“Paris is a veritable ocean. Cast your sounding line into it; you will never know its depth.”

– Honoré de Balzac, Le Père Goriot (1835)

French culture has always fascinated me. Maybe not quite to the same degree as German or British culture. But for me, France has always been a culture, a language, and a nation that I am always keen on learning more about. I have been fortunate to have visited France many times, and I have even been able to visit France’s new world daughter; Quebec. I’ve had only positive experiences in both, but one place has always eluded me: Paris. For the longest time I had never visited the capital of the French Republic. It had been on my bucket list and the lists of many others as well. Those days are now over, I recently finally made it to Paris and got to experience it in all its glory. Paris is a lot of things to a lot of people and I’m still trying to work out what it means to me.

The world is filled with villages, towns, and cities. Most of them are unknown to most people. Germans have never heard of Laramie, Wyoming and nor have Americans heard of Giessen, Hesse. Paris is not like these two places. Like London, New York City, or Berlin, everyone has heard of Paris. France is the most visited country in the world and Paris is one of the most visited cities in the world. Paris is world famous and well known. Everyone has heard of the Eiffel Tower and has some image of a mime drinking coffee on a Parisian street corner. What this means is that Paris is not any type of hidden gem or lesser known place to visit. It knows its audience and caters very well to tourists. There are souvenir shops, guides, and tour groups everywhere. Every major attraction, whether the Notre Dame, Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, Sacré-Cœur, or anywhere else, there is bound to be a huge queue to get in anywhere. Paris is, for better or for worse, the prototypical touristy place. I am sure it did not help that I was there while the Pope was in town.

The Positives (Les points positifs):

It would be unfair to say that Paris is anything other than beautiful, because it is gorgeous. Germany can be depressing at times because so many of the buildings are unadorned and modern. Coming to France, one can immediately notice that old buildings are the style and are maintained with great care. Modern buildings can still be found, but they tend to generally not be too offensive. Or there are at least enough beautiful buildings that the other ones get drowned out. Major avenues like the Champs-Élysées are of course going to be nice, but even small side streets are really nice as well. The beauty even extends to the people as well. Parisians are very well dressed, and at least compared to other big cities I have been to, they might be the best dressed. The French are known for their fashion and it is no wonder why.

The public transportation system is also incredible. The Paris Metro is efficient and can get you pretty much anywhere. The commuter trains and buses are also very good and they are all connected with one transportation authority, meaning that buying and using the right ticket is pretty easy to manage. The stations of the Paris Metro were usually older looking and had an incredible very nineteenth century style. Otherwise, the newer stations all looked very modern and well made. The colors were also bright and surprisingly clean. This might have something to do with the fact that you are only allowed on the platforms if you have a ticket. Something that Germany may do well to adopt.

The museums and monuments are also famous for a reason. The Louvre, home of the Mona Lisa as well as many other famous paintings, statues, jewels, and treasures, is incredible. The main foyer under the iconic glass pyramid is a sight in and of itself to behold. The Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, and Eiffel Tower are also all very impressive structures. Depending on where you are in the city. The Eiffel Tower either looks bigger or smaller than you expect. The Notre Dame is gorgeous and the reconstruction has been done very well. You would not be able to tell that it was on fire and heavily damaged in 2019. Sometimes you have to be careful with meeting your heroes, and it is common that big world famous monuments like the Statue of Liberty, Big Ben, or the Brandenburg Gate don’t end up living up to expectations. I don’t think Paris has that problem.

To round out the positives, the food is another highlight. The French are culinary masters and they know what they are doing in the kitchen. I got to finally try the infamous escargot (snails), and they were great. So good that I had them twice. Liver, duck, french fries, steak, coffee, crème brûlée, and so many other dishes were quite scrumptious. France, and evidently its capital, is a place where one should just trust the kitchen and be more adventurous. The food is not to be missed, though it can sometimes seem to be weird.

The Negatives (Les points négatifs):

Nowhere is perfect, and so it is only fair to mention the things that are suboptimal. The first thing that sticks out from Paris is that it is really filled to the brim with people. It did not seem to matter where or what time of day, the Metro was always full without any seating room. The streets are full of people, the tourist attractions, restaurants, everything. There wasn’t anywhere where you could relax and breathe a bit, the crowds could not be avoided and when I say there was a queue for everything, this isn’t hyperbole. There were literally queues to get into restaurants and stores. I can imagine that the mass of people in Paris understandably annoys the locals. As I have never lived in a touristy place, I am still unaware of how one deals with that.

Paris isn’t the cleanest place on earth. While the Metro and train stations were quite clean, the same can’t be said about the city. Trash was abundant and the streets weren’t really ever clean. It depended a bit on the area, but it is generally a dirty place. Though, in comparison to Berlin it felt very similar. I would even say that Berlin is maybe slightly dirtier, which is quite damning. The one thing Paris has going for it is that there wasn’t too much graffiti, that they had well under control. Unlike in Germany where every square inch of infrastructure everywhere is covered in obscene and ugly scribbles of spray paint.

It must also be said, because there are so many tourists from around the world, it is hard to know how many of the people one runs into are true Parisians or not. I can imagine that the true Parisian lives in a completely different world and frequents different places than where the tourist goes to. France, like the rest of the West, has had an increasing population diversification over the past few decades, and it is very noticeable in Paris. There are many people with Middle Eastern, Asian, and African backgrounds. In particular, Paris has a lot of people from Africa and in certain neighborhoods and streets, it seems like they are the only people around. Women in islamic headcoverings is nowadays common in Europe, but in Paris there were a surprising amount of African men wearing islamic garb and head coverings as well. While many Parisians were very well dressed, it does shock the system a bit to see one group of people wearing the latest in European fashion, while another group ten feet away are wearing traditional islamic and African attire. It isn’t a joke to say that Paris at times feels more like Africa than Europe. Though, to Paris’ credit, it seemed like most everywhere was speaking French regardless of background. Whereas in Germany it feels like none of the recent arrivals ever speak German in public, only their native tongues.

Because Paris is so touristy, it is hard to ever get away from it. I personally like visiting cities, but it always interests me to know what the locals are doing and to try and get a picture of the place beyond just the post cards and the top places of interest. As Paris is the city to visit, this was not going to be possible on the first go around. If one was living in Paris, or got to visit it a few times, I think that one could probably find the true hidden gems of the city.

Vive la France!

It is well known that the French are not the best English speakers on earth, though in Paris they are actually pretty good. France resisted English for a long time and now I understand why. If you come from a small country like Slovenia or Latvia, it is probably clear that you are going to need to learn another language to be able to communicate with the world. However, if you are in France, or especially Paris, you are the world. Paris feels like the capital of a very large country, empire even. And to be fair, it is kind of true. France still has overseas territories on every continent on Earth. In some train stations, they even had posters promoting some of these places. France is one of the largest countries in Europe in terms of both population and area. The French had an incredibly large global empire and now have a smaller, but still impressive globe spanning country. Paris feels like the beating heart of France, because it is.

New York is impressive because it is the economic and cultural heart of America, but it lacks being the political center of America. Germany too has many large cities, meaning that while Berlin is a very cool place, Hamburg, Cologne, Frankfurt and Munich all make for compelling rivals and they are all leaders in their own ways. Berlin might be the political heart of the nation, but Frankfurt is the economic center. In Paris, for many complicated political and historical reasons, importance in different sectors was not spread out, rather it was centralized. America and Germany are very decentralized, Britain and France are very centralized. This means that Paris truly has it all. Paris is France and France is Paris, not to say that the other regions of France are not important, but in some ways they honestly are less important than Paris.

And then there is the famous man himself Napoleon Bonaparte. Paintings of him are in the Louvre, statues of him are everywhere, and his tomb is in Paris. He was one of the first to try and modernize the city. He didn’t really succeed and it was later Napoleon III and Georges-Eugène Haussmann who turned Paris into what we know it as today, with its grand boulevards, monuments, and consistent architectural style. The French love Napoleon and in turn so does Paris. Paris is filled with many streets dedicated to the French Revolution, past wars, the famous, and much more. Paris is a grand city fit for somebody like Napoleon. It may not be as innocent or as relaxing as a more medieval city, but it is frankly the blueprint for what the capital city of a global empire should look like. Washington DC does not compare.

Paris is big, it is loud, and it is grand. Paris is well known and it is a city fit for an empire. It holds many treasures, monuments, and museums, and they are well visited. I knew what I was getting into before going, both the positives as well as the negatives, and yet the city still surprised me and was a joy to be in. There may be prettier cities, bigger cities, more romantic cities, and wealthier cities. But you will not find another city that does everything very well. To understand France, you need to start with Paris, and understanding France is worth the time. Before the revolution, Versailles was the envy of the world and the French set the bench mark of everything. While there is no longer a French king, France is still in many ways king. Paris is its crown. One should visit Paris, it is a city not to be missed.

“For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” – Hebrews 11:10 (ESV)