am-10:30pm.
Châtelet-Les Halles
Food in the Châtelet area is unabashedly overpriced and often touristy. Nonetheless, there are a few classics that you simply have to visit—Angelina comes to mind—and a couple neighborhood options with unique dining experiences that are not to be missed.
LE PÈRE FOUETTARD
9 rue Pierre Lescot
TRADITIONAL
01 42 33 74 17
Boasting a cozy interior dining room and a heated terrace that stays open year-round, Fouettard serves tasty traditional French cuisine at slightly elevated prices. If you can bear to pass up the ambience of a cafe meal, it’s better to sit inside; you’ll be closer to the bar. Rich wood walls, ceilings and floors are decorated with wine bottles basically wherever they fit. Meals on the terrace are by candlelight at night; how romantic! The location is fantastic, in the midst of the Châtelet-Les Halles neighborhood.
Étienne Marcel. Formules €14.90-19.90. Salads €13.90-14.50. Plats €12.50-23.50. Open daily 7:30pm-2am.
ANGELINA
226 rue de Rivoli
TEA HOUSE
01 42 60 82 00
A hot chocolate at Angelina will make you feel like Eloise at the Plaza. Located right across from the Jardin des Tuileries, this tea house has been around since 1903; bright frescoes, mirrored walls, and white tablecloths have immortalized Angelina as a Paris classic. There’s always a long line outside; expect to wait 20-30 minutes to get a table. The wait can obviously get out of hand at peak times (weekends during the summer). The hot chocolate (€7.50) is to die for, even in the heat of the summer. In order to cut down on the line, all food items are available for take-out, but there’s often a line for that as well.
Tuileries. Salads
€17-19. Patisseries €6-9. Tea and coffee €4-7.50. Open daily 9am-7pm.
ASSIETTE AVEYRONNAISE
14 rue Coquillière
TRADITIONAL
01 42 36 51 60
A neighborhood favorite: Parisians come from all corners of the city for the delicious traditional saucisse aligot (a sausage engulfed by a mix of mashed potatoes and cheeses), and they won’t hesitate to initiate newcomers to the house’s best dishes. A half-plate of the house specialty will leave most guests incapable of continuing onto the Millefeuille, the house’s dessert specialty. The restaurant’s dining room is no-frills and brightly lit, while the terrace (heated when necessary) unspectacularly looks out on the entrance to a parking garage. The service is extremely friendly despite being insanely busy with the droves of regulars.
Les Halles. Entrées €7.20. Plats €13.80. Formules €18.50, €23.80, €28.30. Open Tu-Su noon-2:30pm and 7:30-midnight.
Let's Go Europe 2011: The Student Travel Guide Page 56