Posted 8/28/2009 6:13 am
You ain't just whistling dixie about the outer areas. I had to go into Paris for a meeting the other day, and the site was outside of the center. For various reasons, I didn't have the car that day and took the bus (the buses are really excellent in the RP, except for one's fellow riders, in some cases).
Posted 8/28/2009 8:22 am
"Oh, yes I just LOVE Edna St. Vincent Millay and Oscar Wilde. They were all the rage in Canada during my visits there, darling. Yes, mumsy and pater simply insisted I read their collected works."
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The Pere Lachaise cemetry is a massive tourist trap by the way.
Europe is a massive place with more culture and history than the USA will ever have. You don't know what you're missing out on. But with an insular point of views like yours, you wouldn't really be missing out.
Posted 8/28/2009 11:58 am
I don't think it's a tourist "trap." When you go in there, there are lots of Frenchies tending graves, for one thing. The only people trying to sell you shit are outside the gates, and in my experience, it's licensed map vendors who are pretty helpful (and charge the same two euros you pay anywhere else). I go there from time-to-time to sit.
Sacre Coeur is more of a "trap" in that there are tons of hawkers and nogs who want to put a friendship bracelet on you then charge you ten Euro for it. Right up even on the steps before the church.
I haven't been back to SC in years. The funicular is a stupid rip, too. It takes you less than ten minutes to make that climb.
