Category: Trips and Tours

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Great Touristy Things to do Helpful Information Holidays Trips and Tours

Find the best guided tour of Paris for you

How do you choose the best guided tour of Paris for you? There are hundreds of ways of finding out all about Paris, some free and some not so free.  You can take a tour whilst walking, running, riding a bike, motorbike or a segway, taking a bus, a tuk tuk, a boat or whilst sitting down in a comfy seat watching a theatre performance to name but a few.

But if you only have an hour or three, here are my Top Choices for having fun and finding your best guided tour of Paris :

I love walking so for me this is the best : A great, and (technically) FREE choice is  www.discoverwalks.com  Take one of 5 trips round the Marais, Montmartre, ‘Parisian Landmarks’ The Left Bank (the South side) or the Islands with a young, bilingual Frenchman or woman, vividly – dressed in pink waistcoats or shirts so you can’t lose them.  These are not history lessons, they are full of facts, very funny anecdotes and stories about current events.  Great fun. Your guides exist on tips.

If you are a lot more energetic you could sign up as for the FREE running tours on Wednesday mornings at 10am.  Your guide is Luke, an Australian, and you can meet him at the pointy end of Ile de La Cité opposite the Statue of Henri IV (right by one of my favourite restaurants, the Taverne Henri IV).   Just turn up or sign up to his Facebook page.   Please don’t think for one moment that I have done this, I have just got some mad friends!

Gorgeous guests Jeff and Laura suggested I tell all of you about the Left Bank Scooters who will take you on a 3 hour journey around Paris; one of you on the back of a motorcycle and the other in a sidecar, helmets etc provided. Both of them are tall but neither of them said they felt crushed and they came back raving, they loved it.  These tours are only offered in the Winter months, from November to the end of March and for the braver, they offer Vespa scooter hire too.

Finally, so many of you have watched and adored the Theatre show “How to become a Parisian in one hour”. It is not a guided tour but it does guide you through how to understand the Parisians, their foibles and how we need to behave to get along in Paris.  It was created and is performed by a Frenchman, Olivier Giraud, in English and has been a smash hit for years.  A laugh a minute tho a little on the blue side perhaps.  The theatre show is every Friday – Monday night and tickets cost from €24 – ask if you want me to book for you.  And it is not far, go to Galeries Lafayette at the bottom of the hill and turn right!

I hope this will give you food for thought as to how to find the best guided tour of Paris for you and your family, whether it is your first trip or not and I look forward to your comments.

If you found this interesting, please take a look at my Handy Guide to Living Like a Local or perhaps you want to know some of my great restaurant choices?

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Great Exhibitions Great Touristy Things to do Helpful Information Holidays Trips and Tours

Teens will love Will.i.am at the Louvre

I’m a fan of the Black Eyed Peas so when I heard last month that Will.i.am (founding member of the Black Eyed Peas for those over 30) was re-interpreting his “Mona Lisa Smile” video in association with the Louvre, my interest was piqued.

I love the new video which was entirely set in the Louvre.  Throughout the song Will.i.am super-imposes himself on numerous of the Louvre’s most famous paintings, half of which I should know but don’t. Nicole Scherzinger plays La Joconde / Mona Lisa – but as I am over 30 I haven’t heard of her ;-(

Will.i.am at the Louvre

I think it would be a great wheeze to wander round the Louvre trying to spot the paintings used in the song !  One way to interest the teens, I think.

I might have to find them in the correct order sequence though just because I am waaayy too complicated for my own good…

Click on the photo to see the video.

How many can you name off the top of your head ?   If you need help this link shows the original painting, the video version and a bio !

Not content with this collaboration, Will.i.am has also produced a 12 minute documentary – Will.i.am at the Louvre – with the senior creator of the Department of Decorative Arts at the Louvre and the Editor of Wired UK discussing his passion for art and technology and his fascination with the Louvre, “the greatest museum in the World”.  Some contents that particularly inspired him included one of my favourite subjects, Marie-Antoinette, his view of the parallels between creativity in the 18th century and today and the piece de résistance in his mind, Claude-Simeon Passemant’s 18th Century silver and gold “Pendulum of the Creation of the World”, which not only tells the time but shows precisely how the Earth tilts on its axis.

Click here to see the documentary.

The Louvre has a lot of Visitor Trails, maps with detailed directions and explanations of what you are seeing which you follow at your leisure and they have created a 90 minute Will.i.am at the Louvre Trail based on the documentary incorporating everything he talks about including the sumptuous Napoleon III apartments, the monumental white stone Lefuel double staircase and ‘that clock’ which I also think is amazing (I recently saw a smaller version in the Kings private state rooms in Versailles Palace but it is not on public display).

If you are up to it, and your teens aren’t yet dragging their feet and demanding to be fed, there is 90 minute themed tour about the Da Vinci Code called ‘from Fiction to Fact’ and just one guided tour in English – an introduction to the ‘Masterpieces’ at 11.30am and 2pm each day.

Happy Louvring !

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Eating Experience Great Touristy Things to do Helpful Information Trips and Tours

The best boat trip on the Seine

I am always being asked about the plethora of different boat cruises on the Seine, starting with “Is a boat trip on the Seine a good thing to do if we only have a couple of days in Paris”?  “Are they a tourist trap”?  “Should we spend the money on dining or just take a guided tour”?

My reflex answer is “yes, definitely, no matter how short your trip, make space for a boat trip”.  You have a completely different perspective of Paris from the river;  the buildings are stunning and even more beautiful when lit in the evenings. The round trip can be relatively quick and you get to rest your, often very, weary, feet.

So many of the most important buildings were either built on the river or have unhindered views from it ; the Eiffel Tower, Invalides, the Musée d’Orsay, the Louvre and everything on the 2 islands – Notre Dame, the Conciergerie and Saint Chapelle, never mind that every single other building seems to have its own individual style and story to tell so that you could travel the Seine for months and still see something else you hadn’t seen before.

Yes, it is also a tourist trap but that doesn’t mean to say you are ripped off – there is enough competition to keep prices down and service efficient. In fact, if you can, take the trip twice, once during the day in the sunshine and again in the evening at dusk.

As there are so many different types of boat trip here are my thoughts :

For starters, there is the BatoBus, the watery equivalent of the Hop-on Hop-off bus.  Batobus_ParisThere are 1 or 2 day tickets for these boats that come every 20 minutes to any of the 9 stops. This is a great option if you think you are going to sightsee along the river and want to take in as much as possible.  It’s also quite a great option for children who may get tired easily because there is so much to distract them. However factor in it’s not a way to ‘see’ all of Paris, the metro is a lot quicker.

Then there are the cruises :

Vedettes du Pont Neuf offer a basic cruise all afternoon / evening from the Pont Neuf with commentary in French and English from a real guide.  Bring a picnic!

Vedettes de Paris has a one way ticket and roundabout tickets from 10am – 6pm with audioguides or guides and the starting point is right in front of the Eiffel Tower.

The famous Bateaux Mouches and Bateaux Parisiens are much larger cruise boats so cheaper for their guided (taped) tours. However you could opt for food with the lunch, brunch or dinner menus.  Bateaux Parisien boats are smaller and the Bateaux Mouches have a dress code for dinner. Dinner is prepared fresh that day and you are accompanied by a small band on both so you can dance between the tables if you like.

I have not taken the lunch or brunch trips but have only heard good reviews from guests. I have taken the dinner trips on several occasions and the food is very good however with pricing for dinner starting at €90 per person, sharing with a couple of hundred other people, you can also ask me to give you a couple of dinner options before taking a night cruise.

However, my total favourite is Le Calife, a wooden converted barge.  Calife barge restaurant

You have to be careful not to miss the view when chatting or eating the delicious food at lunch or dinner time (in fact le Calife is listed in the Top 20 restaurants in Paris on TripAdvisor). There is no guided commentary and no live music, it’s just an excellent meal eaten whilst floating by a gorgeous view at 3 price points depending on which of the 3 levels of the boat you choose (Terrace, Veranda or the Salon lounge) are all excellent just don’t want to book the ‘music lounge’ which is below deck.

Do tell me which one you preferred.

Please find more recommendations by reading my suggestions of the best restaurants minutes from 52 Clichy or dive in with my in-depth Guide to Living Like a Local. I am sure they will make your trip to Paris very special.

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If you haven’t already considered visiting Paris and staying at 52 Clichy, take a look at my website or read some of my 150+ 5 star reviews for the B&B or the +120 5* reviews for the Apartment.