Wednesday, June 29, 2011

The logistics

There are probably as many paths through the City of Light as there are people who visit. My path centered on history, art, music, and literature, with an emphasis on walking. If you ever visit Paris, I'm sure your path will differ from mine. Still, it seems worth offering a bit of detail about the logistics in case anyone is interested.

Lodging. The apartment was rented through Untours, which arranges apartments for one- or two-week stays in various enticing parts of the world. The idea behind an Untour is that your path is smoothed considerably by the expertise and support of a local guide, but you are on your own as far as planning your itinerary and living your days as you like. The two-week stay in Paris came with transportation to and from the airport (reliable and cheerful even though our outbound flight left at 7:40 a.m.), 20 Métro tickets apiece for me and my traveling companion, a five-day Paris Visite pass each (this pass allows you to ride the Métro and the RER trains), a two-day museum pass apiece (we bought additional four-day passes), and the dinner I described on our first full day in the city. Untours has several apartments in Paris, and at the dinner we met everyone else who had just arrived for a one- or two-week stay in one of them. Our guide, Jennifer, met our plane and provided helpful information about food, shopping (of the everyday where-do-I-buy-soap variety), and riding the Métro; at the orientation before the dinner, she brought information about various day trips from Paris (Giverny, Chartres, Versailles, etc). Our apartment had wireless Internet access, and when we had trouble figuring out the password, someone showed up to help us before I realized my friend had even called for help. All in all, I can wholeheartedly recommend Untours if you would like a similar experience not just in Paris but in various other cities.

Day trips. We debated over the various possible day trips, reluctantly rejecting Giverny as probably too crowded at that time of year. We visited Chartres and Versailles on the same day, which is not advisable if you want to see Versailles in depth, but worked out fine for us; we were most interested in the gardens. It might be nice to go back for a full day sometime to see the Grand and Petit Trianons, but I was quite happy with what we did see. Although I enjoyed our relatively brief visit to Chartres, I also would not mind spending a full day there, visiting the stained glass museum and perhaps attending both of Malcolm Miller's tours (noon and 2:45 daily except for Sundays, €10 a head when we were there). He is said to never give the same tour twice on the same day, and at the end of the tour we attended, he promised to be there until the Judgement Day, so maybe I have another chance at catching both of them in one day.

Music, etc. My friend Jay is a music theorist, and he found a site that lists information about classical music concerts in Paris. We booked the chamber music concert in the Saint-Chapelle and the Orchestre de Paris concert in the Salle Pleyel before we left; the opera was all booked up. When you are in Paris, it is also well worth keeping your eyes peeled for posters advertising classical music concerts in Paris's many cathedrals and churches; I saw flyers up all over the place for various events that I wish I had had time for. Every Wednesday a new Pariscope magazine comes out and is available at news stands and book stores. (Jennifer gave us one at the orientation session, and I bought one for the second week; that second one led us to the free Chopin and Liszt at the Bois de Boulogne.) It lists not just music but also theatre, cinema, and other entertainment possibilities in the city. As far as music both classical and non-classical goes, the music festival on the solstice looks like a lot of fun from the little I saw of it.

Guidebooks. As I mentioned earlier, Rick Steve's Paris 2011 was an invaluable guide, and his free audio walking tours can guide you through the Louvre, the Orsay, Versailles, and historic Paris. (I did not use any of the tours while actually navigating these places, but I gleaned information from them before the trip. I did use the maps and commentary in the book for guidance at Versailles and Chartres, and consulted the book regularly while I was in Paris.) I also enjoyed the information and maps in Paris From the Ground Up by James H.S. McGregor. If I hadn't read this book, I never would have known about Philippe-Auguste's wall or the foundations of the towers of the original Louvre.

Walking tours. Our walking was all self-directed. Jay downloaded maps to his iPhone, so I could enjoy gawking at the buildings or the river or the people to my heart's content without getting lost because he consulted his iPhone and kept us on track. On my days on my own, I memorized a few key points of the route (Métro stops, street names) and winged it from there, consulting my Frommer map as needed. I wish I had had the time to take advantage of the Paris walks organized by Peter and Oriel Caine. These English-language walking tours come highly regarded, are not expensive, and offer many opportunities to explore particular neighborhoods or themes. When I go back, I definitely want to take the chocolate tour.

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