Paris Was The Worst: And Why It’s (By Itself) on my Sh*t List
The 5 experiences that left me entirely disappointed and unimpressed
INTRODUCTION
Paris, the City of Lights. Many couples’ idea of a romantic location. So why is it the only city on my sh*t list, then?
Read on to find out.
ARRIVING IN PARIS
I was traveling with my girlfriend. Paris was one of the cities on our itinerary. we had three days and three nights to spend there.
This was an easy and unchallenging environment for us to visit as tourists, for a number of reasons. First, I’m a native French speaker, and she happened to be fluent in the language as well, having completed her high school studies in an international French school.
Second, we were both from so-called Western countries, so already somewhat familiar with French food and customs.
So what could go wrong, right?
THE EXPERIENCE THAT LEFT ME UNIMPRESSED
After we’d checked into our hotel we went out walking around our neighborhood to find somewhere to eat dinner.
I can’t remember where we ended up exactly, but it was something like a pub. I recall that it was somewhat dark and there was a bar close to the entrance. Whatever we ate was okay, but completely forgettable. Somewhat pricey, but not unexpected given that this was Paris.
We finished eating around 8:00–8:30 p.m., a pretty typical time for dinner by French standards.
Then came time to pay. Our bill cost 35 EUR (around US$50, at the time), and I gave a 100 EUR note. It took the cashier/bartender a good minute to figure out how much change to give me, and that’s including using a calculator! UGH.
I had always heard, in the news and from French people I’d met personally (like at my French meetup group, for example) that the French High School curriculum was more advanced in math and science than the North American one. So this was a little shocking, but I chalked it up to her perhaps having had a long day and simply being tired.
But what sealed the deal in terms of making this a bad experience for us, was that she proceeded to tell us that they didn’t have enough change for us (and bear in mind that this restaurant was still open and accepting customers - it’s not like it was the end of the day for them.)
And, so, another employee had to run out to a little shop across the street to get change. He came back about five minutes later, at which point we were finally able to get on with our evening.
Pretty lame.
THE EXPERIENCE THAT LEFT US DISGUSTED
We wanted to visit the famous Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral, so we hopped onto the metro and exited at the stop nearest to the cathedral. This station was located only a few minutes away from it by foot. It was busy and situated in a very popular, highly visited tourist area.
In this case, our dismay came from the general state that the metro station and its immediate surroundings were in. There was a smell of pee as we were walking out and around to the front. We spotted some big rats foraging, used condoms and empty alcohol bottles on the ground, and possibly a homeless problem in the area. The whole place basically gave the impression that it was generally very dirty and unkept-looking.
Enough said.
THE “DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE” EXPERIENCE:
It was time to have dinner again. and we had made our way to a restaurant that I had found during my initial research and planning stage, prior to landing in the country.
It was a highly-rated mid-range restaurant owned by a famous chef. We chose one of the signature dishes. All I remember is that it had l some lobster in it… might have been a bisque. It cost us somewhere around 50 EUR.
The taste was underwhelming at best and the serving size was very small. More like an appetizer, despite being listed as a main. I was still very hungry afterward and ended up going to a bakery nearby to buy a couple of croissants to eat as soon as we left the restaurant.
What a rip-off, in taste AND in price!
THE “WATCH OUT FOR THE UNCIVILIZED CROOK” EXPERIENCE:
It was the afternoon, probably on Sunday during our 3-day long weekend trip to Paris. We were about to get on the Metro, after having spent a minute asking for directions from the booth attendant who worked right next to the entrance gates.
We’d purchased our one-way tickets, at an exorbitant price of 5 EUR each. I seem to remember that the price was perhaps a little higher on weekends, for some reason.
So my girlfriend went through the turnstile entrance and waited for me on the other side. There were a couple of people in front of me and then came my turn. I put in my ticket, started pushing the rotating metal bars, and immediately felt someone shoving themselves behind and pushing me to try and go through at the same time.
This French man must have noticed that we were tourists beforehand, and thought that he could get away with it as I would be caught by surprise and wouldn’t be able to speak up in French either…
Wrong on both counts.
I immediately turned around, looked at him, and pushed him back solidly with an open hand while exclaiming something like “What the hell are you doing?!” in French. He was definitely taken aback, clearly unused to people preventing his little scam from working.
I joined my girlfriend and we walked a few meters down the tunnel. we came to a split and were unsure which direction to take so we stopped to look at our subway map, which I think was in the form of a smartphone APP that I had.
Shortly after, the same man who had tried to scam his way in for free caught up with us and started yelling some insults at me and acting like he wanted to fight. I yelled something back along the lines of “What’s your problem?” while taking my backpack off and putting it down in case he was going to try to swing at me.
He was still standing at a distance of about 3 meters away, and, at that moment, a random man who was passing by and had noticed this idiot’s behavior told him to calm down and not get involved like this with tourists, or some such.
Lucky for him. My girlfriend had witnessed everything that had happened up to this point and she knew that this guy was in the wrong. We certainly weren’t looking for trouble, but I would have been fully in my right to defend myself had I needed to.
THE “YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME” EXPERIENCE:
It’s the afternoon and we were on our way to someplace called The Museum of Magic. it was around 2 p.m. and we had been walking for a while.
I was getting hungry. We spotted a nice-looking café and stepped inside to see if I could grab a snack. The place was packed and there literally was nowhere to sit So I had to take my food to go. I bought two slices of coconut cream pie.
We stepped back outside and I proceeded to eat the pie on our way to the museum and drank some bottled water as usual. We had a good visit to the museum but, shortly after getting out, I started feeling ill in my stomach.
We ended up having to rush back to our hotel room, and I proceeded to be sick from food poisoning for the rest of the day, being unable to go out until the following morning.
Now… I’m not sensitive, don't have any allergies, and can eat just about any food. And there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that what made me sick was the coconut pie that I had gotten in the middle of the afternoon from that busy café.
And up to that point - in fact, up until now - this is the only case of food poisoning I’ve ever gotten during my travels as a tourist. And this includes visiting various cities in Asia and Europe, where I ate my way through night markets and other street foods, among other things.
CONCLUSION
In any city around the world and particularly those where tourism brings in a lot of revenue, you would expect that the city’s management, its businesses, and its people would do the best they can to put a good foot forward and make the best first impression possible on tourists. Especially when talking about such a high-profile city as Paris.
Unfortunately, however, this isn’t what I noted when I was there. instead, I experienced quite a few distinct bad things in the same, short 3-day weekend time frame.
Rather disappointing, wouldn’t you say?
And this is why Paris is, to this day, still the one and only foreign city on my sh*t list. I will never set foot there again, although I wouldn’t be opposed to going back to a different area of France if the opportunity presented itself at some point in the future.
Q. have you had bad travel experiences?
All the best,
Pascal
PS: You can go here for more travel stories and articles or read more about me here.
