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Day Five: City of Paris - Left Bank

Eiffel Tower

While visiting Notre Dame de Paris and La Conciergerie we already had a chance to see a small piece of the left bank. But that was just to wake up our appetite for more exploration. Our next day in Paris we devoted entirely to this area.

As we had already done before, by taxi, we reached the Eiffel tower in no time. And that's where we started. Built in 1889 and rising 1,063ft (324m) it needs no introduction - perhaps it's one of the most known architectural creations on our planet. There are few things like this - Egyptian pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, what else? Because of this, I am not going to write here about this wonder of the world - visit Eiffel Tower official Web site where you can find a lot of information about it including its history, construction details, many anecdotes, virtual tours and panoramas, restaurants, tips for visiting, hours, costs, etc. Our recommendation is if you want to enjoy views from the tower, go there early. When we arrived (it was about 9am), long lines were already forming.

Fountain of Mars, rue St.-Dominique,
Paris. Courtesy of Wikipedia, Gerard
Cohen

We decided not to go up; instead, we strolled under the tower watching details of its structure, massive pillars and their foundations. Taking pictures, we spend some time in the adjacent park (Parc du Champ de Mars) before we turned left to rue St-Dominique thus named in 1631 - an old Paris street packed with restaurants, hotels, and shops. This was also a place for us to have an improvised breakfast (since we left our hotel without eating anything and planning to do this somewhere in the city). We found a small boulangerie offering together with plain bread wonderful (and huge) sandwiches (many if not all boulangeries do this). A minute later we continued our exploration of rue St-Dominique chewing French bread with nice cheese and whatever else was inside.

Saint-Germain-des-Prés,
the oldest church in Paris

Kind of naturally, rue St-Dominique transitions to Saint-Germain Boulevard, another historic and well known street in Paris. It crosses Latin Quarter and, being long and broad, can be considered its main street with many historic buildings and places of interest. One of them is Saint-Germain-des-Prés - an area around the church of the former Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The history of this place goes back to 6th century when the Abbey was founded by Childebert I (511–558) of the Merovingian dynasty (and became later his burial place). Childebert I also built a church in the area dedicated (consecrated) to Saint Vincent. This church was destroyed and rebuilt several times - the last time in 1014 - and rededicated to Saint Germain in 1163. During French revolution church structures were badly damaged, but one tower still remains. Because of this, the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés can be proudly considered as the oldest church in Paris.

I already mentioned the name of Latin Quarter - a trendy area on the left bank with lively atmosphere and many bistros which has been also a historic place for a number of educational establishments in Paris. In fact, the history of Latin Quarter starts with the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés which donated some of its land to house the University of Paris created in 12th century (part of it is still in the area). Latin was the common language used by students coming from all over the Europe; not a surprise, the whole surrounding area got the name of Latin Quarter.

Part of the Latin Quarter charm comes from its reputation as the rendezvous of the literary and intellectual elite of the city. Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Prévert, Ernest Hemingway, Sidney Bechet, Claude Luter, Boris Vian, Juliette Greco, Pablo Picasso, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Albert Camus and many others at their own times frequent the area contributing to its fame as a center of intellectual life in Paris. People like Jean-Paul Marat, Georges Danton, Joseph-Ignace Guillotin whose names are most closely associated with French revolution also lived the district. Actually, the fascist and anti-Semite group "Action Française" and the followers of its founder Charles Maurras (convicted in France after the World War II for collaboration with Nazi Germany) held their meetings in one of Latin Quarter cafés as well.

Musée National du Moyen Ages,
des Thermes et de l'Hôtel de
Cluny - one of the oldest
mansions in Paris

In any case, in traditional for former intellectual gathering places like café "Les Deux Magots" and Le café de Flore prices are very high, and looks like little if anything remains from those nostalgic times at those legendary places.

For our lunch we stopped at a small and rather cozy place called Le Marathon (14 rue Saint-Severin 75005). The food was decent and not expensive at all with prices from 8 to 12 Euro for a meal. After recuperating our energy we continued this almost random browsing through the Latin Quarter.

Quite quickly we came across the Musée national du Moyen Age (musee Cluny) - quite an interesting place with collections dedicated to middle ages. You will find Romanesque art, tapestries and embroideries, stained glass, gothic sculpture, goldsmith and ivory works, objects of daily life. It also incorporates the ancient Roman bath complex dated the 3rd century. Ruins of the bath complex are also visible from the outside of the museum (boulevard de St. Michel). This museum offers a unique opportunity to approach and view objects that usually are not available at a close distance.

If you do not have time to visit museum, you can at least enter its gothic courtyard and enjoy the turrets and gargoyles that decorate the building. In fact, this part of the museum is known as Hotel de Cluny built in 15th century as a temporary place for lodging for monks from the Cluny Abbey. In addition to abbots and later on nuncios of the Pope, among residents of the Hotel were Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII (after the death of Louis XII when she became a widow) and James V of Scotland who was visiting Paris at times of his marriage to Madeleine, daughter of King Francis I.

Musée National du Moyen
Ages - internal yard

Remains of Roman thermal
baths

Not far from Musée du Moyen Age, there is a complex that belongs to La Sorbonne or University of Paris (actually, the story is more confusing since currently the word of Sorbonne is in the names of four Paris universities when in 1970 the historic Université de Paris was reorganized into 13 rather independent universities). However, if you have time, another place in this area is worth visiting - Jardin du Luxembourg, the largest park in Paris. It offers the best what a park can offer, it's calm and gorgeous, it provides various entertainments for kids and adults alike, there are several theaters next to the garden, there is food and small pond, and finally, there is a beautiful Luxembourg Palace which houses the French Senate.

Can someone do all this in one day? No - you need to set your priorities and plan carefully. As usually exhausted by late afternoon we were heading to our hotel to take a shower and prepare ourselves for the dinner. This evening we decided to go to restaurant Thoumieux we saw while walking rue St-Dominique earlier in the morning.

Perhaps, it's time to describe our experience with French restaurants. As far as I can judge, this restaurant (officially this is categorized as a brasserie) can be a good example that explains complaints found in abundance on mailing lists and discussion boards regarding the alleged rudeness of French waiters (or, at least, some of them). That was our immediate reaction as well.

However, I certainly agree with those who say that actual experience which may be interpreted as rudeness has nothing to do with it. Looking back, I cannot think of even one word or gesture or sign - anything at all that could be construed as such. In fact, what we saw was a fast and professional service; however, it was dispassionate and indifferent. No smiles, no much talking - just very brief responses to our questions; after listening to us (no notes taken about our long list of wishes), the guy disappeared and in a matter of minutes was back serving us. He never made us wait for the next dish; not always, but on several occasions he even helped with wine (and keep in mind he was serving other customers).

French Senate seen from
Luxembourg Gardens. Copyright
David Monniaux, distributed
under the CC license.

La Sorbonne (University of Paris)

Despite several reviews on the Web saying that this is a "French speaking" restaurant only, the guy actually handled English quite well, and that was helpful as well. So, I would join those who say that what someone may interpret as rudeness in reality is just a way of doing the job. What turned to be much more unpleasant is a family of our compatriots that was so loud that I swear everybody in each corner of the restaurant could hear them.

But getting back to the Thoumieux - its ambient was pleasant with velour banquettes. The place is a real bargain - full dinner with several dishes for two with wine we paid €123. It has mostly southwestern cuisine and is advertised often as having local clientele. The latter in our experience turned out to be completely untrue - it has as many foreigners as any good tourist trap. The food was good, but we did not find it exceptional. Perhaps, we did not know and did not ask for specialties; on the other hand, the efficiency of our waiter did not go that far as recommending us something particular.

During our brief staying in Paris we visited quite a few places where people eat. We tried the restaurant at our hotel - extremely expensive and according to some accounts, one of the best in Paris. We tried a couple of "middle ground" places; one of them was Castille (Il Cortile - a French-Italian restaurant). We tried several brasseries and bistros from upscale ones to others with unknown reputations.

Exterior decor of a house
in Paris, Left Bank

Since I already started talking about waiters, I would like to add that in general our experience showed that most of them are not like what we saw at Thoumieux. They do smile, they do not mind to establish some personal rapport with customers, and they do not dislike Americans. One of the best places we saw in Paris was D'chez eux, a classic French bistrot. Very friendly, but also with very reasonable prices (we paid for full course dinner for two with wine €169.40), and outstanding food. In fact, when we asked the chief concierge in our hotel for his recommendations regarding similar place, his face clearly reflected some of his intensive thinking and searching through his memory.

To continue about food. According to our experience, the price range (and number of stars) certainly correlates with what one or another place can offer. However, the law of diminishing returns, no doubt, is applicable to Parisian eating places. I do not think we'll ever go again to a place like our restaurant at Le Bristol. For the same price you can visit D'chez eux several times. You will not see a line of waiters who compete in serving you, but the food will be same if not better in quality and sophistication.

Typical Parisian Brasserie

Service in all places we visited was usually very good. This does not mean that it was perfect in all respects. Some moments were even anecdotal. For example, at Il Cortile, our waiter dropped the twist-off bottle cap (a bottle of San Pellegrino), quickly pick it up from the floor and wanted to put on the bottle again. I had to stop him and give a brief a lesson on hygiene and customer service. We did not expect to find this type of "sophistication" at place where a dinner costs easily go from €100 to €200 per person. I am not trying to say this incident spoiled our evening. On the contrary, it was more entertaining than anything else, and the waiter, young guy, fully realized his mistake and visibly was very embarrassed. What also was pleasant, that he took the lesson as he should, and throughout the evening tried to do his best to provide superb service.

When you come to Paris for several days and stay at a hotel, you will inevitable visit various small places where you can just quickly grab something and continue your explorations. We found a tremendous variety and types of bars, cafes, shops, etc. where at a very reasonable price you can fill you stomach with all types of food. We never researched them - when we felt hungry and it was time to give our legs some rest, we used to just look around and go to whatever seemed more or less attractive.

To our surprise, a number of places of the type where we stopped to eat something quickly were owned and operated by immigrants. Some were offering their native cuisine, some had typical French food. Is this a widely spread phenomenon in Paris? I have no idea, but we never had any problems with the quality of meals. There is some presence of fast food chains in Paris. One of the most popular is McDonalds. In fact, according to some statistics McDonald's sales in France grew by 8% in 2006 (which is much higher than in the U.S.), and every second inhabitant of France visits McDonald's at least once a year. We never went to McDonalds so I cannot provide any judgment about places like this in Paris. One thing I heard is that at French McDonald's you buy beer.

To be Continued...

Part I - Coming to Paris
Part 2 - Our Hotel: First Steps
Part 3 - Day Two: Musée du Louvre, Notre Dame de Paris and La Conciergerie
Part 4 - Day Three: Versailles and Musée d'Orsay
Part 5 - Day Four: City of Paris - Right Bank
Part 6 - Day Five: City of Paris - Left Bank