Comments | ayun: Paris! City of OH MY GOD I DON'T CARE.

ayun

Paris! City of OH MY GOD I DON'T CARE.

Aug 09, 2013 13:18

The " #confessyourunpopularopinion" Twitter fad is well-timed for me, because I'm in the research-heavy phase of planning a trip to London and Paris later this year for me and Andy, and my unpopular opinion is that I've never given much of a shit about Paris as a place to visit. I kind of hated Amelie, I don't really care for cathedrals, palaces, ( Read more... )

Comments 14

gobetween August 9 2013, 17:55:53 UTC

A visit to the catacombs can provide some fun photos. Or you can kill time by going to a PSG game to see this guy:

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gobetween August 9 2013, 17:58:18 UTC

And I agree about the Beatles. Their songs often make good covers, though!

ayun August 9 2013, 18:38:34 UTC

I said I knew about the catacombs! I think our list of guidebook-worthy sights is that, the Eiffel Tower, and like one museum. I think we should also be able to see a Christmas market or two, but I doubt that'll amount to more than a day or so of sightseeing.

Andy's a bit on tenterhooks about the fate of Spurs in the Europa league - it'll probably make the difference between him being able to see the team or not. (They're away at Manchester for EPL play when we arrive and their other game while we're on that side of the ocean is at home against Man U, so good luck getting tickets for that.)

gobetween August 9 2013, 19:02:10 UTC

Hah, yeah. I think I noticed that just as I hit 'send', but figured it would be really very helpful to leave another vote for the skulls and bones.

Then I'll root for Spurs to get that far at least!

(The comment has been removed)

ayun August 9 2013, 21:59:28 UTC

Yes, please! And I'll hopefully see you before we go - still planning to be in PDX the weekend of Columbus Day for my grandfather's birthday.

clevernonsense August 9 2013, 18:45:49 UTC

Your opinions on Paris are sort of my opinions of western europe in general. I'd happily visit again, but *not* worth the costs when so many more interesting places exist.

I think part of it might just be how obsessively Hollywood uses major european cities as backdrops for movies to the point where it's boring.

ayun August 9 2013, 22:08:25 UTC

I'm with you there, though I do find things to like in Western European cities. I wouldn't mind returning to Amsterdam or Barcelona. I want to go back to Turkey or Vietnam more. I want to go to new places most of all.

And yeah, the movies may be more responsible than anything for my knee-jerk opinions of Paris.

atalanta August 9 2013, 20:27:58 UTC

Never been to Paris but if you haven't done the V&A Museum yet, it is pretty fun.

aliceinfinland August 10 2013, 10:24:16 UTC

London: East End / Brick Lane / Spitalfields / Shoreditch is the most interesting part, I think. Like East Berlin vs. West Berlin. City money is gradually slicking things up from Liverpool Street outward.

Edgware Road, Middle Eastern restaurant and shop neighborhood at the base of corporate high rises. Look for Fatoush Express, it's my favorite London restaurant. You will also like the earthy-crunchy neighborhood of Camden.

Sir John Soane's Museum. This is how to be a hoarder, people.

National Portrait Gallery. Like meeting people without having to talk to them.

Paris: Going to Paris is like time travel. It is a city that, owing to not being a global banking center and having a truly huge stock of solid but not modernized city center housing to start with, hasn't totally squeezed out its middle and working class and still has little-shop-around-the-corner village communities all over the place. Enjoy the massive outdoor fleas ( ... )

ayun August 10 2013, 13:23:22 UTC

The Parisian High Line is the Promenade Plantee, right? I've got that on the maybe list (because, yeah, weather) and the Eiffel Tower is a definite yes. I...don't care for Monet. Really for Impressionism in general, and it doesn't seem as if there's much other reason to visit the Orangerie. But your suggestion does remind me that I should try to find out if any Paris museums have Yves Tanguy works.

On the colonial-WTF tip, I cut and pasted this recommendation into the doc I'm steadily assembling:
"My favourite building in Paris is the immigration museum, which used to be the Museum of African and Oceanic arts, and was originally built for the the 1931 Colonial Expo. Its facade is covered with intricate concrete carvings of people in "the colonies" and all the exotic products they produced for France. It was both beautiful, and grotesque in the assumptions it was making about African and other colonial peoples."

Thank you for the suggestions!