Paris recommendations

A friend of mine is travelling to Paris soon, so I thought I’d send him some recommendations. And because I’m going myself in a couple weeks, I didn’t want to lose the info. So here it is for posterity, my list of must-dos in Paris.

A marvellous new restaurant in Paris is:

Restaurant Le X
10, Rue Saint Merri
Paris 4e
01 48 87 06 00

Jay and I found it when wandering around the Marais back in May. Jay has a great sense for just stumbling past — and identifying! — the coolest places to eat. Tell them we sent you, if you go. 🙂 It’s right near the Pompidou centre. Great modern food, and an excellent value. Be sure to try “Le Romantique” platter of desserts.

X is in the Marais district which is my favorite part of Paris (Metro: Hotel de Ville). It has lots of wonderful cafes, bars (of all varieties) and cool stores to wander around.

Another good restaurant in that area is “Au Tibourg” in Rue du Bourg-Tibourg. Excellent tradional French cuisine.

And for brunch, try “Le Pain Quotidien” on Rue du Temple (might be Rue des Archives, not quite sure). You sit at bench-style tables elbow-to-elbow with everyone else, and get a great country breakfast. It’s a cool place to get some conversation with locals when you travel alone.

As for sightseeing, these are my recommendations:

* Musee d’Orsay. The best museum in the world. Skip the Louvre in favour of this.
* Don’t bother climbing the Eiffel tower. Go to the Sacre Coeur in Montmartre. You can climb it for about 20FF (whatever that is in Euros these days) and you get a far better view of Paris … with the Eiffel Tower included!
* Musee Picasso is also very good if you like Picasso.
* If you get the time, visit Cite du Science et de l’Industrie (at Porte de la Villette, I think). I haven’t been there for about 10 years, but at the time it was the best science museum in the world.
* Take a walk to Place des Vosges and have a coffee in a terrace cafe one sunny afternoon
* Just walk around a lot. Paris is a wonderful city for walking and exploring. Walking down the length of the Champs Elysees, through Place Concorde and down to Notre Dame is a favourite of mine.
* If you need a break, go see a movie, but make sure it’s marked “(VO)” — English with subtitles.

By the way, nonfamous really needs a “travel” category.