Paris tips

Most importantly, don’t pretend you’re “working” and need to get up at 8am every AM to get a “full vacation.” Get a full vacation by acting like a decadent unemployed Parisian — stay up until 2 or 3am every night (8pm or 9pm in NYC)and then get up at noon! Slowly let the light and walking ease you into local time. Bonus, you won’t have jet lag either going or coming back.

On this midday to midnight schedule, there’s still plenty to do:

• Go to “night hours” at museums… you’ll avoid busloads of tourists and get some awesome views into the twinkling night. Check the different museums’ sites… different museums are open late on different nights.
• One of these is obviously the Louvre. The grande mere of all museums now requires a reservation, which you can make online. Once you’ve got a reservation, you can beat the line by entering via the basement mall … video details here. (As a bonus, you can visit the Swatch store, which often stocks rare Moonswatches.) If you have to visit the Louvre during the day: unless you’re desparate to see the Mona Lisa, skip the Sully wing, which is basically one long line to see Lisa. Reduce the jostling by 90% by focusing on the Denon wing, which is full of Old Masters and other masterpieces.
• Palais de Tokyo — contemporary art in a fun space, open to midnight some nights.
• Beaubourg/Pompidou — modern art, with great views of Paris. (For a cheap thrill before or mid-visit, have coffee in Charles, the swank restaurant on the 5th floor looking out over rooftops.)
• City of Paris Museum of Modern Art lots of great art, big place, not many people go there (short walk from Tokyo.)
• Then eat at a cafe at 11pm.

Other spots off the beaten track but not far from everything else:

• Wander through the Marais — lots of tiny streets and boutiques
• Picasso Museum — dude was prolific in an astonishing range of styles
• Check out department store Samaritaine (not far from Marais)
• Walk around Ile Saint Louis (the island Notre Dame, currently encased in scaffolding, sits on)
• If you want a view, try the top of the Arche de Triumph, which is (perhaps) cooler (and free and a lot less time) than the Eiffel Tower
• Palais Royale — cool square near the center of town
• If you like modern modern art (as opposed to the art of the late 20th century) and a repurposed building from the 1920s check out Palais de Tokyo
• Cluny Museum — small museum on the left bank with lots of interesting weird stuff from the Middle Ages. Then take a break in the nearby Luxembourg gardens with cool fountains and old guys playing boul.
• Musee d L’Armee… amazing varieties of swords and armor
• Pere Lachaise cemetery, full of odd statuary and tombstones of people like Edith Piaf and Jim Morrison
• If you go to the big flea market (Les Puces), it’s lots of fun, but watch out for pickpockets in the subway station.

One great book is Paris to the Moon, by Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker, about his young family’s time in Paris. Also awesomely funny and insightful on expats and the French … Le Divorce. Also, The Great Journey, about America’s infatuation with Paris even in the 1800s.

BTW, a key phrase whenever you want to ask anything from anyone in France: “Excusez moi de vous deranger.” “Sorry to disturb you”… useful even if you’re just ordering from a waiter who is, theoretically at least, employed to be “disturbed” by you.

Unless you’ve got a restaurant in mind, the best strategy for food is pulling up Google maps and looking at the stars of nearby restaurants and bistros. Pick the one with the most stars, and you’ll do well.

If you go to Cluny, the brasserie straight ahead out the front door is called Balzar… http://www.brasseriebalzar.com/en/ looks really mundane and may be overrun by tourists but used to be frequented by the French (when we were there) and has awesome steak au proivre or skate in butter and capers, finishing up with a Tarte Tatin (apples and sugar, baked into carmelized bliss.) The place is also featured in a chapter in Gopnik, who of course claims the restaurant was “better before you got there.”

Which is, of course, what Americans have been saying about Paris for the last 200 years. The good news: the Paris you’ll enjoy is definitely better than the Paris your friends will experience next year.