Paris is certainly not short on tourist attractions: whether it’s braving the queues at the Eiffel Tower or at the Louvre, it’s not easy to go to Paris and explore the city outside of the context of being conspicuously British, despite your best efforts at the French you can remember from GCSE. Yet this is exactly what I tried to do over the four days I was there and the result of my undercover trips into the backstreets of various arrondissements is a somewhat alternative guide to the belle ville.
I was able to begin the trip by dipping into the vintage shops Paris had to offer after having not researched which days the Pompidou centre was open. This meant that I arrived there to a miraculous lack of crowds but also a miraculous lack of entry. The fortunate result was extra time to explore the surrounding area, starting with the FACTORY vintage shop situated just opposite. Where most vintage shops can be an equal amount of trendy patterns and clothes your grandmother would not be seen dead in, FACTORY was bursting to the brim with denim shorts, silk shirts and puffer jackets just asking to be bought. The price range (20-40 euros) was reasonable enough to entice me into buying a new flowery shirt but I could easily have spent my entire budget in my first half an hour there.
Lying in the streets behind the Pompidou if you were to make your way towards Notre Dame is the Hippy Market. Carefully colour co-ordinated and with a pet bird in the shop, the Hippy shop was a bit more expensive than FACTORY, but had a similarly brilliant array of clothes. Whereas FACTORY plays it quite safe with its selection, the Hippy Market goes a bit deeper into the world of fashionable exoticism. This was demonstrated through gingham dungarees and thigh high leather red boots, and whilst this might seem to push the shop into the realm of fancy dress, it gives it an added eccentricity. Rounding another corner, you can find a One Kilo shop spread out across two shop spaces. The selection of clothes here is not as varied and it is much harder to seek out any gems, and of course once you do you have to find a kilos worth of them.
Carrying on down past Notre-Dame allows you to find Shakespeare and Company in the Latin Quarter. The fairly well-known English bookshop is easy to miss out if you are unaware of its charms: an extensive collection of books to buy, as well as an upstairs filled with books to sit and read in the store, complete with several typewriters and a sleepy fat cat. Based on Sylvia Beach’s 1920s store which was frequented by Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Gertrude Stein, the narrow spaces of the shop can get quite crowded although the pretentious statements which can be heard among the bookshelves are even more aggravating.
Staying in Le Montclair hostel in Montmartre gave us the run of its best bars and brasseries, the most exclusive of which was easily Le Refuge Des Fondus. It’s made up of 4 benches allowing around 40 people to eat in there at one time, all sat next each to other. With a 21 euro set menu for one, it certainly isn’t the cheapest place to eat in Montmartre, but that’s not to say it doesn’t fill you up, as it includes several courses of cheese and meat fondue. The walls are covered in scribbles made by diners and you are presented with your wine in a baby bottle, which makes it cheaper as it avoids tax in this way. Certainly an unusual experience, even by Parisian standards. An added bonus is the bar next door which sells pints at a steal for four euros, given that that’s the price for a half everywhere else.
Sticking in Montmartre, Les Deux Moulins rocketed to fame when it became the café where Audrey Tautou worked in Amelie, and it’s just round the corner from the Moulin Rouge. You can get everything from coffee to crepes to beer, like a typical Parisian café, but with the added bonus of pretending to be Amelie or Nino or whoever your favourite character is. Even better, it seemed not to be overrun with tourists and is fairly reasonably priced compared with everywhere else. Plus it’s about halfway up Montmartre, making it a fantastic break if you’re walking up to the Sacre Coeur, or about to visit the Montmartre Cemetery.
In terms of Parisian museums, L’Orangerie often seems to be missed out as it is sandwiched between the Musee d’Orsay and the Louvre in the Tulerie Gardens, both of which tend to be more time-consuming and busier. It boasts the most stunning set of wall panels in Paris in the form of Monet’s Water Lilies. Downstairs is the collection of Paul Guillaume, the founder of the gallery, featuring marvellous works by Piccasso, Gaugin and Renoir. The power of l’Orangerie as a space emphasises the importance of not ignoring the attractions which are right in front of you, in favour of spending days wandering the back streets. Whilst the only true way to discover the gems of a city is to go off the beaten track, that does not mean there is nothing to be said for the most popular moments of it either. After all they’re popular for a reason, and I spent a wonderful day in Disneyland as part of my trip. Well, you can’t be cool all the time.
