See rainy Paris and stay alive

See Paris and die! You've probably heard more than once? So, in our humble opinion, there is absolutely no need to die, although you can see Paris. But this is not a city worth dying for. Although, does such a city exist at all? By this I want to say that we were not so impressed by this famous city to fall in love with it, which is often done by our compatriots. Under «stay live» I mean «don't die» 🙂

Yes, this is France, yes, the capital of this beautiful country, but Paris is a fairly ordinary French city, and there is nothing radically different in it. We liked it, but just like all other cities in France. The rain may have been to blame?

We came to Paris by train from Grenoble. The tickets were bought in a hurry, as the option with covatura (hitchhiking with payment for gas) broke off, and at that time it was the only option. We lived in Paris with the guys whom we found through couchsurfing. However, the path to them was thorny and long..

Since couchsurfing is not suitable for everyone, and it is better to book hotels in Europe in advance, I will recommend you Hotel Standard Design or Hotel Darcet, one is cheaper, the other is more expensive, but both are good. Otherwise, it may turn out, as we did this time, read below 🙂

High-speed train Grenoble - Paris

We arrived late in the evening at the Gare de Lion station. We didn’t know Paris at all, and of course we didn’t know that the metro doesn’t even work at one o’clock in the morning, but even less transfers. In general, the metro was closed at the most inopportune moment. The navigator, in the most impudent way, refused to find the guys' address. Only later did we learn that Paris is only the city center, and all the districts nearby are other settlements, and there are no visual boundaries between them. So the guys lived in another city, a whole 40 minutes walk from the center of Paris.

So we were standing at 2 am, lost on the Place de la Bastille, tormenting the navigator, and vainly catching some kind of wifi with a laptop, and a crowd of blacks came to us. I somehow fell a little at once, there are a lot of them, and I am alone, and also with my wife. Seeing our faces, one of them immediately began to say - peace, liberty, they say how to help. Who would have thought? He even took out his iPhone, tried to connect to the Internet too, so that we could find a hotel, but apparently that night the great god of the Internet was not merciful. As a result, we walked for 3 hours in Paris at night in search of a hotel with round-the-clock reception, and found only a certain gadyushnik for 50 euros. The toad was choking, but I wanted to sleep more.

By the way, we got the impression that the black population in Paris is 50% or more, and sometimes it even wondered if we were in France, if we teleported somewhere to Africa.

The next day, we came to the guys who greeted us warmly, and with whom we happily shared a vegetarian meal. It's great to meet like-minded people!

Creative apartment of the guys we visited

For two days we walked through rainy Paris, along its leafy streets, on which discarded mattresses were regularly encountered, entered Notre-Dame de Paris, wandered along the Seine embankment, not far from the Pont des Arts ), looked around the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe ...

The streets of Paris are littered with leaves

Mattresses are common on the streets of Paris.

Mattresses on the streets of Paris are commonplace.

Castles on the Pont des Arts

Pont des Arts

Notre-Dame de Paris inside

God only accepts in euros

Notre Dame de Paris under reliable protection

Notre-Dame de Paris

Notre Dame de Paris. Why is one figure different from the rest?

Louvre in Paris

Paris walks

Arc de Triomphe in Paris

Most of the time we spent, no matter how trite, near the Eiffel Tower. Either it rained, and we hid under it from the rain, then we waited until it gets dark and the backlight turns on.

Eiffel tower view

Eiffel Tower - Paris

Against the backdrop of the Eiffel Tower

The final chord was our way to Orly airport. We came with adventures, and left not without them. We almost missed the last metro and bus due to inaccurate information on the Internet, so we had to rush with heavy backpacks like crazy.

Paris metro

Paris Metro - carriages with rubber wheels

P.S. If you are spending the night at Orly Airport, you should know that there are very comfortable soft seats there. Well, if you are with foams, then in general there are more than enough places. (how to get to Orly)