Warning: this post will be a bit long, because Paris. And it’s only about the first day in Paris. That’s just the way it is.

The plan

We had bought our travel guides months before and had planned to put our various travel desires into a collective pot then make an itinerary from that. In the end we decided since it was Emma’s first time there we’d go with the classics – the big museums, the Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysées, The Opera, the Eiffel Tower, double decker bus tour of the city, lots of walking and at least some Parisian food.

On my side, I had really wanted to tour the Catacombs this time, but maybe it was something in my marketing of the idea (“Skulls! Lots of skeletons in dark underground caverns!”) that dampened the enthusiasm of my travelling companions for this particular aspect of Paris. Go figure. Leading off with a pitch for the Catacombs didn’t do my chances of shoehorning in a visit to any of the Paris cemeteries either, so we settled for the more traditional sights and experiences.

Our plan was to get The Paris Pass® which would enable us to go into far more museums than we could possibly squeeze into our visit, take unlimited public transport for free and do “lay of the land” activities such as the Hop On Hop Off bus and a boat cruise down the Seine River. South Africans are not used to safe, efficient and reliable public transport, nor are they really used to walking around cities so we knew there’d be some adjustment needed over and above the expected museum walking. All part of the adventure!

For the overall itinerary and reason for the whole trip, please head to this post. But the rest of France, Belgium and the Netherlands could wait – we were now in Paris and it was time to eat as much of it as possible, in as many ways as possible.

Arrival, kinda cold and rainy, and the gang is ratty

We arrived pooped at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris around 5:20 in the morning, all three of us having slept just a couple of hours thanks to those nice comfy seats in economy class. I bought those tickets in January, and just to make sure Air France knew I was dealing with French culture, they e-mailed them to me addressed to Tim Beck. Okay, let’s not go there.

Paris is in the same time zone as Johannesburg, so it somehow didn’t help that we couldn’t blame jet lag for our dead sponge feeling. However, immigration was a breeze. Our first order of business was to get that Paris Pass and local sim cards. Sim cards were an easy purchase, but unfortunately the kiosk that sold Paris Passes in the airport only opened at 7:30 and there was no way were going to wait around the airport that long – there was Paris to do!

Transport to our accommodation

We took a taxi to our Airbnb in the 14e arrondissement (14th district) for a flat rate of €55 and flew through the empty roads. Not too bad for 3 people each with one suitcase and one knapsack, considering the Uber price is apparently around €50 as well, and public transport works out to more or less the same until you get your Paris Pass, and we had no clue how to handle the bus or metro at that point. There may also have been a teeny bit of crankiness on the part of one of our team about the lack of Paris Pass; in the interests of world peace we took the taxi option instead of trying to order an Uber. The taxi driver assured us we were experiencing the most amazing Paris traffic ever – every single Parisian had headed for warmer/less crowded/pastoral/”anywhere but here” climes.

Our flat

View from our flat's kitchen window

So we arrived at our little (48m2) 3rd floor flat on a skinny street in the middle of the 14th around 7:30 – yippee! Woohoo! Shower, change and hit the streets of Paris? Not quite. The other two went straight to sleep. Paris could wait.

Image source

First Paris meal

The troops finally got going around noon to find lunch and the holy grail of the Paris Pass which would unlock all manner of Parisian treasures and delights. After a confused and increasingly cranky experience trying to find the metro and the Paris Pass outlet via Google maps (rather than consulting the traditional “map”), only after a most helpful public transit worker told us to stop looking for the Rue de l’Opéra (which exists, but somewhere far away from Paris in the French hinterland), non non non, it’s the Avenue de l’Opéra we’re supposed to be looking for, did we get on the metro and find the right stop.

However, the crew got even crankier when we seemed to have landed in Japan or Korea rather than Paris. How could we have our first Parisian meal at an Asian restaurant? Not only were they tired, they were hungry, and a tired, hungry South African is a dangerous beast. Just in the nick of time, and quite by accident, we turned into the historic Passage Choiseul and lucked into The Croque run by the delightful Frédérique and two laconic young men who may or may not have been her sons.

We weren’t disappointed; Frédérique, who has travelled much of the world and lived in many countries (and really should get onto Steemit), was warm, friendly and welcoming, explaining to us while chatting about her adventures that the ingredients for our croques-monsieur (a humble ham and cheese sandwich made great by the ingredients and the preparation style), were all locally sourced and not mass produced.

The Paris Pass®

Things were looking up.

Happy that we’d dodged having to blaspheme at the Parisian food altar by having sushi, and with the growling tummies and their South Africans now back in their cages, we made our way to the outlet which sells The Paris Pass, which gives us unlimited free access to public transport and many museums and attractions in Paris, as well as priority entry. In retrospect, it was well worth the €549 price for the three of us since we made heavy use of it over the four-ish days we were there.

That little paper ticket on the left is for all public transport. Not to be lost! The red booklet in the middle is for many, many museums and the blue booklet on the right was for things like boat cruises and bus tours. The passes were valid for only four days and kicked in from time of first use.

The Opéra de Paris

We could see the Opéra from the Paris Pass outlet on the Avenue de l’Opéra so didn’t need any help from Madame Google to get there. We joined a tour at the Palais Garnier, as it’s known; no more English tours were available so we did the French tour.

Spectacular, if understandably incomprehensible to my two tourmates. I tried translating some of the more important tidbits, but our guide seemed to be trying to be archetypally Parisian, so while she was extremely knowledgeable about the Palais Garnier, she spent far too much time talking about why men should give women diamonds, the relative merits of champagne over diamonds and somewhat inappropriately about how Asian tourists behave (because, and I quote, we all speak French so there’s no way WE would behave like THAT).

We were absolutely enthralled with the beauty and history of the place. I should have mentioned earlier that the first photo, repeated in the collage, is of the ceiling of the main performance hall, and it was painted by none other than Marc Chagall. There are so many insider stories about this building it would take dozens of posts to do them justice.

Emma and Tim have much better photos than I do and I plan to do another photo post once they upload theirs to our shared site – this collage gives you an idea of the interior of the main performance hall.

Pompidou Centre

Then off to the Pompidou Centre (https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en), by metro (I think). We took a few photos outside before heading in to see the Hockney exhibition, then do a swift (and I mean swift) squizz around the exhibit of Walker Evans’ photos from the early 20th century.

@tim-beck and @kiligirl outside the Pompidou museum

Just one example of all the cool sculptures and artwork in the Pompidou plaza. A great place to gather!

The brochure for the Hockney exhibit and our souvenir ticket

First night in Paris

We were flagging badly after that and decided to replenish our energy levels by stopping at a pizza/sports bar place across the plaza from the Centre Pompidou. Ugh. The pizza was fine although expensive (think tourist trap), but the wine, beer and water were overpriced and served by a ridiculously rude fellow from Normandy.

Off we went back to our apartment for the night. We managed the metro fine, and the South Africans survived the walk back to the apartment. Way to go us! We did it! Our first day in Paris and we managed just fine. And we'll hit tomorrow earlier because - the Louvre looms.