I am sitting backwards on a TGV from Paris to Pornic via Nantes. It’s not the best direction to be facing but the train is full. It’s August and technically, the whole country is on holiday and so it’s full of Parisians heading to the coast for their annual vacation.
Notre Dame
At boarding, we meet a young French man who’s returning home to Angers. He’s just finished a one-month holiday in Indonesia, after a six-month stay in Australia. He quit his job for the break and now he says he’ll look for a new job.
“Is it easy to find a job?” I ask him. “No, not really,” he says. “We still have a crisis.”
I like it that younger French people now speak more English and he seems very happy despite the “crisis”. I wonder if he’s been to Bhutan.
Anyway, I’ve spent the last three days in Paris – it’s been a long time since I’ve been a real tourist in this city. My past visits have always been either on business or to visit local friends. This time, I am travelling with family and friends, all of whom are in Paris for the first time, and it’s wonderful seeing the city through their eyes.
It’s like falling in love with someone all over again. The reminder of what you first saw in them, why you got on in the first place and why you liked each other enough to start a love story together.
Pont des Arts bridge, weighed down with love locks
We walked everywhere, up and down the Seine, across the bridges, from Pont Neuf to the Louvre, stopped at Pont des Arts that’s in danger of collapsing from the weight of thousands of padlocks put there in the name of love.
It being the height of summer, Paris is full of tourists like us. This is the capital of the world’s most visited country – last year, France welcomed 84.7 million foreign tourists.
I reckon at least half of them visit Paris in July and August. There are queues everywhere – from Notre Dame to the Louvre, Eiffel Tower and Moulin Rouge – and oh yes, pickpockets too, so you have to be mindful of your belongings at all times.
This is a city made for tourists. Everywhere you walk, there’s something to see, admire, take a photo of. It’s like an open-air museum really.
I love the optimism of Paris Plage, where they put sand on the banks of the Seine to recreate a beach playground. I love the randomness of buskers who perform everywhere – from solo folk singers in the Latin Quarter to a full 10-piece orchestra at the Marais.
I love the idea of the Open Bus Tour – well, when it’s not raining anyway – and the freedom to hop on and off anywhere.
Paris’ oldest book store
I love the fact that Paris seems a much friendlier city for tourists these days. More young people speak English. Taxis are easier to find. There are bicycles and electric cars for hire. You can get pre-paid data cards really easily now. The service everywhere seems to be much better than I remember it.
I love the fact that you can eat well in Paris and not bust your budget, if you know the right places to go. Or maybe it’s because I come from Singapore, which has been named the most expensive city in the world, and everywhere else seems to be of better value …
I also did something I’ve never done for all the times I’ve been to Paris. I went outlet shopping at La Vallee Village, a 45-minute bus ride from the city. Like all good Asians, my group wanted to shop, and outlet shopping is up there among the must-do list of Asian travellers everywhere.
I had been told it’s most popular with Asians and Middle Easterners but to my surprise, the bus had a good mix of other nationalities – Americans and Russians mostly. We heard Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, Hokkien and Hindi – it’s the world in one bus.
It’s indeed a shoppers’ paradise with shops that go on and on, and you can easily spend a day if you really want to shop, but a half day is enough for us – it had to be because that night, I was going to do the most touristy thing one can do in Paris, dine and watch the show at the Moulin Rouge.
Luxembourg Gardens
It helps to have friends and we were able to avoid the queue. Our tickets were waiting for us. We were offered champagne in the lounge before we went in for dinner.
This has to be the best-oiled tourist machine in the world – 900 seats per show, two seatings per night, and they are full most of the time. The night we were there, it was packed. Chinese are the biggest foreign market (no surprise).
They have yet to find their first Chinese dancer though and it won’t be easy. To be a Moulin Rouge dancer, a girl has to be at least 1.75m and a boy 1.85m and after watching the show, I realise that you also need a perfect body.
The drinks arrive on time, the food as well and while you’re eating, a vivacious photographer takes your photo and later sells it to you for 21 Euros. You can hardly say no to her.
The food isn’t bad for the volume they are serving, the champagne flows freely but it is the show that everyone’s come to see. Now I first saw this more than 20 years ago and I can only recall the can-can dancing bit.
This still remains the highlight but the show now has more variety. The dancers of course are strong, graceful and beautiful and their costumes spectacular and colourful but my favourite act is the ventriloquist and his talking dog.
Bon chien. Bon Paree. Yes, I have fallen in love again with the city.
