It’s hard to describe the mystical value of standing next to La Siene, seeing the historic buildings all around, and realizing, “OMG, I’m in Paris.” Read on for a look through the lens of an American photographer in Paris.
On the first day in Paris, the 340 stairs in the Arc de Triomphe rose skyward in a claustrophobic spiral. Camera gear slung in back, the camera snapped to the sling in front; it was one small step up and many to go. Once upon the windswept top of the arch, a “vue magnifique” was promised. It must be true; it was promised when purchasing the time-specific ticket to climb the staircase upward. And upward. And more steps upward.
The time-specific ticket was worth the price because the line of spontaneous “let’s go see the Arc de Triomphe” tourists waiting to climb stretched forever outward in a concentric path around the famous landmark. Those with time-stamped tickets rapidly reached the separate entrance and security check.
At last, reaching the visitor center, 300 steps from the pavement below, and then trudging up the last 40 onto the roof, the promised “vue magnifique” was 360 degrees, 164 feet above Place Charles de Gaulle. The vast city carpeted the landscape on three sides, and the Eiffel Tower pushed its way into the sky on the fourth side of the arch. The perch on top of the Arc de Triomphe was nearly visually level with the first deck restaurant on the tower.
After soaking in the reality of being in Paris, it was down to the visitor center level, landing in the souvenir shop, ubiquitous at every exit at every major tourist destination in Paris.
Dropping the 300 steps to the ground was a relief compared to the upward climb. This climb at Arc de Triomphe landed firmly on the “when I return” bucket list.
Notre Dame de Paris, the Grande Dame Bares Her Soul
Quasimodo can’t ring the bells. The ten massive “Emmanuel Bells” bells were cast in the late 1600s. The largest, the 13-ton Emmanuel Bell, is made of copper with tin, gold, and silver. The smaller nine bells, the Apostles, were made of copper and tin. They usually hang in the twin bell towers on the island side of Cathrédrale de Notre Dame de Paris. The bells were removed for restoration following the devastating 2019 fire.
The bell towers at Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris, unscathed by fire. Photo by Eric Jay Toll
Getting there meant climbing (more stairs) up from the Metro at Pont Neuf (new bridge) and joining the early Sunday morning strollers moving gently across La Seine Bras Marie to Île de Cité, where the Cathédrale anchors the island’s southeast corner on La Seine Bras de la Monhale. Although it may be until 2024 or 2025 before visitors can once again enter Notre Dame, arriving early means taking photos without the crowds, enjoying the street musicians and their excellent music, and quickly getting a street espresso from a kiosk.
The Restoration
From the Quai de Marché Neuf on the southern side of the island, when the historic and famous belltowers come into view, it’s like viewing a postcard on the rack until realizing the “framing” of the postcard is one of the towering construction cranes that is part of the painstaking restoration in the wake of the fire that has the lady’s bones open to the sky on the east side of the building.
Officials are desperately pushing to complete the restoration by the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. Still, cooler heads anticipate a 2025 completion due to supply chain shortages and the fact that much of the rehabilitation must be recreated from scratch to match the original 16th- and 17th-century construction.
The beautiful Notre Dame with the roof ripped away and its support bare to the elements while she is wrapped in scaffolding for total restoration. Photo by Eric Jay Toll
Sidewalk Cafés: The Heart of a Parisian Day
“I just didn’t know where to eat,” said a friend when we were talking about travels to Paris. “You know, usually there’s a guide or something, or the hotel has a list. But I just wasn’t sure where to eat.”
No restaurant guide is necessary in the City of Lights. Throughout Paris, there are the ubiquitous sidewalk cafés. They are everywhere. Almost every other shop along the famous Champs-Élysées, down every alley, on major and minor streets. Choosing one is simple, look for the crowds. Whether for breakfast, lunch, midmorning or midafternoon coffee breaks, or dinner, the sidewalk café is the restaurant of Paris.
The bustling sidewalk cafés of Paris are one of its most famous sites. They are everywhere, from major boulevards to narrow side streets. Photo by Eric Jay Toll
Most cafés post menus on a board at curbside. No one makes reservations; you show up and ask for a table. The really bold sit down at a table, and somehow the servers know you’re there. Some very popular cafés have lines waiting for tables, but things seem to move quickly. One of the most interesting aspects of the café tables is that most are lined up with the chairs facing the street. Usually, the diners decide whether to put the chairs across from each other or sit next to each other.
The tables are tiny, but no one cares. It’s possible to experience a different sidewalk café every day, every meal, plus midmorning pastries, and maybe hit one or two unexceptional meals in a whole week. There are some extraordinarily nice restaurants in Paris with reservations required and sometimes a long wait to get in, but those are for special occasions.
Every Bridge Tells a Story: The Pont Neuf Bridge, Paris’ Oldest
It was a brilliant Sunday morning in Paris, France. Finishing breakfast at the hotel, plummeting deep into the earth to find the correct Metro line—three layers down—and then climbing the fewer stairs back to the sunlight was the Pont Neuf.
Built between 1578 and 1607, Pont Neuf, the “new bridge,” is the oldest standing bridge across La Seine in Paris. Photo by Eric Jay Toll
The “New Bridge” is the oldest still-in-use bridge in Paris. Its narrow spans are wide enough for tour boats and many of the canal cargo boats that ply the river. Anchored at each end by Greek god-encrusted pillars and watched over by the nobleman to whom the bridge is dedicated at one end, Pont Neuf connects Île de France—the central part of Paris—with Île de Cité—home of Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris and Église Sainte-Chapelle.
It’s hard to describe the mystical value of standing next to La Siene, seeing the historic buildings all around, and realizing, “OMG, I’m in Paris.” It’s seen in movies, television, chase scenes, romantic walks, and now in real life.
Some of the most sanguine moments spent in Paris were walking along La Seine’s quays.
Monumental, Formidable Architecture and Delicate Balance: Église Saint-Sulpice
From the outside, the front façade of Église Sainte-Sulpice is hard to picture as a shrine of mercy, the reason it was built in Paris’ Latin Quarter. It stands four stories tall with two higher bell towers and another couple of levels. It’s the third largest church in Paris, roughly the same size as Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris and Saint-Eustache.
Looking out the massive sanctuary entrance of Église Sainte-Sulpice at Fontane des Quatre Evèques. The enormous church played a supporting role in the book and movie, “The DaVinci Code.” Photo by Eric Jay Toll
In front of the church, as is common with most major buildings in Paris, is a large plaza in which stands a fountain, Fontane des Quatre Evèques—Fountain of the Four Bishops. The main sanctuary is massive and features an obelisk that is the gnomon to an interior sundial that marks the sun at noon on the winter and summer solstices. The obelisk is one of the codes Dan Brown’s book, “The DaVinci Code,” that actor Tom Hanks seeks in the movie. And yes, a massive trap door is on the floor below the obelisk.
Inside the church, the substantial, perhaps cyclopean sanctuary (massive and humongous conjure too small an image of the space) towers over congregants, its dark areas lit by light glimmering through huge beautiful stained glass windows. Walking back from the altar, the massive center doors were open, and the cool darkness was dominated by the bright sunlight and the fountain.
Elegance, Grandeur, Symmetry: Opera Garnier
If you’ve seen “Phantom of the Opera,” you’ve seen Palais Garnier or at least know that this is the opera house that is the Phantom’s home.
The symmetry of the grand staircase that is the centerpiece of the entrées of Opéra Garnier was designed to allow Paris’ elite to make grand entrances and be seen by others who had already arrived. Photo by Eric Jay Toll
“Yes, there is a lake in the lowest levels of Opéra,” chuckled André, our guide for the after-hours tour of Opéra Garnier. “And no, we are not going to see it. It isn’t lit with candles.”
He explained that the lowest level of the Palais is far below the level of La Seine and that under certain conditions, water seeps into the basement, where it is pumped out.
“It wasn’t that this was just a place to see the opera,” said Andre. “Opéra Garnier was the place to see and be seen.”
Take a Tour
Instead of standing in line for hours during the day, it was worthwhile to pay a premium for a tour ticket and take the after-hours tour of the most famous opera house in the world—well, maybe it holds that title with Moscow’s ballet—and see it with a much smaller group and a tour guide taking questions to what his group wanted to know.
In the warm glow of the LED lights set to emulate the gas lights that initially lit the opera house, we wandered up and down staircases—if you’re going to Paris, you’re going to go up and down many staircases—as André pointed out the serious and significant detail that went into every corner of Charles Garnier’s massive palace to the arts.
Napoleon III commissioned the new nearly 2000-seat opera house that premiered its first performance in 1875. Some details, like the massive paintings that make up the ceilings, dwarf the tiniest details, such as golden leaves on lamps. There is one extraordinary, fine modern detail shown in the picture below.
Respite, Farmers, Peddlers, and Fontane Saint-Michel
Leaving Cathédrale de Notre Dame de Paris behind, crossing Petit-Pont Cardinal Lustiger, the trail led into the famous Latin Quarter. Here the literati held court in the sidewalk cafés with many names, like Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Allen Ginsberg, among them, still showing on the board outside the famous Shakespeare and Company, an English language bookstore in the heart of the Latin Quarter in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine.
Le Fontane Saint-Michel overlooks Place Saint-Michel. Photo by Eric Jay Toll
There are fountains everywhere in Paris. Some are small and gentle, others are massive works of art, even when the water is turned off. Wandering into the Latin Quarter on Paris’ famous Left Bank, the narrow street led away from La Seine and opened into Place Saint-Michel at the end of the block.
The Archangel Michael is a French favorite. His name adorns a very famous island, its abbey, innumerable villages, churches, fountains, plazas, parks, and palaces across the country. You’ll find something with Saint Michael in the name from the Alps to the Pyrenees and the English Channel to the Mediterranean Sea.
The water was off, and the Fontane Saint-Michel towered about three stories above the street. A statue of the angel was front and center towering above the plaza.
In the plaza, kiosks covered every square centimeter that wasn’t an aisle. This was a peddler’s paradise. Some offered fresh fruits and vegetables, street food at others, and the remainder were a potpourri of artisan goods and crafts.
Much like a farmer’s market in the US, the little grouping of white tents gave a feeling of home and a bit of a déjà vu.
The Towering Tour d’Eiffel on Everyone’s List, as It Should Be
When built in 1887, it was the tallest structure in the world, weighing 16,420 metric tonnes (18,100 tons US). Climbing to the top requires trudging up 1,665 steps but only 360 to the first-level restaurants, about the same as Arc de Triomphe.
When planning the Paris trip, the Eiffel Tower seemed a good place to avoid. Over-crowded, in too many photos, and long lines.
Wrong. Add it to the bucket list.
The Eiffel Tower. Photo by Eric Jay Toll
Avoiding the lines is simple with a timed-entry ticket. These are available for almost every crowd-crammed tourist destination in Paris. The ticket has a premium charge, and it’s well worth it if time is more valuable than money during a vacation trip to the city of lights.
Most pictures of the tower are shot from a distance, so it looks like a tall metal tower with a long line of tourists snaking around its formidable footprint. The tower is a magnificent work of art up close. Its ironwork boasts delicate features and intricate designs. Its symmetrical curves and angles are beautiful artwork from practical engineering. The Eiffel Tower is a fantastic sight gracefully slipping skyward from its foundation on le Champs de Mars. “Champs” refers to “field” when used this way in France.
There’s never a line to climb the stairs, and with timed entry, the wait for an elevator was under 10 minutes. The tower is served by a double-deck elevator in which everyone is packed in like sardines for the ride to the second level. A second elevator takes visitors to the top, 276 meters (906 feet) above the ground.
The view, c’est magnifique!
The restaurants, not so much; the free champagne at the top, definitely not top-shelf.
Getting Around Without Getting Caught in Traffic
Parisian traffic is insane. In fact, in some areas, like around Toit de l’Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower, “insane” may be too calm a word.
Imagine a traffic circle with lane stripes six or eight lanes across. The Place de Charles de Gaulle encircles the Arc de Triomphe. Plus, there is no traffic light for any 12—count them, 12—streets intersecting into the traffic circle. This is the roundabout from, shall we say, traffic planners’ nightmares.
In the picture below, the view from Champs-Élysées into Place de Charles de Gaulle shows midday traffic, two people stranded on a traffic island on the Champs, and the traffic in the circle.
Yet it works.
Looking into Place Charles de Gaulle from Champs d’Elysee. The traffic circle, unmarked by lane stripes, has somewhere between six and nine lanes wide depending on traffic and time of day. 12 streets feed it. Photo by Eric Jay Toll
The best travel methods for regular people are feet, bicycles, and the Paris Metro.
Across the city, there are differentiated bike lanes with signals that move cyclists around Île de France, the central part of old Paris.
The “Metropolitan” is the subway system. The stations are brightly lit and immaculate, and the subway cars (although crowded at times) are generally clean. It’s cheap and bypasses the insanity of the streets above. The maps and signage are easy to follow, even without knowing French.
There are also helpful attendants at the stations, many of whom speak English.
In the Rennes Metro station. Photo by Eric Jay Toll
Paris at Leisure, Everyday, Everywhere
Across Paris, there are parks. Some are tucked into corners here and there. Others squeezed into little spaces along La Seine. Many are major green magnets in a brick, stone, and concrete city.
It was midafternoon and an excellent time to stop at the outdoor café of the Musée du Palais du Luxembourg. As with virtually all sidewalk cafés, the chairs were tightly lined behind the tiny tables facing into the street. A raspberry torte and espresso later, I watched the light crowds enter the Monet Museum exhibit and larger groups head into the gardens.
Les Jardins de Luxembourg starts as this narrow flower-lined strip with a few benches, many trees, luscious grass lawns, and a few service buildings and kiosks. It opens into broad expanses with lazy paths under sprawling tree branches, tables, benches, chairs, and gardens. Parisians of all ages were sitting, stretched out on blankets on the lawns or with their feet propped up with books in their hands.
It was a setting of urban leisure that set a tone for how to look at life in Paris. People take their time with life in the city of lights.
In Parisian parks, there are benches, as are found in parks everywhere, but in Paris, there are chairs you can pick up and move wherever you wish. Photo by Eric Jay Toll
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When You Visit Paris
I noticed that across the city, people would sit and read, work their phones, or sometimes, just look at the scene. It was especially noticeable along Rivière La Seine. The sidewalk cafés were packed, crowds were strolling the wide quays, and dozens of people were lying in the grass or sitting on the river’s edge, dangling their feet over the side.
Scenes on a Sunday afternoon along La Seine. Photo by Eric Jay Toll
It looked like a living Georges Seurat pointillism painting or Edward Hopper watercolor. Remember to take your camera—or your iPhone—and leisurely explore Paris on foot. It’s the best way to experience the City of Lights. Let Wander With Wonder be your guide in planning your trip to Paris or elsewhere in France.
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