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Tips On Frugal Living In Paris, France

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Copyright © 2006-2009 by Zack Smith
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This web page is devoted to listing as many examples of how to live cheaply in Paris as I can find. It's also a general guide to living in France. It's intended both for English-speaking locals and tourists.

News: I've produced a nicely formatted printable version of this document, which is here.

In order to live a frugal life, which is more honorable than being induced to spend recklessly, you need to know some things:

  • You need to know specific cheaper options.
  • You need to be informed about what you are buying.
  • You need to know where and how to get information.
  • You need to be able to identify common ripoffs.
  • You need to know enough language to ask pointed questions and understand answers.

If you're not working, that's all the more reason to remember the maxim of long-term backpackers : the less you pay the longer you stay.

If you have anything you'd like to add, you can reach me here. Anonymous suggestions will be ignored.

Why Be Frugal?

More to the point, why waste money? The burden of proof is always on they who sell products and services to explain why their prices are high. Most often, they don't offer an argument, but rather use tricks or entrapment or coercion to get money out of consumers. In a city like Paris, there will always be people encouraging you to spend like you're in Disneyland, i.e. foolishly. But you can and should remain in control of your money and you can avoid the scams. The consumer has no moral duty to keep even benevolent merchants in business, let alone the bad ones. If anything you have a duty to help put the bad ones out of business by avoiding them and letting others know if any business treated you badly.

It is also the case that being frugal is an enjoyable hobby.

Caveat re Prices

In this guide, I've converted many prices to dollars so that you have some idea of how much your American money -- if you're drawing from your US savings while in Paris -- is buying you. However when I wrote the bulk of this, the US Dollar was 1.25 per Euro (5 for 4). Due to the dollar's continuing slide, it is now more like 1.33 to the Euro (4 for 3). It is therefore better to pay attention the € prices. I will eventually remove the dollar prices.

Some trivia for you:

Way back in 2006, an official at the US Treasury quietly announced a few days before Christmas when almost nobody was listening that the USA was bankrupt. FSU story. Of course, in 2009 the USA's shit-out-of-luck (SOL) as the youngsters say.

Table of Contents

The List

Architecture

One free pleasure is Paris is the architecture.

Many of the beautiful older buildings are still in very good shape, mainly because their ornamentation was done in concrete, which lasts. Similar stuff in the USA was done around the same time, but often in wood, which requires more maintenance and doesn't last.

The story about Paris's architecture, according to one guy at least, is that in the early part of the 20th century there were contests every year for the most beautiful building in Paris. So all the architects rushed to make beautiful buildings, resulting in a great many of them.

Now, if only they would bring back that contest, it might prevent monster-buildings like the new Branly museum from cropping up.

Also: If you see a dirty building, for instance Sacre Coeur, keep in mind that the law says all buildings must be cleaned once every 10 years. A dirty one is probably near the end of that period or its proprietors have found a loophole to avoid doing the cleaning.

Arrondissements

  • 1. Museum area: good tourist attractions.
  • 2. Shopping area: always very busy but not a bad place.
  • 3. Marais. Nice atmosphere. Jewish quarter.
  • 4. Centre Pompidou.
  • 5. Sorbonne and theaters but also is a tourist trap.
  • 6. Tourist trap zone but has bookstores and theaters.
  • 7. Eiffel Tower area: rather sterile and bland.
  • 8. Champs-Elysees: wealthy but sterile and rather un-French seeming.
  • 9. Boulevard Haussman shopping area.
  • 10. ?
  • 11. ?
  • 12. Eastern area: rather interesting.
  • 13. Universities. An American-looking mall and lots of bad 1960s architecture.
  • 14. Universities and residential: nice.
  • 15. Near Eiffel Tower but the area has some personality.
  • 16. Wealthy area: in many parts quite ugly and sterile. Next to seedy Bois de Boulogne.
  • 17. ?
  • 18. Montmartre; north of Monmartre is dirty.
  • 19. La Villette.
  • 20. Perimeter area. Varying dirtiness. Many Arabs and Chinese.

Trash and Crime

As you get out to the perimeter of Paris, the well-groomed appearance disappears and you are much more likely to see trash on the ground. Case in point, Gallieni Metro station in the east.

Regarding crime, just remember that some perimeter areas are dangerous at night. During the day you should be OK, although crimes involving guns are on the rise in France.

Banks

If you will be working and want to set up a checking account, the word is that La Poste is the cheapest as far as the monthly fee goes. If all you do is basic banking, it's the way to go. For services such as wiring money, it is more expensive.

Barter (le troc)

Just as groups exist in the USA for people to get together and trade services and goods i.e. barter, the same is true here. The key term expressing this is SEL, meaning systeme d'echange locale. There are three groups in Paris and here is one of them:

Their focus is on skill exchange. You can go to the site and download a PDF containing a list of skills offered, and register to offer yours.

For free exchange of goods, see the section below on Free Exchange.

Bastille Day (July 14th)

On Bastille Day, which in 2006 fell on a Friday, I discovered that some supermarkets were open in the morning but after about noon everything was closed.

Many locals leave Paris on Bastille Day to go see relatives.

At 10am there was a military parade near Les Invalides, with parachutists and tanks and such.

The fireworks at Tour Eiffel began at 10:30pm however people were literally settling in already by 11:30am because it is said that when the show begins, it is extremely packed. When it ends, the lines at the Metro station (Bir Hakeim) are very long. By 7:30pm, police were already preventing people from entering a zone that looked to be 2 blocks around the site.

Bicycles (les vélos [m], les bicyclettes [f])

The joie de vivre in Paris has been slightly hampered in my opinion by the lack of a bicycling culture. This may change however since the City is now promoting bicycling with its Vélib rental service. BBC story.

Whereas conventional private bike rentals in Paris are expensive at 10 € per day or so, Vélib costs only 1 € for the 1st half-hour. You'll need to get a travel card to use the service.

If you're going to be in Paris for more than a couple months, and you have a place to store a bike that's not on the street, you should really have your own bike. It lets you avoid the expense of the Metro and could therefore pay for itself.

If you have a bike in your home country that your are comfortable with, by all means bring that. New bicycles in Europe are expensive unlike in the US.

If you decide to buy a bike in France, the cheapest bikes available seem to be at the Walmart-like hypermarchés, at about 100 €. Make sure you get one that fits.

You can work out the math of how much you would have to spend on a bike to equal the cost of using the Metro as follows:

Suppose you buy one carnet of Metro tickets per week (10.7 € in 2006) and you will be in Paris for 3 months i.e. 12 weeks. Let p be the maximum price you ought to pay for the price of a bicycle, so:

p = 10.7 € * 12 = 128.4 €

Thus, if you use the bike as a total replacement for the metro, a cheap new or used bike costing less than 128.4 € would save you money.

You can buy a brand-new bike at Auchan hypermarché starting at 99 €: link. I've seen that bike and it's a little junky and they only had one size, but then again it's brand new so if it fits you, it may be OK. Keep in mind that if it doesn't fit you well, riding it could cause back and knee problems.

If you need bike repair, search in the online Pages Jaunes for "cycles", not for velo (bike) or bicyclette.

If you need bike parts, you might check out DealExtreme. They ship for free from China to anywhere.

If you really don't want to own a bike while here, there are a number of places around the city that rent bikes by the day or hour, such as the following.

  • Vélib is the Paris city service. You will need a travel card to use it.
  • You can rent them from RAFP which runs the Metro system. It is expensive however. Pricing here.
  • There is a place at Les Halles that rents by the day for around 10 €.
  • There is a place on rue Cardinal le Moine near the Metro stop of the same name in the 5th arrondissement. It is 3 € per hour.

There are a couple of organizations set up to help bicyclists.

Films about cycling

Check out this film: Still We Ride. It's about NYC police joyfully beating up defenseless bicyclists and performing mass arrests. Very disturbing, like a lot of what going on in the USA (and UK), but it's a must-see.

Bike boxes

When flying out
If you will be taking a bicycle with you on an airplane when leaving Paris, call around for free bike boxes. Search in pagesjaunes.fr under "cycles". Bastille Cycles in particular has them periodically. Or, you can buy bike bags in Paris beginning at around US $ 60, for instance at Cycles Laurent. If you want to buy a bike box at Charles de Gaulle airport, Air France has them for 20 € but they don't have any tools for disassembling the bike.

Bicycle Museums

There seem to be two in France, but none in Paris.
  • Near Lemans in Alençon. See here.
  • In Cormatin. See here.

There a bicycle museum in the USA as well, see here.

Bikes on trains and buses

Some trains, including international ones, may not allow you to bring a bike. I was once told the TGV doesn't allow bikes, period. And I once had to put a bike on a separate, slower train to take it to Eastern Europe.

Similarly, Eurolines buses do not allow bikes.

You might think that what with diesel fuel costing US $ 6 a gallon here, Europeans would be bending over backwards to encourage bicycle use (actually, they are doing so in Scandinavia and the Netherlands). Finally in Paris at least they have the Vélib program (see above).

Books (les livres [masculine])

A colloquial term for book is bouquin.

You can find bouquinistes along the Seine selling used books (recent and antique) as well as artwork and trinkets.

There is an English-language kiosk at Jean Moulin and rue d'Alesia, 14th arrondissement, called Jim's Newspaper Kiosk.

The term for bookstore is librarie.

It sounds like library, but those are called bibliotheques in French, and I might note that actually the Paris library system does have thousands of English language books, which you can take out for no money. Learn more in the Libraries section.

English-language books are in general quite expensive in Paris, whether new or old. Here is the rundown:

  • Brand-new older releases and classics are about 15 €. i.e. US $ 19.
  • Brand-new recent or new release paperbacks are very expensive indeed: expect 25 € or US $ 30 minimum.
  • Used paperbacks range in price but the cheapest I have seen is 8 €.

By comparison, I've seen many books published in French going for a couple euros, less than what I've seen English-language books selling for in the USA.

A comparison of the cost of a certain new-release book at a few bookstores:

Where How much
W.H. Smith 28.50 € or US $ 35.91
Village Voice expected 28 €
Amazon.co.uk after shipping about US $ 30
Amazon.com after std. shipping about US $ 25
Red Wheelbarrow Referred me to V.V.
Anywhere in USA US $ 15

Thus if you're serious about reading specific books you might want to consider bringing those with you to France.

Here are two ideas for achieving an even higher level of frugality yet getting the books you want:

  1. You would not only buy and bring books with you but prior to that you would get a job at a bookstore in your home country in order to get the employee discount.
  2. If you know how long you will stay in France (e.g. 2 months) and your local library has both the books you want and a liberal lateness policy (e.g. a 6 month limit) you could calculate the late fee of any books and weigh that against the cost of buying the books. Take into account the risk of losing said book while here.

As I said above, in general English-language books are expensive here so obviously you want to buy a used book.

Boycotts and praise

Boycotts first

Here is a short list of stores whose policies seem to justify a boycott, and the reasons. This is not a list of places simply to avoid because of high prices, but rather is a gallery of business which I feel bear some degree of guilt.

  • FNAC: for long delays in their returns department. See my description in the Returns section.
  • Monoprix: for actual hostility and giving the runaround in response to return request.
  • Starbucks near the Centre Pompidou: for bizarre hostile behavior from an employee or manager.

Praise

Some businesses deserve special praise for honorable, helpful behavior.

  • Mora restaurant supply: for good products and low prices. And helpful staff who do not speak English.
  • Musee Petit Palais: for free entry to view their high quality artwork.
  • San Francisco bookstore: for keeping track of specific requests of customers as well as offering a higher trade-in value.
  • Porcelaines M.P. Samie: for having tons of decent porcelain at good prices.

The Champs-Elysees

This street (prounounced shawnz-elleezay, meaning Elysian Fields) is between the Obelisk and the Arc de Triomphe and is, alas, a sort of rich man's ghetto, where nouveau-riche, wannabes, and tourists gather and get ripped off. Most frugal people avoid it unless they desire a freakshow.

Regarding clothing items and other manufactured goods, keep in mind that with the way globalized capitalism now works, it is unlikely that any of the clothing items sold on the Champs-Elysees, no matter how expensive, costs more than US $ 10 to make, including labor, materials, and shipment. Many of the products are no doubt made by debt-slaves. Some info about the exploited people who make fancy products is here.

Then consider the workers on the Champs-Elysees, who are often foreigners employed illegally for low wages without benefits or worker protections. They are exploited by the rich yet are loyal supporters of their exploiters and the tasteless decadence that such exploitation permits. Here is a fair question: Would those workers be welcomed in those stores if they did not allow themselves to be so exploited?

Also note, a good chunk of the high prices of stuff sold on this boring stretch of road goes to whoever owns the buildings themselves because the rents in the area are no doubt astronomical. Before you fork over a big chunk of cash to a stranger, don't you maybe want to know who the owners are? What if they turn out to be Saudis, who made it a capital crime to own a Bible in their country, or some rich but petty despot?

Cheaper in the USA

If you will be going to the USA or Canada to visit relatives, you will surely want to use the opportunity to stock up on things that are cheaper or more readily available.

A few come to mind:

  • Laptop computer with American key layout US $ 500
  • Blank DVD+/-R discs: you can get 50 for about US $ 12
  • Bicycle US $ 300 (or 250 on sale in the Fall)
  • English-language books
  • Wide-size shoes

Club discounts

Some private clubs around Paris have negotiated discounts with a range of stores. Whether you're eligible to join can depend on any number of factors and then of course the membership fee presents a trade-off. An example is the Swedish society.

Credit cards

I was alerted by a fellow hosteller that some American banks are now adding either a few percentage points to credit card purchases and/or a foreign transaction charge which can be as high as a dollar. Indeed I discovered that even my credit union was doing this. This was not the case in years past and is just a bit more evidence of the Great Banking Tyranny that is enveloping the world. ...

As if Obama's gift of $23 trillion in bailouts and stimuli to his friends wasn't enough evidence. Indeed, it appears Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan have taken over the USA.

Trivia: Did you know that the Federal Reserve, which prints all American money, is in fact a private banking cartel, and not a part of the federal government? Interesting video.

Cultural relativism and ethnocentrism

When in a foreign place, one has a natural tendency to accept things at face value. Everything looks so interesting and better than at home. One wants to imagine that people are fundamentally different in the foreign place, and are somehow more authentic and possibly more righteous. Indeed some people loathe their own culture or country so much that anything foreign is automatically superior. These are mistakes.

Cultural relativism

Anthropologists and ethicists tell us that the idea of every culture defining right and wrong for itself is called cultural relativism. As a foreignor, it's tempting to accept a priori the values of any culture unquestioningly, without a critical mind. But it's a mistake. It can take years of living in a culture to understand why people value one belief or behavior over another. What one local tells you is truly French may be completely at odds with another local's definition. To accept a foreign culture's definition of right and wrong, of good and bad beliefs and behavior uncritically is to put oneself in a position to be fooled, used, bullied and even brainwashed.

Ethnocentrism

The idea that if a given ethnic or cultural group does something or believes something, that it is automatically the best way or best reasoning is called ethnocentrism. Normally this term is applied to people who assume their own group is right and correct but obviously the mistake of tourists is to put a foreign culture on a pedastle and to denegrate one's own culture or distance oneself from it. That kind of attitude may win you acceptance by locals, but it's another example of a priori thinking, i.e. it is uncritical thinking based on a principle of presumed superiority. So just as it is a mistake to say that all cultures' beliefs and behaviors are OK (this is the "relativistic fallacy"), so it is a mistake so pretend that just one culture is right, which is called the "ethnocentric fallacy". Nobody, and no culture, nor a culture's symbols, is perfect and unstained. And being a cheerleader for just one culture, be it native or foreign, majority or minority, can make a person seem an ass.

Customs (douane)

Rules about Customs (douane, pronounced dwanne) can be hard to track down.

Mail-order within EU

You don't have to pay customs duties on items shipped to you that you purchased from businesses within the EU. The price you pay should always include the VAT.

Tax reimbursement

Leaving? If you bought any expensive items then you can get the tax back if you did things properly when buying the items. Typically a store won't let you do the paperwork for items less than 150 €

The airport reimbursement office is here.

  • French customs website here.

Data transfers

Let's say you want to transfer all of your photos to the USA without physically mailing anything. Turns out, you can do this without too much trouble.

First, there are websites out there such as YouSentIt that let you transfer large chunks of data from one person to another for free, up to a certain file size limit.

Of course, before you send anything you will want to collect your files into a zip file, and if the data is important, encrypt that to keep it private. Either method requires that you have someone on the other end who will download your file, decrypt it and check it.

Note, one encryption program that seems decent is FileEncryptor.

Department stores

The store that I am most familiar with is BHV, which tends to be pricey for common items. It's no Walmart. I saw towels starting at 12 €.

However BHV does have a very interesting hardware department in the basement. It has a diversity of products that you only see in mom-and-pop hardware stores in the USA, although BHV is not quite as good as them. They even have a bicycle toolkit.

Dining

Alternatives to restaurants

Restaurants are expensive. Their food is unhealthy and overrated. Honestly, I have found better food, better service, less smoke, and lower cost in Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, almost everywhere.

Furthermore I've been told that regular Parisians don't even go to most restaurants, because they can't afford to.

It can easily be witnessed that a great many Parisians, rather than eat at restaurants buy food at supermarkets and take it to a park or riverbank to eat outdoors. Just a few places that I've noticed that seem popular include:

  • The parks near the Eiffel Tower.
  • The Tuileries gardens.
  • The Luxembourg gardens (probably the best place).
  • The fields between the Invalides and the Seine.
  • The Andre Citroen park located southwest of the Eiffel Tower.
  • The banks of the Seine especially around the Ile de la Cite.
  • The small parks near the Champs-Elysees -- down near the Olelisk.
  • The park behind Les Invalides.

Smoke-free cafes and restaurants

It was over a year ago that smoking was banned in cafés.

Before then, it was mainly Starbucks that was smoke-free although workers there did not stop anyone from smoking. There was also Columbus Cafe on St Dominique in the 7th arrondissement, which also had free wireless Internet.

For more info on smoke-free establishments in France, go to SmokeFreeWorld.com or Doits de Non-Fumeurs (rights of nonsmokers).

Yankee corporate food

It seems most US fast food places in Paris charge 1.25 to 3 times the US prices. Not only that, the word is that some of their products here taste awful compared what's sold in America. To add insult to injury, many US joints are not even smoke-free, with the notable exception of Starbucks.
Price comparisons to USA: various stores
Store Item 2006 € US $ US $ in USA Gouge factor
Starbucks coffee 2.40 3.02 1.75 1.73x
Starbucks macchiato 1.90 2.40 1.50 1.60x
Ben and Jerrys Banana Split 6.70 8.44 6.69 1.26x
Ben and Jerrys milkshake 4.50 5.67 4.55 1.25x
Haagen Dazs milkshake 5.10 6.43 ? ?
Prices at McDonalds
Is your wallet suffering from anorexia? Could be you've been going to McDonalds. But you know, what's funny or sad is that many French people have no clue that Americans don't pay anywhere near this much at McDonalds in the US.

Item 2006 € 2006 US $ US $ in USA
Big mac 3.30 4.16 2
McChicken 3.20 4.03 1
Filet o fish 3.00 3.78 1 on special
Chick McNuggets 4 2.20 2.77 1.50
Coke 0.25 liter 1.30 1.64 1
Frites (french fries) small 0.95 1.25 1.25
Milk shake 0.95 1.25 1.75?
Cheeseburger 1 ? as low as 0.25 on sale

Trivia: Eric Schlosser, who wrote Fast Food Nation, confirmed with the US government that each and every fast-food hamburger sold in the US has meat from thousands of cows. How many of those cows are tested for brain-wasting Mad Cow disease? Just 0.1 percent.

Cost of a spaghetti meal

One of my favorite foods is spaghetti. If you make it at home, it's cheap, it's healthy and packs a lot of energy. As I show below, in France a home-cooked spaghetti meal can be cheaper than in the USA, if you shop wisely. The following comparison of the costs assumes that one serving of spaghetti is 0.25 kg (0.55 lbs) and that the needed sauce is 0.25 liters. I am also assuming that the grated parmesian cheese used is just a sprinkling for flavor.

Ingredients:

  • Spaghetti 1 kg (2.2 pounds) for 0.60 €
  • Sauce 0.46 liter jar of Napolitano for 0.70 €

Costs:

  • One serving of spaghetti is 0.15 €
  • One serving of sauce is 0.35 €
Therefore one serving of spaghetti with sauce is only 0.50 €.

The cost comparison of grated parmesian is as follows. At Champion supermarket in the 6th on rue de Seine, they have 0.1 kg (= 3.53 oz.) for 2.16 € (US $ 2.72). At one store in the US, 3 oz. of generic goes for US $ 1.95, i.e. 3.53 oz would cost US $ 2.30, which is almost the same price.

Cost of making crêpes

The term for a flat frying pan for crepe-making is une poêle à crêpe, prounounced "pwell ah krep". You can buy them in nonstick if you don't mind Dupont's C8 chemical leaching into your food and permanently lodging itself throughout your body. A better choice is to just get a stainless steel poêle à crêpe, as I did (at Mora restaurant supply, see the Kitchen section) and season it with nut oil. The term for stainless steel is tôle.

Crêpes are cheap to make and a very enjoyable kind of food. They are well worth the time to learn to make them, no matter where you live.

Costs are as follows:

  • The crêpe-specific frying pan called a poêle à crêpe. With a wooden crêpe-specific wooden spatula. These cost me 13.50 € at Mora restaurant supply.
  • The crêpe mix I bought was 1.15 € (US $ 1.45) at LeaderPrice. It contained two packets each of which ideally makes about 8 medium-size thin crêpes each.
  • You need 0.5 liter milk to add to the batter. If bought in box form is 0.28 € (US $ 0.35) at most stores in 2006.
  • You will need additional materials such as sugar / chocolate / ham and cheese that you might want in your finished crêpe.

So, if we consider only recurring costs, which are crêpe mix, milk, and let's say we're making chocolate crêpes (therefore we need a chocolate bar), the cost per crêpe should be as follows, roughly.

Crêpe mix per 8 medium-size crêpes = 1.15 / 2
Milk per 8 crêpes = 0.55 / 2
Chocolate per 8 crêpe = 0.55 (one entire bar per 8)
Add some sugar = 0.05

Total per 8, divided by 8 = 0.18 € = US $ 0.23

For more information about making crepes including my batter recipes, see my page on crepes.

Ten meals for less than 1.50 €

Made at home
  • Spaghetti made at home.
  • 4 or 5 medium-size crêpes made at home.
  • The cheapest pizza sold at Ed at three for 2 € which does not appear to have trans-fat.
  • Corn flakes and milk. You can get 0.5 kg of corn flakes for 1.20 € and 0.5 liter of milk for 0.55 €. Together that is about 3 or 4 servings.
Eat anywhere
  • A 750 ml "Yop" or other liquid yogurt drink in entirety
  • A baguette with a small amount of cheese and mustard from your fridge.
  • A portion of Muesli with milk (if eaten out, bring plastic bowl and spoon)
  • A large can of ratatouille (cold, or eat warm at home)
  • A large can of ravioli (cold, or eat warm at home)
  • A banana with a portion of peanut butter (beurre de cacahouette)

DVDs

Renting

There are 4 options.
Libraries
You can rent DVDs at some libraries (see the libraries section).
Automatic Dispenser Machines
You can rent from machines that look somewhat like cash machines. Some such machines are made by this Italian company. Many of the machines in Paris are managed by CineBank, which has a master list of them here.

To give you an idea of how this works, the one near my place is owned by a tabac store and although it says on it 1.80 € for 5 hours, that price requires a subscription (abonnement) that costs 16 € a year. Without that, a movie costs 2.50 € for a 5 hour rental, or 5.50 € for a 24 hour rental. Still, even 2.50 € (US $ 3.15) is better than what you'd often pay in the US.

Using my local dispenser as an example, the break-even for the abonnement is of course algebraically solved :

16 + 1.8 x = 2.5 x
x = 22.8 =~ 23

Thus, I would have to do 23 five-hour movie rentals a year for the 16 euros to be worth it.

Video stores
There is one near me that charges 5 € per night. Seems like a huge ripoff to me.
DVDs by Mail
The Netflix business model has not been lost on Europeans. It remains to be learned whether they are as good at it.
  • In France: there is Glowria.
  • In Germany: there is Videobuster.
  • In Belgium: there is DVDPost.

Buying

I have not found a store or market in Paris where DVDs can be bought cheaply. Some people declare "Belgium". Cheap to me is 5 to 8 €. There is one online store, Cdiscount, that has some low price DVDs.

Electronics

There are several stores.
  • FNAC. Some say it is expensive.
  • Surcouf. Cheaper than FNAC.
  • The many small Chinese computer stores. For instance I found one between the Dugommier Metro and Ledru-Rollin metro along Charenton.
  • PC City. This is the most American-looking computer store I have seen in France. Their prices are not low.

Every store has its deals. Some examples follow.

  • An Internet cafe attendant pointed me to Office Depot for blank CDs. Turns out it was a good tip. A pack of ten blank CD-Rs with cases at various stores costs as follows.
    Where How much
    Office Depot 7 + 1.35 tax = 8.35 €
    Surcouf 9 €
    FNAC 11 €
    PC City 13 €
  • At FNAC I bought a generic 40X 2 gigabyte CompactFlash card for only 55 € in 2006. This was better than many US retail prices because stores like BestBuy do not sell generic flash. This FNAC price approached the American mail order price from NewEgg.
  • At Surcouf I got 16 Energizer Ultra AA batteries for only 10 €. This is basically the same as the American price at BestBuy.
  • At PC City I got a very cheapo set of 4 rechargeable AA batteries and charger for 13 €.

Ethnic

Throughout Paris, you will notice stores that are what I call ethnic stores, because they're clearly family-run and operated by people not born in France. They basically classify into three types:
  1. Asian stores: usually quite cheap. Run by on average friendly people and often cheaper than mainstream French stores.
  2. Arab stores in immigrant areas: fairly expensive and not necessarily worth venturing into. But run by friendly people.
  3. Arab stores in touristy areas: extremely expensive as in delibertely price-gouging their clientele with prices two or three times what you see in conventional stores. These places are often run by angry / unfriendly / potentially violent people. To spend money at such store is in my view unethical. It rewards abusive people and enables them to harm other consumers.

Events

You can learn about happenings in Paris by going to any magazine kiosk and buying for 0.35 € a copy of L'Officiel des Spectacles, which is crammed with goings-on information, layed out in an easy to use, unpretentious way.

Flea Markets (marché aux puces)

Les Puces

Paris has what some claim is the biggest flea market in the world, called Les Puces ("the fleas"). I've been there and I'd call that claim bogus. I've seen bigger and much more diverse flea markets in California, such as the one in Cupertino.

At Les Puces, the more diverse items for sale are in the antiques section, which consists of maybe 50 small stores. This is reported to be the original market. And, people say you can review the stores' inventory online. Les Puces takes place near the Port de Clignancourt on Saturday and Sunday, as well as Monday afternoon. More info here, here, and here.

My suggestions:

  1. Ignore the endless stalls of overpriced jeans / DVDs / cellphone accessories and other plastic junk and check out the antiques.
  2. If you must venture into the stalls of modern junk: Steer clear of the slow-moving and overcrowed walkways to reduce the risk of getting pickpocketed. Some parts of Les Puces are virtually designed to help pickpockets.
In summary, I suggest you avoid Les Puces.

Flea markets around the city

There are weekly markets around the city that offer good deals on food especially but also clothing.

Foods

lingo To say, "I'm doing the shopping", it is je fais les courses.

Efficient use of food

To avoid bringing home large amounts of heavy liquids, consider buying juice concentrates as well as simply watering down your drinks.

Two examples:

  • 1 part orange juice and 1 part water (or more water).
  • 3 parts cola and 1 part water (taste the same but cheaper and just as unhealthy.)

Example food costs

Quite a few food items are cheaper in Europe than they are in the USA. A few such as guacamole cost more, and some are the same. To make a simple, intuitive demonstration, here are some prices from my last several food trips to the low-price Ed supermarket.

Note, as with supermarkets in the English-speaking world, you should always watch the prices as they are rung up to make sure they are correct and/or check your receipt.

Item Weight kg Cost €
Bananas 0.94 1.40
Chocolate noir 52% 0.2 0.62
Chocolate rice crispies 0.5 1.35
Coca Cola 1.5 liter N/A 1.26
Corn flakes 0.5 1.19
Dia Selection 70% dark chocolate so-so 0.1 kg 0.45
Dia Selection milk chocolate with crispy rice 0.1 kg 0.45
Emmental cheese 0.25 1.49
Fischer beer 0.65 liter N/A 1.29
Generic cola 1.5 liter N/A 0.35
Granola 0.75 kg 1.89
Jar black Greek olives 0.25 0.76
Large can ratatouille 0.75 1.12
Large can sour kraut and pork 0.8 1.20
Large can vegetarian ravioli 0.8 0.99
One can generic cola 33 cl N/A 0.16
One large mango N/A 1.00
Schoenbräu beer blonde 0.5 liter N/A 0.58
Skim milk 1 liter box N/A 0.49
Sunflower oil 1 liter N/A 0.95
Three medium pizzas 3 x 300g 1.89
Yogurt for drinking / Fraise flavor 0.75 1.19
Yogurt for drinking / Framboise flavor 0.75 1.29
Perrier 0.75 liter N/A 0.69

Now for some prices from more-expensive Franprix.

Item Cost €
Maison du Cafe decaf coffee 0.25 kg 2.73
Legal decaf coffee 0.25 kg 1.56
Il Mattino coffee 0.25 kg 1.53
Beer 1664 0.5 liter 1.28
Sweet-crepe mix 1.91
Four muffins 1.29
1 liter boxed milk 0.55
1 liter boxed grape juice 0.60
Ketchup 300 ml 0.70

And now, from Champion.

Item Cost €
Buckwheat-crepe mix (tastes terrible) 2
Sweet-crepe mix 1.74 (rang up as 1.90!)

To review: Food is generally more expensive in the USA, despite our having a thriving agriculture sector, cheap transportation, and free trade agreements. Presumably this has something to do with those incessant corporate mergers in recent years.

Bad foods

I've encountered a few rancid food items since I've been here. Part of going for the low-price leaders is that you have to be extra vigilant about quality.
  • Sunflower oil at Ed supermarket: it smelled like solvents.
  • French fries from Ed: they were beyond being off.

Beer (la bière)

Several decent beers are available in most every supermarket and are cheap. After analyzing about a few beers, I have selected two are being decent:

1. Schoen'bräu blonde de luxe (despite the name being broken German). It costs a mere 0.46 € (US $ 0.58) per 0.5 liter can at Ed supermarket. It has 4.8% alcohol and offers good flavor, a so-so bouquet, and overall best value. Despite its name, the label indicates it's manufactured in Spain and/or Portugal.

2. Kronenbourg, which has 4.2% alcohol, better bouquet, slightly better flavor and is more expensive. Trivia:

Although most food is taxed at 5.5%, beer is at the non-food VAT of 19.6%.

The words brasserie and brasseur derive from the ancient Gaulish word brace, which means malt.

There is a Musee de la Biere is the town of Stenay, near the border with Belgium. I have not been there. Link

Ice cream

The best place is reportedly Berthillon.

Cheeses (les fromages)

It would be a tragedy to come to France and not experience the excellent cheeses. In the USA, we have some good cheeses too, especially at places like Trader Joes (cheap) and Whole Foods (expensive), but in general good cheese is priced more like a luxury item.

In France, good cheese is more affordable. Cheese shops (fromageries) sell by the desired portion and in my experience are staffed by pleasant people, so there is no reason to not experience this cheap and tasty French delicacy. For instance, the excellent Rocamadour coin-shaped cheeses are usually 1 to 2 € each.

However the deals on cheese are at the weekly markets.

By the way, don't become a fat-ass by eating too much cheese. "All things in moderation."

Tea

A wide variety of teas can be bought at Mariage Frères.

Coffee

The French make a good espresso or americano, but they'll never match to the standard set by the Italians. In Italy, not only do they offer better products but the cappucino (they affectionately call it a cappuccio, pronounced kap-poo-cho) is the standard drink, not espresso, and it is cheaper.

If you need a plastic coffee filter holder, called here a porte-filtre, they can be hard to find. You might check an immigrant store, for instance there is one on rue de la Roquette that had them in summer 2006 for 2.30 €.

Cola

You really shouldn't go out and get ripped off by the union-busting Coca Cola company. At every store, a 1.5 liter bottle of Coke sells for at least 1.30 €, which is inflated. At Ed supermarket and at Champion, you can buy a generic 1.5 liter bottle of cola for about 0.30 €, either with sugar or aspartame. It tastes just like Coke. Why pay 433% the generic cost just for a corporate logo?

In addition, everyone should learn eventually that the caramel color in all cola drinks contains chemicals called AGEs (advanced glycation end-products), which are known to damage the proteins that comprise the connective tissues of the body, most noticably the skin. In other words, it makes you age faster. But who cares? It's profitable to the Coca Cola Company.

Health food

Stores and prices
Most French healthfood stores are very expensive. When I lived in Germany, and when I visited the Netherlands briefly, I don't recall health food stores being quite such a hideous ripoff. Here however, this appears to be the rule. If you know of a cheap one, please let me know.

In France as in the US, healthier foods are also available sporadically at regular supermarkets and these can be cheaper than equivalents in healthfood stores. In addition, common pharmacies carry a few healthy non-food alternatives such as 100%-vegetable soap and toothpaste.

Here is a list of what looks like most or all of the health food stores in Paris.

Definitions
The closest thing to the North American idea of "organic" products in Europe seems to be Biodynamic food, which is typically labelled thus:
Demeter

There are also products labelled "Bio" or biologique, which healthfood store people will tell you is just like organic food, until they sheepishly admit there is no government regulation of Bio food in France. In contrast, in the US use of the term "organic" is regulated by the USDA.

France's failure to regulate Bio products can lead to bizarre results, for instance I have seen several shampoos with the Bio logo on them that contained petrochemicals.

Nutella

This is just a note to say that unlike in the USA, where it is easy to find chocolate-hazelnut butter that does not have bad-for-the-heart trans fat (specifically, at your local Trader Joes), in France I have yet to find any such thing, and of course Nutella itself has partially hydrogenated oil, as do the copycat products, and partial hydrogenation is the most common source of trans fat.

Trans fat is bad for three reasons:

  1. It increases the amount of LDL. This causes arteries to fill up with plaque.
  2. It decreases the amount of HDL. This leaves more LDL is the bloodstream.
  3. New research shows it causes the inner layer of the heart and blood vessels (the endothelium) to become inflamed. This is no small matter because inflamed tissue is damaged tissue. Damaged blood vessels attract plaque.

Wines (les vins)

I prefer German wines, but reportedly it is very hard to find German wine in French wine shops, although Alsacian wines that are similar to German wines are common in supermarkets and are cheap.

If you go to a French wine shop and find that the employees behave like snobs or worse, like used car salesmen, just leave and find a better shop. Don't give your money to idiots.

A newly opened bottle of red wine is good for you because contains a compound called Resveratrol that appears to extend life. After a while after the wine is exposed to the air, oxidation occurs and if what I read it correct the Resveratrol breaks down.

Alcohol in small quantities is beneficial to your blood cholesterol levels. However much more than a little harms your entire body, because to your body alcohol is a poison.

In 2006, France was having a wine overproduction problem and there was mention of wines being thrown out. See the article here.

Free exchanges

There is a Yahoo mailing list called FreecycleParis in which people offer things for free and request free items. Here is their website: link. Does it work? Well, I got a free mountain bike using the mailing list. It needed some significant work but it became a decent bike.

There is also a website Le Dindon where people give away free stuff.

If you want to improve your French or any other language, there are always people looking to do a language exchange. You teach them your native language and they teach your theirs. See the Websites section for info about where to read or post a classified ad. This too has worked out pretty well for me.

Hostels

There are two national youth hostel chains in France:

For Paris and its region, there are several small hostel groups:

Generally speaking (not just Paris), to learn what hostels exist and are good, it's best to utilize hostel-reviewing websites, of which there are several (hostels.com, hostelz.com, etc.). They let users learn about more obscure hostels and vote and report on hostels. To rely solely on a book like Let's Go or Lonely Planet is not wise. Also use Google, searching for the city name and "auberge de jeunesse", because some hostels aren't even listed on the review websites.

A convenient list of Paris hostels is here.

The hostel situation in Paris is becoming as much of a ripoff as in any major international city. Only new or unlisted or hard to reach hostels are less than 20 € per night.

By chance I visited the FIAP hostel on rue Carabis. It is large, clean, full of Americans and although it is officially smoke-free, I saw people smoking in the lobby.

One half-decent youth hostel is the Auberge Internationale des Jeunes, on Trousseau, metro Ledru-Rollin. It was 15 € per night in 2006, which is the cheapest I've seen. But beware, they do allow smoking in the common area at night. If they say they're full and try to send you to a certain hotel near Montmartre, beware, the hotel is very smoky and the bed I tried to sleep in sank down a foot.

The area around the Jules Ferry hostel has been described as having more crime than the average.

The best French hostel I have been to is in nearby Chartres. It has a fantastic view of the internationally acclaimed Cathedral, it has good beds, kitchen, bike shed, and a free, huge breakfast. See the section on Tourism below.

Housing

When you begin your housing search in Paris, you will realize that there are many scams in Paris.

Pitfall 1

Consumer just assumes that Paris is expensive, and ends up paying 1000 € or 2500 € per month.

Pitfall 1

Consumer ends up unnecessarily going with an agency, and paying a large agency fee.

Pitfall 3

Consumer chooses to rent a room, and later learns he is paying the entire rent.

Listen, you don't want to get scammed, and I don't want you to get scammed either, because when you get scammed, it empowers the scammer to rip off other people too. Paris is expensive but you should not be paying 2000 € per month.

Check out the ads in FUSAC, which you can download as a PDF: Link There are also several useful websites like Kijiji listed in the Classifieds section.

You can avoid the scams and scammers. It's almost a moral imperative that you do. As I mention in my Pickpockets section, the most successful thieves in Paris are not pickpockets, but rather the legions of parasites who feed off of the uninformed. The housing market is full of them. Don't be their victim.

Insurance (assurance)

If you plan on renting an apartment rather than getting a sublet, note that you may be required to take out insurance. I did not have to do this because I got a sublet.

Where to live?

These are just my personal opinions, but they're a starting point. People who have lived in Paris for years would know better.

The following areas are nice and/or useful:

  • Bastille
  • Montparnasse
  • Sorbonne
  • Marais
  • Les Halles
  • Boulevard Haussman

The following are safe but dull:

  • Eiffel Tower
  • 15th arrondissement

Areas to avoid includes the eastern and northern perimeter arrondissements, and the rich areas i.e. the 16th arrondissment and Champs-Elysees.

I don't know about the university areas in the southeast, or the south perimeter which has the Cite Universitaire.

As for suburbs, some seem to like Alfordsville and Rambouteau, but you have to pay a lot (it seems) to get into the city.

Hygiene

A good way to avoid expense or energy-draining illness is to observe proper hygienic principles. It can be observed in restaurants and fresh food stores that the French often do not take hygiene seriously.

Two particular points :

  • The Metro is a dirty place. Remember to avoid touching your hands to your eyes / mouth / nose after being in the Metro.
  • In some boulangeries it is common for workers to touch food items with unclean hands. I witnessed one worker at a boulangerie in the expensive 7th arrondissement sneazing into her hands and then standing there not thinking to wash them.

Voluntary hygiene standards?

I encountered a food inspection engineer whose job consists of going to food-related businesses to ensure that food handling and manufacturing practices aren't leading to diseases and contaminants getting into the food.

She told me that although the French government requires every business to pay a company to inspect their food production process, the government does not require that businesses adhere to the inspector's advice to improve food safety!

Hypermarchés

These are stores that can be either department stores or they may also sell food. They tend to be located outside of cities, reachable mainly by car or bus. You can save some money going to them, but the cost of getting to them may offset that. Do not assume that these stores are cheaper just because there's not in the city center.
  • Auchan has 4 stores around Paris. The easiest to reach is probably Bagnolet. Metro Ⓜ Gallieni. If you enjoy seeing trash strewn all over the ground then you will love Gallieni and Bagnolet.
  • Carrefour. They seldom answer their phones.

Immunizations

If you will be going to a country that has diverse diseases, or you're a student and your school requires periodic immunizations, you can get immunized in Paris. I happened upon an Air France Vaccination Center on rue de l'Universite in the 7th, only a couple blocks from the American Church of Paris. Their phone number is 0143 17 22 00 (they answer the French line, not so much the English one) and their hours are Monday through Saturday 9-5. Get there at 9am to minimize your wait.

Internet access and safety

If you get a sublet that has a computer and Net access included, you are lucky.

However if you have a laptop, there are reportedly many free hotspots around the city. At one hostel I stayed at, a woman got a signal in the inside alley despite concrete being all around.

Cafes often have free wireless. Just sit down in any cafe or brasserie and you will probably get a signal. Always check for a signal before you order anything and if you don't get one.

See the section Technology to bring for suggestions about gear.

Otherwise, there are Internet cafes around. You should be very careful about these places however. You don't know if they really check the machines for viruses or if they even have key-logger programs running to record your passwords. It is really wiser to access the Internet wirelessly using your own personal device, be that a laptop, Wifi-capable phone, or Internet tablet.

Whatever you do, do not access your bank account nor school account and do not edit a website from an Internet cafe. If you think there aren't crooks either working at a few Internet cafes, or installing spyware on those computers then you're fooling yourself.

As a matter of fact, I know of two cafes that clearly had virus problems, because at each place the viruses got onto CDs that I burned as well as on my flash cards.

For email, use a disposable Yahoo-like account rather than a school account. Examples of such accounts include Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, Myway, and GMX.net.

Burning CDs

I've visited many Internet-access shops to ask if one can burn a CD while there. Most don't have burners. Here are a few that do.

Note, there are very definitely certainly virus-infested Internet cafe computers in Paris, so if after going to one you discover any files on your CD that don't look familiar, don't click on them. Even if the icon appears to be a folder.

  • A block north of the Bastille on rue Daval is Cyber Cube (01 49 29 05 00) that says on the window that they have CD burners. There is another one near blvd San Germaine in the 5th but it is not smoke-free.
  • Just east of blvd. de Sébastopol is Café Beaubourg (01 48 87 63 96).
  • On blvd. de Sébastopol near Café Beaubourg is another place that allows burning.

Kit

In this section, I ask, how can you best, while walking around Paris, "be prepared" as the Boy Scouts say. Here is a list of items that I consider important to have on me when I am walking around.
Two small water bottles filled with tapwater or one large 1.5 liter bottle.
This saves me from having to spend money on water while out. You can refill bottles at public drinking water fountains. These are easy to spot since they are large and dark-green and cast iron.
Camera; Small Dictionary; Notepad; Pen
These four items are the minimum set of things needed by a tourist while walking around. The camera is obvious. The dictionary is generally useful. A small Rhodia notepad like they sell at stationery stores helps keeps you organized and is your place to write down unfamiliar French words for later review.
Empty plastic food containers
If you ever ordered Chinese food here you may have been given food in these. Or you can buy Tupperware-type containers. These are useful for bringing portions of food home e.g. if you buy cheese while out or if you decide to visit a restaurant and have leftovers.
Map
You never know Paris as well as you think you do.
Compass
Very useful! I have bought a compasses in the USA for US $ 1 to US $ 1.50. In Paris however they begin at about 9 €.
Napkins and Wetnaps
It is very convenient to have them on hand in case you want to clean up after a picnic.
Paperback book
If you find yourself waiting in a queue or idling in a park then a good book can come in very handy.
USB flash adapter and two blank CD-RWs
If you are walking around taking photos and you realize your flash memory card is full it is helpful to have the stuff you need to offload your photos.
Swiss Army knife
It comes in handy. Incidentally there is a Swiss Army knife that includes a compass.
Keychain-light
Here is one LED light that I bought that lasted a couple years. You can also buy cheap ones DealExtreme.
Photocopy of passport
You rarely need it but the police say that foreigners are required by law to have either the passport or a copy on you at all times.

Kitchen wares

Whether you're renting an apartment yourself or subletting, chances are that you won't be supplied with great dishes or pots to use.

Porcelain

In 2006, I discovered by chance that the mother load of cheap porcelain is at Porcelaines M.P. Samie, 45 av. General LeClerc, 0140 47 59 21. They have the full range of items, and note that their teapots are well-made and surprisingly cheap.

At 80 Boulevard Haussmann near the St. Augustin metro is a store called La Vaissellerie that sells dishes and some silverware by the piece. This is actually part of a chain and stores vary in quality. Note, these stores are always smallish and about one tenth the size of M. P. Samie.

Metal Cookware

Just like America, Europe has upscale kitchenware shops. Avoid these places unless you possess a masochistic desire to get ripped off.

Instead, head directly to the restaurant supply stores for decent-looking, durable pots and pans. You don't need a business license. In French, these stores sell fournitures pour restaurants. Two such stores in the 1st arrondissement are :

Mora has pots and pans that are 2.5mm thick, as well as copper-plated pans.

If you're just visiting Paris for a few months, you might consider buying a bunch of cookware since the same stuff sold in the USA is at least 25% more expensive. You can bring up to US $ 600 worth of stuff with you into the USA before you have to pay customs.

Laundry (laundromat = laverie)

lingo

English French
washing lavage
drying sechage
detergent lessive
breakdown panne

Let's marvel for a moment at the difference in self-serve laundry prices, Paris versus the USA.

Item Paris USA
washing 3.50 € US $ 1.75
drying 2 € US $ 0.75
total 5.50 € (US $ 6.93) US $ 2.50

The cheapest I've seen for washing in Paris was in a poor immigrant neighborhood and was 3.10 €. One thing I've seen Parisians do to save money, is they only wash at the laundromat, and hang-dry at home. Washers here generally spin fast and long enough that wet clothing is not too heavy.

Of course, everyone who has done extended cheapskate backpacking knows that washing clothing by hand is the great money-saver. Sure, it's work, but then again, walking to and from the laudromat is too, after doing it by hand you have US $ 7 freed up. Think of it as a kind of self-employment.

For hang-drying of clothing, you can even buy a rack. They have them at department stores for 10 €. During the summer you can drip-dry in the shower.

When you're staying at a hostel, be careful to hang-dry clothing only in the afternoon and night periods. Clothing is known to disappear at some hostels during the daytime lockout and cleaning time.

Trivia: In Germany, many people do not have electric clothes dryers at home. Instead they hang-dry using one or more 10 € drying racks.

Libraries (les bibliotèques)

lingo The term for the loaning of books is le prêt.

Public libraries exist in each arrondissement of the city. Once you register for free (bring your passport), lending is free for books but CDs cost money. Some libraries have DVDs as well, also with a rental price.

A list of libraries is here. My local one has over 200 foreign-language books and 3000 CDs. In order to take out just CDs, they require you pay a yearly fee of something like 35 €. If you want to take out DVDs and CDs, the yearly cost is 60 €, and that gets you 2 DVDs per week.

Let's compare whether in my case the DVD rental rate of the Paris library system is better than my local DVD dispenser machine, whose yearly subscription is 16 euros and whose 5-hour rental is 1.8 €.

16 + 1.8x = 60 + 0x
x = 24.4 =~ 25

Thus, for the 60 € subscription to be worthwhile, one would have to rent at least 25 movies per year; this assumes that the library is not far away (for me it is) and that it has more than 25 movies of interest to me (unknown).

A more realistic case however is that I won't do any subscription at the dispenser. In which case it's very simple:

0 + 2.5x = 60 + 0x
x = 24

The library that has DVDs, if it were near, would pay for itself after the twenty-fourth DVD.

Other libraries

There is an American Library of Paris however their lending rules are quite strict. I don't see the point.

There are also university libraries, but you have to be a student to take out a book.

Malls

At Gallieni Metro station, which is just outside the city limits, there is a "centre commercial" that is very much like a multi-level American mall. The place is, like the trash-strewn area outside, a bit of a dump, but tastes vary. The Auchan hypermarche is inside on two levels.

There's generally no reason to go there because as in America, the mall prices here are quite high, as high as prices in the city.

Maps

To shop for an apartment, or indeed to see Paris, you will need a good map. Go to a librarie (bookstore) and get Paris Pratique for 5 €, or something similar. Train station magazine shops also sell these.

If you're desperate for a map or dictionary at 2am, there is in fact a book vending machine outside of a bookstore on or near rue St. Andre des Arts in the 5th arrondissement.

Metro maps are available from the attendants at Metro stations for free.

Movie theaters

New movies come out here on Wednesday, not Friday.

Movie listings are at AlloCine.

If you're new to France, let me explain the situation. There are two kinds of screenings, VF and VO. VF means version francaise and means that the film is dubbed in French. VO screenings of films, meaning version originale, are in whatever the original language was (such as English) with French subtitles. VO screenings are very common in Paris.

The caveat with VO is that, although you can guess the language the movie is in pretty easily, they never specify it and if more than one language is spoken, the theater that's not in the listing either. So let's say a movie is in English, Korean, and French: it won't say so in the listing and the English and Korean will be subtitled in French and the French won't be subtitled even if the actors mumble. But at least VO lets you see the American blockbusters.

Matinees

As in the USA, early shows are cheaper. Unlike in the USA, the cutoff here is typically noon and the cheap show begin just after 10am, but check the listings to be sure. Matinee prices run from 5.10 to 5.50 €.

Particular matinees I know of:

  • The MK2 Hautefeuille on rue Serpente has matinees for 5.10 € (US $ 6.43) and what is interesting is that they have a different matinee every day in rotation. Often very unusual films. Actually several MK2 theaters have unusual matinees. For more info go to mk2.com.
  • At the two UGC theatres closest to the Arc de Triomphe along the Champs-Elyssee shows before noon are cheaper (perhaps 5.50 €). Note that screenings before 12 mainly start between 10 and 11am. Another tip: for snacks there is a cheap patisserie 5 minutes walk downhill called Paul.
  • The UGC outside the Odeon metro: matinees are about 5.50 €.

Multiple-ticket cards

With UGC at least, it is more convenient to get a multiple-movie card than to try to always catch a matinee.

UGC sells the UGC5 card which is 5 movies for about 28 € or 5.70 € each. You can't use the card on Friday or Saturday, or on Sunday after midday. On those days, go to the matinee if you can. The UGC5 is good for 2 months. They also sell the UGC7, which is 5 movies anytime. I recommend the former.

Gaumont/MK2/Pathé has a 6-movie chip card for 37.80 € or 6.30 € (US $ 7.94) per film. Better to go to the matinee.

Napoleon

Napoleon, though idolized by some these days, was also hated by some in his time and considered to be, like Hitler later, a butcher. Yet he was just as intelligent and worldly as one would have to be to run an empire.

He said regarding bankers:

The hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency: their sole object is gain.

Napoleon is buried at Les Invalides, which is not free on the first Sunday of each month.

News

There is no need to waste your money on the print media such as the Herald Tribune, unless of course you don't have Internet access, or if you are determined to read the newspaper away from the computer.

The news is online.

Night school

As Socrates said, the unexamined life is not worth living.

If you're fluent in French, and you have a residence permit, the Mairie de Paris (city government) has courses in a variety of subjects, as described here. You can also take a French language course, as described on the English part of their website.

Some artists also offer lessons, although not usually during the summer.

Online purchases

If you will be able to receive mail at your apartment, you might consider buying via mail-order. For electronics prices you can compare prices at PriceRunner.fr and MonsieurPrix.

Here is a comparison of the price of a digital camera online versus retail, the Olympus Mju 700.

Store Price
Surcouf (retail) 299 €
Auchan (retail) 299 €
FNAC (retail) 279 €
Digibao.com (online store) 257 €
Rueducommerce (online store) 243 €

Here is another comparison, this time for Birkenstock sandals:

Store Price
Birkenstock Paris (retail) 88 €
Anatomica (retail) 88 €
(Unknown retail) 65 €
Paulos 60 € incl. shipping
Footshopping.com 53 € incl. shipping

Shipping issue

When I ordered from Footshopping, even though I provided my apartment entry code and phone number, these were not conveyed to DHL, and ultimately I decided it would be more convenient to arrange to pick up the box at the DHL office at 8 rue Sainte Foy in the 2nd arrondissement, the number for which is 0153 00 75 05.

People

Although the theme of this page is cheap living, social contacts are also clearly a means to this goal, thus I shall give it some mention.

At hostels

Firstly, upon arriving in Paris you will no doubt stay in a youth hostel, since they are cheaper than hotels. But as every hosteller knows, whether (s)he is 15 or 75 years old, hostels are places to trade ideas with other budget-minded people, so you should do so. It may well assist you in your daily life before and after you get a place.

Expat associations

I was told by several people that there are good American and British expat organizations here, but I have yet to contact them. However, here is a listing and here. In these lists you will notice a large number of women's organizations, something like 8 or 10. If you have any explanation for this strange phenomenon, I'd be curious to know.

The Parisians themselves

Both in Paris and elsewhere in France, I have found the French to be friendly and helpful, especially if one speaks some French, and note, getting the accent right does help. They also like it if you help them learn some English in the process of conversing with them. If you speak no French at all, well, you can imagine the burden that places on locals who speak no or minimal English.

It is also the case that the French take special pride in their language, which is fine but realistically it's a matter of taste. Personally I like it, but I like Italian better.

In tourist traps

When dealing with local people who interact with swarms of tourists, make the interaction short and to the point. Think through your questions first.

Photography

The term for digital camera is appareil photo numérique.

Paris is clearly a city for photography, preferably digital. Paris has artworks, architecture, numerous daily scenes, fashion models, etc.

During high season you will see American tourists dangling their Nikon digital SLRs as they walk around the 5th. Most of the beauty is not in the 5th, alas.

Rules

Regarding photographing of individuals, in France, if you want to take a person's picture you're officially supposed to ask their permission. In the USA, of course, you don't have to ask for permission if the subject is in a public place.

Also note, I've read that you are officially not allowed to photograph the Eiffel Tower's nightly flashing strobe light show that happens every hour. This sounds moronic, but the company that makes the lights has asserted that doing so would violate their intellectual property rights. There is an exception: If you photograph any other part of the city with the tower's flashing lights, it's OK. I find the strobe light show to be tedious and unimaginitive, but the tourists like it.

If anyone tries to tell you that you're not allowed to photograph a private building, and that person is not an obvious cop, they are probably just a low self-esteemed xenophobe trying to ruin your Paris experience.

Tripods (les trépieds)

If you forgot to bring your US $ 25 aluminum tripod with you to France (like this or this), beware that here, tripods cost over two times what they do in the USA. If you chance to find a cheap tall aluminum one, please let me know.

Pickpockets and bagsnatchers

It's apparent that the French are paranoid about pickpockets and bagsnatchers. It's not uncommon to hear announcements in the Metro in French to watch out for pickpockets, and to see French people clutching their bags as they walk by strangers.

However I have seen no evidence of pickpockets in Paris, and I do watch. I certainly have not seen bagsnatchers operating in broad daylight, which is ridiculous for a city like Paris.

Compare Paris to Naples, Italy. There, the local mafia called the Camorra actually trains teenage boys to do these things. But in Naples, people just don't have the same almost giddy paranoia about thieves as Parisians do.

Listen: there are two kinds of thieves in Paris.

  1. Thousands of businesses that charge outsiders outrageous amounts of money for things like hotels and food. They are the elephant in the living room.
  2. A handful of local petty thieves that steal relatively tiny amounts but ironically get all the attention.

The former thieves and the local establishment have a vested interest in making you fear the latter, because the former ones know they are the elephant in the livingroom who must not be seen.

So don't worry about pickpockets. They are the least of your worries if you use common sense:

  • In dense crowds: keep your hands in your pockets and your bags closed up.
  • When walking down the street: avoid walking into the paths of other people because they may wish to bump into you in order to pick a pocket.
  • Avoid dense crowds. Walking entirely around them if necessary. Better a small inconvenience than theft.
  • At the ATM (cash machine): never let others see your finger movements when you type in your PIN.
  • If there is a box protruding from the cash machine just above the finger pad it may be a common scam. Crooks are putting small cameras in boxes that they attach to a cash machine to get your PIN.
  • Never wave money or cameras around.

I repeat: the real thieves are those who:

  • People who trick you into thinking you should pay an exorbitant rate for an apartment etc.
  • People who take advantage of your desperation to price gouge you e.g. Arab stores in tourist traps.
  • People who exploit your ignorance in order to price gouge you.
  • People who use an excessive security presence to intimidate you into either buying anything or accepting high prices.
Don't think for a minute that they don't think of you as a "stupid American" or "stupid tourist" who deserves to get ripped off, in order to relieve themselves from any feelings of guilt.

Plumbing

If you're renting a place, be prepared to do a little plumbing yourself. Plumbers in Paris are overworked because the city has so many old buildings that were built before people had bathrooms in their homes. Parisians enjoy the legacy of hastily thought-out, quickly installed plumbing technology. It's analogous to the cellular phone network in the USA.

Post

Receiving media disks

The cost of sending a single CDROM disk in a puffed envelope, from the USA to Paris is only US $ 2.50 and takes about a week.

Postcards

La Poste, which is the French mail service, explains that to send a postcard to the USA costs 0.90 € (US $ 1.13) and takes 5 or 6 days. However a nice postcard itself may cost you 1.50 to 2 €, so the total will be around US $ 3, whereas if you have a computer and Internet access then an email is US $ 0 and an international phone using Skype can also be free (see the section about Voice over IP).

Postal codes

Just a note, the number in the range 75001 through 75020 you see on addresses here, which is le code postal, also serves to identify the arrondissement. So for example, a 75005 is in the 5th.

Refund experiences

Consumerism is as much about the right to return problematic items without hassle as it is about trying to make wise purchases. My own experiences follow.

  • Surcouf : Their returns or "après vente" department was located around the corner from the main entrance. I walked in and there were 5 or so people waiting. I ended up waiting only about 10 minutes to be served and was given a refund paper that I had to take to the front of the store to get the credit processed.
  • FNAC : I took a number and then sat for literally one hour with 10 to 20 or so people in the "apreès vente" area waiting for my number to come up. But finally I got my refund paper and took it to the register for the credit. Watching the FNAC employees it seemed clear that they were deliberately going slow e.g. slow hand movements and folding papers just right and patting them. It was a strange theatric show of people going on mysterious breaks or just sitting there at the counter. Zero sense of urgency no matter how many people are waiting. Bring a good book.
  • Monoprix : I got the runaround and ultimately could not return or exchange an item. They acted angry that I would even bother them with a return request. Thus Monoprix is an example of the unjustifiable hostility that some retailers in Paris have toward consumers.
  • LeaderPrice : Not a problem but the African manager seemed unhappy about my returning unopened sealed food with receipt.

Ride shares

There's now a website where you can arrange rides at fixed prices. The money is only given to the driver when you arrive safely at your common destination. It's En Voitures Simone.

Roller- and Inline-skating

It's amazing to witness 5000 people skating down the street, but that's how popular inline-skating and roller-skating have become in Paris. It is on Sundays that the massive skate takes place, as described here. Of course, skating is also economical since it's a good way to get in shape without joining a gym and it's a good form of transportation.

Romans and Celts

During Roman times Paris was called Lutetia, which was a name deriving from the local Parisii tribe's word for marsh. The Seine was called the Sequana. Lutetia was not a major Roman outpost, specifically because of that marsh, which was bigger then because the water table was higher at that time. By comparison, Trier just across the border in Germany was at one point the capital of the Empire. Despite Lutetia minor status, there are several Roman sites and collections to be seen here, such as the following.
  • The Musée du Moyen Age is on part of the site of the large Gallo-Roman baths complex today called the "Cluny Baths". In particular the tepidarium and palaestrae.
  • The small Roman amphitheater was a mixed-use structure with a stage. It is today called the Arènes de Lutèce. Located on rue Monge. Info here.
  • Then there is the Archeological Crypt of Notre Dame. Info here.
  • The "College de France" baths are no longer visible but their foundations are under some local buildings.
  • Outside of Lutetia at Vanves: Archeologists have been excavating a recently discovered a bath complex. Described here.
  • The Roman theater is no longer visible but its foundations are under some buildings.

Related museum collections

  • The National Archeological Museum is huge and well-stocked with lots of great artifacts. It is located just outside of Paris in Saint Germain en Layes. The Metro ticket to get there one way is about 3.50 €. The entrance price is 4.20 € but it is free on the first Sunday of each month. They have everything including among other things Gallo-Roman pottery and glass. They also have giant cult statues of Apollo and Mercury and a massive Gallo-Roman mosaic. From more ancient history they have the skull of a Cro-Magnon man and of a Neanderthal. This museum is really a must-see. Exit the Metro station and look left. The museum is in the chateau. There is a Monoprix supermarche in town. Avoid the tiny prige-gouger Casino market near the station.
  • The Petit Palais has an excellent Ancient Greek collection. Entry is always free. Metro station Champs-Elysees Clemenceau.
  • The Louvre of course has a larger collection that includes Greco-Roman and Etruscan artifacts.
  • There is a smallish archeological museum in Chartres that displays its original Roman history when the town was called Autricum and later Carnutum after the local Celtic tribe.

Links

Here is the Mairie de Paris official site on the Roman history of Paris.

Here is another page about Lutetia.

Sales (Les Soldes)

Les Soldes (meaning simply "the sales") are a twice-yearly event. In 2006, they began on June 28th in Paris. Each locality sets the date for its sales. In Paris, it lasts about 4 weeks. Most stores in the city that sell to the general public, except the discounters and hardcore price-gougers are having 10-70%-off sales. Or at least that's what they claim. In reality, Les Soldes is for many stores just a gimmick to get people into the store, whereupon customers realize that very little is for sale at all, and probably any good sale items are long gone. And no doubt there are some luxury-item stores that even raise prices during Les Soldes, as has been rumored, because some out-of-town customers such as newly wealthy Asians simply wouldn't know what a normal price is anyway. Perhaps this explains the polo shirt I saw, that looked no better than some US $ 8 thing from K-Mart, yet it was "on sale" in a Parisian shop window for 70 €.

Self-storage

In France this is called "self-stockage" and is pretty expensive in Paris, less so near the perimeter. Use the yellow pages to find a service. But note, you should never bring so much with you on internationally that you need self-storage. Frugality and moderation are the best goals.

Wide shoes

One person told me that only 5 days after arriving in Paris, his shoes were worn out. While this may not happen to most people right away, clearly the walking involved in exploring Paris will eventually necessitate new shoes or sandals. If you have wide feet, you've got a problem: Wide shoes are generally not sold in France.

I shall summarize my findings:

You can buy wide shoes online for as little as ½ the retail price. If you know what you need and have a mailing address, you should buy your shoes or sandals online. Note that so long as the store is within the EU you pay no customs and the price should include VAT.

The tricky part is dealing with the shipping. If the online store uses DHL you may have delivery problems.

For details, see the price comparison in the Online Shopping section.

An online store I found:

  • FootShopping: They have many sandals. Their telephone is 04792 94111 in Germany.

Here are three brick-and-mortar stores that may have wide sandals, shoes or boots:

  • Go Sport: at Les Halles has what appear to be good hiking boots but sub-par sandals. They lack even sell some common sandal brands. Note that their shoes are located on multiple levels.
  • Anatomie: at 14 rue du Borg-Tibourg; phone 0142 74 10 20. Expensive compared to mail-order and they had nothing on sale during Les Soldes.
  • The Birkenstock store at 16 rue de Sevigne; phone 0140 27 96 99. They professed having mostly narrow Birkenstocks. Expensive compared to mail-order.

Specific shopping areas

In order to save money on some items, you need to know which street or neighborhood specializes in that thing. Here are some of them.

Rare coins

I discovered by chance that there is a concentration of rare coin shops on rue de Vivienne just north of the Bourse Metro and square.

Desktop computers

There is a cluster of small Chinese computer shops between the Dugommier Metro and Ledru-Rollin metro along Charenton. You can also find a few such shops along the boulevard St. Germain but that's a more pricey area real-estate-wise, so I would assume computer prices are higher too.

Another person told me that just outside the Montgallet Metro station (line 8), there are 5 or so Chinese computer stores.

When I bought some blank DVD-Rs for 1.5 € each, it was at a Chinese store very near the Marx Dormoy Metro station (line 12).

Bicycles

There are a few shops near the Bastille area but basically shops are spread out. Two that are near Les Halles are BHV and Bouticycle.

Supermarkets (supermarchés)

Most informed consumers go to the cheaper stores such as Aliments Ed, LeaderPrice, and Franprix, where prices are sometimes half of what the others charge, especially comparing to ripoff stores like G20, Shopi, and Monoprix. Prices vary by individual store.

I greatly prefer Ed, because they have low prices. I've shopped at two of their stores on a regular basis. Note, they are closed on Sunday.

Franprix has good prices on some things, but their benefit is that they seem to have the best attitude toward customers, although that is subjective.

Here is a comparison of the prices for soy milk, granted an obscure item, but it pretty accurately demonstrates the general differences in prices between supermarkets.

Where How much
Ed less than 1 € for unflavored
Franprix 1 € for unflavored
LeaderPrice 1.5 € (vanilla)
Franprix: fancier brand 2.5 €
G20 2.75 €
Naturalia approx 4 €
LeaderPrice's chocolate soy tasted horrible.

Notice that at most stores, orange juice and milk, when bought in box form, cost only about 0.55 € per liter but in glass or plastic they are 2 or 3 times that. Two-liter boxed orange juice at Ed is about 0.85 € I find the boxed ones taste just as good.

If you have a car or can borrow one, you might check out Carrefour, which seems to have low prices.

Lastly, most supermarkets deliver food. Delivery in French is livraison, and is a word you will see everywhere in Paris because it's a city where cars are secondary for most people, and yet heavy objects must be bought. But note: I have heard that to get food delivered, a minimum order of around 75 € may be required.

Trivia : If a local Parisian works at a restaurant or other business, they can sometimes borrow the business buyer ID card and go to businesses-only stores outside Paris by car such as Metro, which is reported to be very cheap.

Swimming

There are quite a few indoor public swimming pools (piscines municipales) situated around the city and are available to anyone who will pay. I spotted one next to Centre Pompidou and another in Les Halles. Usually the fee to use the pool is around 5 €. A list of pools is here.

Technology to bring

To save money and effort, bring electronic gear with you from the USA or another non-VAT country.

Needless to say, you should bring a digital camera and flash memory. If you like non-action photography you might consider the Sigma DP1 or DP2.

A laptop is cumbersome and a risk for theft but it can also be a money-saver. Buy a cheap one in case someone at TSA decides to inspect steal it when you return to the USA. Increasingly common...

Advantages of bringing a laptop:

  1. Wireless internet at cafes permits you to avoid the cost and risks of going to an Internet cafe.
  2. The ability to make voice-over-IP phone calls using Skype or GoogleTalk. This alone could save you hundreds of dollars on both international and local calls.

Telephones

To learn how to call people anywhere in the world for free, skip to the section below about VoIP.

The yellow pages are at pagesjaunes.fr.

Landline

I don't know about residential landline phones in France. Parisians seem to view this technology as "archaic".

As for phone cabins, yes, you can buy phone cards at Tabac shops. I've had some bad experiences with those however so make sure before you buy that they're certain you'll really get 300 minutes and not 30.

The France Telecom 7.50 € chip cards also work for local calls although a short call might cost you 2 or 3 time units i.e. 50 to 75 cents.

Do keep in mind that calls to cell phones cost more in Europe.

Cellular

Cellphones here seem to have 1 or 2 year contracts (expressed as contrat or abonnement) with monthly payments, same as in the US. See here for an example called Bouygues.

To go without a contract you can buy a mobile phone for 40-60 euros or so and pay by the minute between 20 and 50 cents. If I find a cheaper deal, I will post it here. But, do check out the Wifi phone below.

One Parisian says, avoid Orange at all costs.

VoIP (voice over IP)

You may not need a phone, if you have a computer and Internet access. VoIP, pronounced voyp, has been around for 10 years but has only really caught on in the few years due to broadband Internet. Using it, you can call people who use the same VoIP service for free i.e. no money.

Two major services are GoogleTalk and Skype.

If you use Skype, make sure you turn off the ability of anyone to chat with you. It's an annoying feature and probably a security risk.

In my case, I use Skype to call the USA as well as in France. Sound quality is equally good, and Skype offers free PC to PC calls, meaning you tell friends and relatives to install the software and be at their computer at such and such time; then it's a free call for however long you want. And you can dial out to regular phones.

I also use GoogleTalk, which is PC-to-PC only.

Tour de France

route = le parcours, la route

If you're going to watch the Tour in person, you should really watch it along the Champs-Elysees. There is a practical reason for this. The riders do a loop at the end of the Tour and they go up and down the Champs-Elysees 4 or 5 times. If you see the Tour anywhere else, of course they go by only once, and that takes all of 30 seconds.

Some people are permitted to pay to sit on the bleachers that are set up down at the bottom of the Champs-Elysees hill. All of the seats on the bleachers get sold out sometime around June.

During the 2006 race when I was present, by 2pm all spots up against the railing that went all along the Champs-Elysees were filled. The riders arrived just before 5pm.

The top of the Arc de Triomphe was closed to tourists, but the cyclists never reached the Arc anyway; they did their turns 100 yards downhill from there.

The Tour, it should be noted, ended at the bottom of the hill.

Note, there were no toilet facilities in sight where I was, halfway downhill. The one toilet that a worker pointed me to had a sign saying it was closed for "santiary" reasons. Not surprisingly, many fans were pissing in the bushes, which is very unsanitary but I didn't notice the police showing concern about it. I didn't see a single porta-potty.

There were tons of cops everywhere, many just sitting in their vans listening to radios or watching TV, just like they were during the world cup.

I observed that clever spectators did a number of things that the masses did not:

  1. They arrived early to get a spot on the railing.
  2. They brought umbrellas to guard against sunburn and sunstroke.
  3. They brought their own tapwater and sunscreen.
  4. They brought something to stand on to put themselves above ground level. This is vital in cases where the throngs of people had packed in front of them ten deep. Also useful to guard against pickpockets. I saw two men who had brought aluminum ladders.
  5. Lacking ladders or stools a few people grabbed unopened stacks of the free magazine that was being handed out and nobody was reading. They stood on the stack to get above head level.
  6. They brought a monopod to raise their cameras above the heads of spectators (I did this myself).

There was a public water fountain on the street just south of the Champs-Elysees up near the Arc.

The phone number for the Tour de France was 0141-33-15-00 in 2006.

Other bike races

In mid-April the Paris-Roubaix is held. It first began in 1896 and goes from near Paris to the border with Belgium. It's special because it's known for being much more painfully difficult than most races, as the riders have to go over cobble stones and uneven ground.

Wiki article

Tourism inside Paris

Museums

You might consider getting the Paris Museum Pass and seeing multiple museums in one go. Two days is 30 €, 4 days is 45 €. If you think you can rush it, and want to, then you can save some dough.
Always-free museums
I know of two:
  • The Petit-Palais. Located near the Champs-Elysees.
  • The Cognacq-Jay musuem. Located near the Saint-Paul metro. Phone 0140 27 07 21. Link.
First Sunday free

lingo

free (US $ 0) = gratuit
free entry = entree gratuite
entering without paying= entrer gratuitement

You can save a bunch of money by delaying your museum visits until the first Sunday of the month, which is free at most museums including the Louvre. If your feet can take it, you can use this day to see 4 or 5 museums and save a lot of money. Beware, the Louvre gets very crowded by noon and the line begins forming as early as 8am.

The Museum Pass brochure lists which museums are free.

Here is what I saw and saved on a first Sunday:

Museum Money saved Comment
Louvre 8.50 € packed after 1 hr.
Centre Pompidou 7 €
Musee Rodin 5 € paltry collection.
Musee dOrsay 7 € wonderful.
Musee du Petit Palais 0 € large Greek section.
All museums excluded new and special collections during first Sunday.

The total saved was 27.50 €, equivalent to about 50 frugal, home-cooked meals.

On another First Sunday I went to the Musee Picasso, which was not very crowded and was very satisfying. It's a nice, well thought out museum in the 3rd arrondissment with some decent work.

Maison Europeene de la Photographie
This is a museum with some pretty stunning photographs upstairs. It's free on Wednesday after 5pm.
Louvre
Any cynical attempt to dispell the Louvre as just another museum is doomed to fail. It is an expansive place with vast amounts of quality artwork, as well as a beautiful huge building with nearby sculpture gardens. It is impossible to see the entire Louvre in one day. There's just too much distance to walk and too much art to take in even if you're just glancing.
Grand Palais and Petit Palais
The Grand Palais had this summer the famous catapult that throws a real piano. The entry fee is kind of steep however.

The Petit Palais is free and has some decent artwork, especially the Ancient Greek pottery downstairs.

Views

Views of the city from high up are available from the following places and probably more.
  • Montmartre hilltop. Free.
  • The Ferris Wheel at the circus in the Tuileries. About 6 € (limited view).
  • Tour Montparnasse. About 8.50 € to go to the top. You unfortunately cannot save money by taking the stairs because they are off-limits.
  • Tour Eiffel. About 11 € to go to the top. Get there before it opens!
  • Aeroparis hot-air balloon. About 12 €.
  • Also consider the balcony of the Samartaine.

Parks

Jardin du Luxembourg
This vast public garden also has a stage where you can periodically hear a brass band, either from up close or from pretty clearly half way across the park. Ample chairs and shade for reading or eating make this a perfect place to take a break.
Paris Plages
This is a man-made park along the Seine near Isle Saint Louis. Surprisingly well planned. Good if you can get a spot under an umbrella.
Parc Andre Citroen
This park is smallish but is very well designed, with great care taken as to craft the sound, light, and views within the park.
Parc du Villette
Metro Ⓜ Port du Pantin

This is a science-oriented outdoor park with a stage. Personally I find the park to be somewhat ugly and not well planned.

At the stage they have free outdoor movies in version originale from July 4th until August 13th 2006. Some caveats:

  • It is a long Metro ride from the Ile de la Cite so if you are not nearby already bring a book.
  • Films begin at sundown. During the summer of course this is after 10pm.
  • The last Metro going back to the center of down is between 12:30 and 12:45 and there is a chance the film will last longer.
  • Rather than use the Metro you might use a bike to get back. See the section on bicycles.

The movie listing is here.

Pantheon

This is a massive church uphill from the Jardin du Luxembourg. The entry fee is not low, but the exterior is very nice. Like San Sulpice, the Pantheon was built using the funds from a lottery.

Le Tour Eiffel

Reminder It's pronounced le toor eff-ell.

To say this is a crowded tourist attraction would be an understatement. If you don't want to wait, arrive at 9am, one half hour before tickets go on sale. By 10am the multiple simultaneous tour bus loads of irritable package tour prisoners are already too much to bear.

You might think hanging out near the Tour for a picnic would be fun. I don't think so, for two reasons:

  1. If you are near the tower itself you will be hassled by Gypsies who great you with "speak English". Just shrug to indicate no.
  2. You will witness a strangely overbearing military and police presence. They look like something out of an Alex Jones documentary.

Anyway, le Tour Eiffel is a must see, and you should ascend it too, although the 2nd level is better than the top in my opinion. Just be sure to get there before the cattle drive, around 9am.

Passages

There is a system of about 5 "passages" that I chanced upon, that look like the precursor to shopping malls, but in miniature and with ornate wood carvings and skylights. An example.

Tourism outside of Paris

To visit France and see only Paris is to miss out almost completely on what France is all about. It would be like visiting the USA but seeing only New York City. Most French people I've met will tell you that Paris is not "the real France", and many will point out that other cities such as Lyon and Toulouse have all the same stuff, but are less hectic and snobbish.

Chartres

I'm not going to tell you that the 25 EURO round trip train ticket to Chartres from Paris and back is cheap, however it's worth it if you stay for a few days. This is the town with the legendarily massive cathedral built in the 12th century that anyone who's taken an architectural history course has had pounded into their minds. Forget the religion aspect, the building is impressive in its own right and there is good artwork inside. Entry is free and the 6.50 € to ascend the tower is a good value; bring a camera. Chartres is also a very pretty little town, very peaceful, with nice squares and cafe-brasseries. It has a very decent youth hostel that is about 13 € per night; their website is here.

San Germain en Laye

This small town actually looks like "real France" as opposed to Paris, which can be a relief. Go there for the National Archeological Museum (free on the first Sunday of each month) mentioned above in my section on Romans and Celts. However note, the locals can be creepy.

San Germain also has a large park next to the chateau.

Transportation

Walking / Rollerblading / Bicycling

The best way to see Paris is to move around at less than 10 miles per hour. You can really appreciate the ambiance, the beautiful architecture, the characteristic food-smells of morning, and just the everyday life at this speed.

If I had the time, I would provide guided walks between interesting spots, but alas I don't.

I can say that the walk from the Eiffel Tower to the Tuileries garden is about a half-hour to 40 minutes, and that sights along the way include the American Church, Les Invalides (at a distance), the river-side house-boats, museums (Petit Palais and Grand Palais), the green part of the Champs-Elysees and the Obelisk.

Métro Ⓜ

Le Métropolitain is the subway system of Paris. It's a nice enough way to get around for short trips. For longer ones it gets tiresome although that's when it's more economical.

Riding the Metro is like being a groundhog. You can zip around underneath the city, never seeing the interesting parts and then pop your head out of a hole.

In some cases, the Metro is unavoidable. For instance, if you have a schedule to keep or a blister on your foot, or if you want to avoid walking past a tourist trap, the Metro is the only affordable option.

The first strategy for saving money is very simple: get the carnet of 10 tickets for about 11 €.

You can also get an unlimited weekly pass called the Carte Orange for about 15 €. This is perfect for tourists. A few Metro attendants will try to tell you tourists can't buy it, but this is false. Ignore them and try another Metro station. More info.

There is also a monthly pass starting at 51 € but it may be the case that you will need to buy and bring a passport photo to get it. I have heard that only people with a residence visa can get it.

Planes

Before I got a place, I learned from some fellow hostellers that they booked a flight via RyanAir, Paris to/from Venice for 29 €. Do beware however, those prices sometimes do not include taxes and the sometimes large cost to get into the city from the smaller outlying airports that RyanAir uses.

For travel to and from Paris, Air India sells some of the cheapest tickets. You can buy them through student-oriented places like STA and StudentUniverse, and you need not be a student to get an Air India ticket.

Trains

SNCF, which is the national railway system, is running some deals this summer making it cheap to go to certain cities such as Cologne.

Incidentally, the SNCF recently lost a lawsuit brought by a Jew who was deported by train under the WWII Vichy regime, and was fined. Story here.

Buses

I don't suggest that people use the local bus system. I have seen and heard of people getting bad and abusive service and from my experience I can confirm that.

As for buses to other countries, Eurolines has been advertising cheap buses to certain cities for small sums like 20 €. Beware, these require something like 60 days advance booking.

However otherwise Eurolines is OK, so long as it is cheaper than the trains.

The city bus station (gare routiere) is at the Gallieni Metro stop. Don't plan on spending much time there, it's nothing to look at.

Boats on the Seine (les Bateau-Mouches)

Mouche means fly, as in the insect.

Notice how for some boats, you can only buy an all-day ticket for 11 € or so. After you use that once, you probably won't use it again. Why not give it away to save another tour is some money?

Ugly Americans

Traditionally there is a tendency among some to speak of the "Ugly American" tourist, who is obnoxious, crude, loud, disrespectful and makes no effort to speak the local language. Usually "ugliness" includes a predominant interest in alcohol and partying and not personal enrichment.

In truth, there are people of all nationalities who behave this way. I have witnessed "ugly" Russians, British, Koreans, Irish, Mexicans, Germans, Africans, etc., as well as of course military personnel of all stripes, in various places including but not limited to Paris who are just this way.

Indeed many French people have told me that tourists from Paris themselves are notorious for obnoxious, arrogant, loud behavior when they go on vacation to other parts of France. And of course people in the South take special pleasure in treating Parisians like garbage.

And in truth, it's not so much a question of being a tourist, it's about being a guest in a different culture, about being open to different customs and beliefs. Therefore immigrants who don't try to integrate can also be the "ugly" outsiders, too.

To give a profile of the ugliest guest possible, they would be as follows (version 0.1) :

  1. Obnoxious: Loud / drunk / partying i.e. shows no consideration for others.
  2. Personally arrogant: Disrespectful toward individuals and puts themselves on a pedastle.
  3. Culturally arrogant: Convinced their ways are better than than those of locals. Not willing to consider local customs or beliefs.
  4. Linguistically arrogant: Refuses or makes no effort to learn local language.
  5. Malevolent: Adds to local crime e.g. by doing illegal drugs.
  6. Malevolent: Takes out frustrations (originating from their own bad behavior) on innocent locals and tourists.
  7. Reckless: Frequents unethical local businesses thereby enabling and encouraging them to scam or rip off yet more people.
  8. Reckless: Overstays his or her visa thereby becoming an illegal immigrant and taking jobs away from locals by helping unethical businesses.

A silver lining

I love Paris. But periodically the amour wears off, and the city grates a bit. And suddenly one day, you see the beady eyes of the fevered, trapped locals, staring at you as if to try to wear a hole in your forehead, giving you that crazy fifty yard stare like a Viet Cong newly popped out of a foxhole, seething, wanting to get his or her claws on your dollars and then shove you out the door. And at that moment it hits you: Those obnoxious tourists waddling around semi-drunk, their digital SLRs dangling below their triple-chins and bouncing off pot bellies -- you are so glad they're here. And you raise your fist and say: Waddle, fatman, waddle!

Ugly Locals

To be fair it's not just tourists who behave in an "ugly" way. Some locals do too, and note, I must include among "locals" that type of American, British, or others nationality who is in Europe long-term and who, due to lack of integrity or character, has ended up emulating Paris's worst creeps.

Envy (jalousie)

The primary reason why Parisians give tourists a hard time is simple envy. They don't have ready access to money to go overseas and it eats at them that you are in Paris, living it up. Over time their bitterness may lead to a decision to engage in scheming to get their hands on your money, for instance by price-gouging you, short-changing you, manipulating you to make you pay too much or just stealing from you.

Xenophobia

To be sure, France has its share of pig headed people who see the mere presence of foreigners as a threat, even if you will not take their jobs, not affect their housing prospects, not go to the same supermarkets and other stores, not move to the country in large numbers (invade), not litter or commit any crimes, not try to change the culture in any way. This type of person has staked his or her self-importance on their national identity, which some call the nation-tribe. Their actual problem is low self-esteem. They convince themselves that they are valuable by pretending all people like them are good and unified, while projecting their own feeling of defectiveness, shame or guilt upon outsiders. To them, the outsider will always be a dirty barbaric person of lower rank, who is stupid (easily ripped off, for example) or up to no good (morally defective). Your best defense is to avoid them and above all, don't give them any money.

The 5 Stages of Anti-American Grief

Psychologists explain that people deal with grief in a predictable way. They experience it progressively in 5 stages, assuming of course they don't get stuck at any stage. This insight can also be applied to the anti-American zealots that you sometimes see in Europe.
  1. Denial: The Americans are not better than us! They are savages!
  2. Anger: Goddamn it. They are better than us! I hate them!
  3. Bargaining: Wait! What if our culture is better in a few ways such as in winemaking or in being culturally open-minded? They killed all those indians? We would never do that. Mirror mirror on the wall who is the most open-minded of them all? We are!
  4. Depression: Oh no! The French will never compare to those Americans! We will never ever again be important in the world. It is pointless.
  5. Acceptance: What am I worrying about? France can be good in its own way and the Americans good in theirs! I see the light: No person or country is perfect!
The question is, does the zealot ever reach the end of the grief? Or does he/she get stuck in steps 1 or 2?

Vocabulary

For online verb conjugation, use Verbix.

For a pictoral French dictionary with pronunciation, go here.

A good practice to get into is to keep a word list on a small pad of paper and to write new words and expressions on it as well as their English equivalents. Review it daily.

Gender rules

It's so easy to forget language rules even if you've had several years of a language in school. Here is a quickie review.
Masculine word endings
  • -isme
  • -et / -if / -eur
  • -age
  • -oir
  • -eau
  • -ment
  • Words ending in a consonant are masculine.
  • Words ending in just -é are often feminine e.g. la vérité; la compatibilité; la societé. But also masculine e.g. le doublé.
Feminine word endings
  • -ière
  • -ie
  • -ion
  • -ille / -ette / -ive / -euse
  • -ée (exception le musée)
Mixed
  • Words ending in just -e are often feminine e.g. la douche (the shower). But they can be masculine e.g. le probleme.
  • Words ending in just -on can be either gender e.g. la comparaison.
  • Some words can be both masculine or feminine e.g. poêle: if feminine it is a frying pan but if masculine it is a stove.

Shopping (faire les courses)

French English German
une arnaque a rip-off Nepp [masc.]
gratuit free kostenlos / gratis
gratuitement without paying
le consumérisme consumerism der Konsumerismus; die Verbraucherherrschaft
bon-marché cheap (as in a good deal) guenstig
forfait combo / package deal die Pauschale
combien ça coute how much does it cost wieviel kostet das
futé smart / clever pfiffig
économe; frugal frugal frugal; sparsam
les soldes the sales Sommerschlussverkauf; Winterschlussverkauf
la vente par correspondence mail-order der Postversand
les coûts d´envoi delivery cost die Kosten der Anlieferung
rembourser; le remboursement to refund; the refund die Rückerstattung

Clothing (les vetements)

French English German
à manche longue long-sleeved langen Hemdsarmen?
la chemise shirt das Hemd
pantalons pants die Hose
le pull sweater

Arts (les arts)

French English German
un atélier art studio das Atelier
les métier d' art arts and crafts
le vitrail stained glass das Buntglas

Housing (le logement)

French English German
la location renting die Vermietung
louer to rent mieten
louer; affréter to rent out vermieten
sous-louer to sublet
le loyer the rent die Wohnungsmiete; Miete
la caution deposit Kaution?
assurance insurance

Shoes (les chaussures)

French English German
la largeur width die Weite; Breite
la longeur length
large wide weit
etroit narrow schmal
boiter to limp hinken
bule bubble / blister die Blase
cordonnier shoemaker / shoe repairer der Schuhmacher; Schuster
lacets de chaussure shoelaces die Schnürsenkel

Political

French English German
unilatéral unilateral
préventif [as in strike] pre-emptive
le dictateur dictator der Diktator
fascisme fascism der Faschismus
entamer une procedure d\'impeachment contre impeachment
truquer les élections rig an election

Taxes

French English German
TTC = toutes taxes compris all taxes included der Inklusivpreis
HT = hors taxe not including tax
TVA = taxe de valeur ajoutee VAT = value-added tax Mehrwertsteuer

Beach

French English German
la plage beach der Strand
bronzer to tan sonnenbräunen
le bronzage suntan
solaire (dle bronzage) suntan lotion die Sonnencreme
le soleil the sun die Sonne
le soleil sunlight das Sonnenlicht
un parasol beach umbrella der Sonnenschirm
un coup de soleil (lit. a sun hit) a sunburn Sonnenbrand [m]
se chauffer to bask sich sonnen
se baigner to bathe baden
paresser to laze sich aalen

Computers (informatique)

French English
un ordinateur computer
un mot clef/clé keyword
un mot passe password
une pièce jointe attachment/enclosure
facultatif optional
mise en ligne put on line

Work (travail)

French English
emploi employment
rénumération pay
salaire salary
équip team
chef de projet project manager

Bicycles

French English
un vélo a bike
une bicyclette a bicycle
le cadre frame
la fourche fork
le frein brake
la pédale pedal
pneus [m] tires
la selle saddle
faire du vélo ride a bike
aller en bicyclette to bicycle
dégonflé flat (tire)
creuvé punctured (tire)
la chambre (a air) inner tube
le réglage adjustment
la boulonnerie nuts and bolts

Some French conjuctions

French English
bien que although
tandis que while
aussi que as well as

Some "re" verbs

French English
je renvoye I send back
je rendre I give back
je rapporte I bring back something
je ramene I bring back someone
je retourne I go back
je remets I put back
je reviens I come back
je reste I remain
je te retrouve I meet you
je rencontre I encounter someone
je remporte I take back / carry off
j\'enleve I remove something

Random stuff

French English German
mise à jour update
rappel qqc à qqn to remind someone of something
d'ailleurs besides...
un appareil device Geraet
en cas de panne in case of breakdown
la serre greenhouse
effet [m] de serre Greenhouse Effect der Glashauseffekt
le pourcentage the percentage das Prozent
envie desire der Neid
jalousie envy die Eifersucht auf; der Neid auf
tout à l'heure in a little while
le type man / guy / dude der Typ; der Kerl; der Macker
le type kind / type die Art
(adj) type typical typisch
bientôt soon bald
plutôt rather ziemlich
une tranche de vie a slice of life
une tranche de pizza a slice of pizza
forcément inevitably
se retrouver to meet by appointment
la mairie city government das Rathaus
traiteur caterer
exiger to require
d'une façon ou d'une autre one way or another
justifier de provide evidence of
au fond at heart
by the way... à propos... uebrigens...
d'ac righto
Paris est une vraie fournaisse Paris is like an oven

Hardware

French English
une quincaillerie hardware store
un dépôt de bois lumberyard
une vis wood screw
un tournevis screwdriver
un clou nail
un marteau hammer
un porte-foret manual drill
une perceuse electric drill
colle à bois wood glue

Websites

One particular piece of info that people often lack is which websites are useful. While this page has many links which I won't repeat here, the following additional links should help.

Classifieds

Although there are free printed classifieds, such as Paris Paname, most ads are online.

Weather

Social

Webcams

News et cetera

Shopping and consumerism

Yellow pages

They're called Pages Jaunes and are also at Yahoo.

American media programs

Excellent shows...

Environment

  • The Ecologist magazine. It is a wonderful resource and is available at W.H. Smith.

Weekend Markets

A complete listing of farmer's markets can be found in the Officiel des Spectacle, which is 0.35 € at any newspaper seller.

On a Saturday I found a weekend food and clothing market outside the Alexandre Dumas Metro station in the 20th arrondissement, where I bought much good cheese on the cheap.

On the next Saturday I discovered a large number of antique sellers with tables and other small merchants along Boulevard Hausmann, just west of the Surcouf electronics store.

On a Friday afternoon, I found a small market outside the Bourse metro, and bought some cheap cheese there.

A few more links

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