1) The Hotel Continental Paris on rue Castiglione is no longer; it's now "The Westin." The Grand Hotel Intercontinental remains the same.
2) Smoking is way, way down. We didn't see one butt on a subway platform or tracks and they used to be littered. In restaurants very few, if any, smokers. Smokers are now the rarity, rather the non-smoker. Of course, if there was one smoker in the restaurant, he sat next to me. On the street there were some people standing outside buildings smoking like you see in N.Y. Apparently, it's been curtailed in business also.
3) Navago metro pass is in use by some people. Very fast and convenient. Just pass the card over a sensor and keep moving. It is a yearly pass and won't really be suitable to the tourist. But the feeling about Navago is not so great so don't count the Carte Orange out yet. There's a lot of oppostion to the Navago because it allows "THEM" to track the user's entrance to the metro system - the day, the time, the station - and there's a lot of opposition to the loss of privacy.
4) I've never seen Paris so empty. Really, really quiet. Even Kitty O'Shea, the Irish pub, was dead. Restaurants are complaining that people aren't coming, hotels are complaining that people aren't calling to make reservations and many who had them cancelled them. Chalk that up to the media coverage of the protests. Incidentally, the car that everyone saw destroyed at Invalides belonged to a friend of our Paris friends. Funny cartoon in the paper: Man and wife are looking out their apartment window at a huge crowd of students yelling and screaming and hoisting protest and strike signs and the guy says: "They don't even have jobs yet and they're striking."
5) Jeans, jeans, jeans. I'd estimate that between 50% and 75 % of the people I saw wore jeans. The times they have changed.
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La Samaritaine, a wonderful department store with some of the best views of Paris from their roof, is closed and will remain so for many years, probably through 2010 or so. There were questions of safety of the building.
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Believe it or not (and it is hard to believe) it appears that L'Orangerie will actually be reopening after many years of closure for restoration. This took longer than expected because of artifacts found and the stoppage of work to allow the archaeologists to do their thing. It is scheduled to reopen in May.
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The museum pass has changed. Instead of being sold for 1, 3 or 5 consecutive days, it is now for 2, 4, or 6 consecutive days. For more information go to:
http://www.parismuseumpass.fr/flash/hp_fr.html
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Sad but true. Restaurant La Sourdiere has closed. So many people loved that little place and Bridget was a real sweetheart of a woman. But after she died, her husband decided to close it. It was just reopened by new owners with the same name but, like so many little old restaurants, it's been converted into a modern contemporary place. Who needs modern, contemporary in Paris? What a loss!
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Can you believe it? Paris has a program to eliminate smoking in restaurants. Will it succeed? That remains to be seen but just the idea is tres formidable. It's certainly been getting better than it was 20 years ago when we often walked out of cafes because of the smoke.
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Paris has gotten more expensive with some changes. Prices are up all over, restaurants are charging more, some have eliminated the prix-fixed menu and just have a la carte, others went from three courses to two. Not all have changed but enough have to make it noticeable. Of course, the drop in the dollar doesn't help but the French are feeling the pinch also.
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The French Tourist Office on the Champs Elysees has closed permanently. Check the "Guide to Paris" for locations of the new ones.
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It appears that calling a woman "madmoiselle" is going out of style. Pretty much any woman is now "madame," regardless of the age, except for children.
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Restaurant Atelier Maitre Albert did a renovation and is now La Rotisserie Atelier Maitre Albert. No longer the warm, charming place it was. Mostly rotisseried meat, chicken and it's now a smaller menu.
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If you're interested in taking a guided tour of Paris a bit differently than normally, and you're into Segways, they now give precisely that. A tour on Segways for about 5 people at a time and lasting 5 hours. Tel: 011-33-1-56-58-10-54
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People are always asking what they should do about buying train and bus tickets. Here are the costs of various tickets. Understand this can change at any time.
1 ticket good for 1 ride on a bus or one series of rides on the metro and RER within Paris as long as you don't leave the station. About 1.5 euro
Pack of ten tickets, called a "carnet" (an cahr-nay), with each ticket providing the same as above. About 11 euro
Carte Orange with Coupon Semaine. A pass good for unlimited travel on buses and metro and RER within Paris between Monday and Sunday. About 16 euro.
So, by buying a carnet you'll save 4 euro over the cost of ten individual tickets. Buying the Carte Orange will be about the same cost as 11 tickets purchased with a carnet. Anything over 11 rides is gravy. So if you plan to take more than 11 rides between Monday and Sunday the Carte Orange is your best bet. Also remember the psychological aspect, hopping on and off buses and trains even if you're just going a few blocks, especially if the weather's bad or you're tired. If you had to pay each time you'd think twice.
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You can now receive a cash refund for your VAT while still in Paris, without waiting for it to be credited on your credit card. Get the paperwrok from the store and go to the Cash Refund Department on the 2nd floor of Les Trois Quartiers on Blvd de la Madeleine corner of rue Duphot. Take the escalator up - you'll be in a store called Madelios - turn left - walk about 30 feet and on your right will be the Cash Refund Department. Give them the paperwork and they will give you the cash on the spot. HOWEVER, you still must go to customs at the airport and have them stamp the forms and then mail them in from the mailbox there. If they do not receive it in 21 days your credit card will be charged that amount and a 10% service charge added.
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If you're shipping packages to France, especially for an extended stay at in an apartment, I suggest you read this. I received it from Emily at Just France, an apartment rental agency.
"My client was going to Paris for a one-month stay, and shipped a package of personal effects to the apartment she'd rented. Our clients have often done this in the past, and have never run into any trouble. However, the French Poste has recently contracted out a part of their operations to a private company. Duties have risen to upwards of 30%. (In the case of my client, 45%.) This private company handles all packages arriving in France from the U.S. They have packages that arrived in January and have yet to be processed and delivered. As a result, my client owes duty, taxes and "fees" on a small box of used clothing; if she doesn't pay up her package will be destroyed (not returned to the States).
We will be cautioning our clients to not entrust anything to the French Poste's international package handlers. It's better that they take it as baggage and pay the airline surcharge.
Please note, this is a new system. Our Parisian contact, who is ALWAYS in
the know, didn't know about this until she personally went down to the
customs office. It has not been announced or publicized in any way, as far
as I can tell. It's been an awful, very expensive headache for my clients."
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Want to see what the new Euros for France look like? Click on your choice:
