If it’s your first time visiting Paris, I envy you. If you’ve been many times, I envy you too. Ah, the city of Love. There’s none other like it.
I could spend days roaming the museums, monuments, and streets of the 1st arrondissement. It’s so iconic, so beautiful you actually have to breathe deeply to steady yourself as you take it in.
Paris is the kind of place you want to absorb into your being. Just having been there, you’re a better, more cultured person. I joke, but only a little.
“… wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.
Ernest Hemingway
There’s so much to see when you venture just a bit outside of the city center and you shouldn’t miss any of it. Here are six of my favorite brief excursions to take within an hour of the 1st arrondissement.
It easy to get to these places by metro or bus, or on one of many tours with transportation included.
Palace of Versailles
There can’t be many places more elaborate and over the top grandiose. This palace is the reason the word “gilt” exists. I can’t imagine people more extravagant than the French. If there is a place more filled with splendor than the Palace of Versailles, I don’t think my heart could handle it.
One thing is certain; the Sun King Louis XVI would crush any contest for the most objects covered in gold. Aside from the gold, there is a cacophony of crystals, jewels, and artwork surrounded by mirrors and gawking tourists.
The horse stable is nicer than anything I could ever hope to live in. One has to wonder at the egos involved, but you’ll be too busy being dazzled to worry about it overmuch. I can’t name all of the beautiful things to see there, so I’ll name just a few.
The queen’s hamlet is “an idyllic place to take a stroll,” as are the royal chapel and elaborate 2,000-acre gardens – designed in the French manner.
The “French manner” means insanely cool symmetry and design. The style is meant to illustrate the “domestication of nature by man.” I couldn’t have made that up if I wanted to.
As you stroll about, you’ll see plants as architecture, divine sculptures, and fountains you’ll want to baptize yourself in.
The Hall of Mirrors is enough to make you cry while reflecting your ugly cry face a million times back at you. You’ll do while standing elbow to elbow with 200 million other tourists also sobbing. It’s worth it.
Aside from being the most insanely golden house you’ll ever encounter in your life; it’s also a museum. I should say, houses an immense art collection of over 60,000 sculptures and paintings.
It’s worth mentioning, this place was originally a hunting lodge, but that was before a few upgrades.
Pretend you’re Marie-Antoinette (pre beheading) and visit it at Place d’Armes, 78000 Versailles, France.
Montmartre
Montmartre is a city on a hill in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. There, famous artists Picasso, Van Gogh, Pissarro, Toulouse-Lautrec, Matisse, Renoir, and many others lived and worked. Degas is the only one who stayed. He is buried in the local cemetery—my God, what a time to be alive.
Once you make it to the top of Montmartre’s steep and narrow streets, it’s easy to see why all those artists wanted to be there. It was the only way to see all of Paris laid bare before you … and the can-can girls at Moulin Rouge.
Prepare to climb some stairs. Every street is a staircase several flights tall. My fitness app told me I’d climbed 55 flights of stairs the day I spent there. I felt every one of them … deep in my soul.
Toward the end of the day, I’d look up to the top of a five-flight climb and just laugh. There was no way to avoid them. But that is the price you pay for the best view of the Eiffel Tower sparkling in the distance.
Sacre-Coeur
Montmartre’s most recognizable landmark is the Basilica du Sacré-Coeur – literally “the big white church.” We can’t all be creative geniuses. It’s worth getting to the top of the hill, I promise.
Moulin Rouge
The Moulin Rouge, made famous by Toulouse-Lautrec’s posters and paintings, is also worth a stop. There you can see the fun-loving can-can dancers in the building with the glowing red windmill.
To visit Montmartre, take the metro to Abbesses, Blanche or Anvers exits.
The Palais Garnier Opera House
Quote from my journal: “Oh God, what a stunning theatre.”
The Palais Garnier is definitely giving Versailles a run for its money in gold and grandeur. It’s more than just a theatre, at least any theatre I’ve ever seen.
The Grand Escalier (that’s a staircase for ya rubes), built of various colored marbles, leads up to the theatre seating. The staircase alone is so spectacular none of us deserve to step on it. The steps’ underside is named “Bassin de la Pythia” after a high priestess at the Temple of Apollo. They’re so elaborate they named them. These are the kind of things you come to expect in Paris. Crazy, wonderful place it is.
The “Rotunde du Glacier” modeled on the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles (I told you they were competing) stuns. I don’t want to underplay it, but it would take months to describe. I’ll just say the ceiling is painted in gold … actual gold, gold, gold, gold. But why am I so poor?
The Phantom of the Opera
This theatre is best known as the setting of the novel “Phantom of the Opera” by Gaston Leroux.
You can tour the theatre and, at the top of the staircase, see the famous 8-ton crystal chandelier. Leroux claimed his story was more fact than fiction and many still believe the Phantom haunts the theatre. I didn’t get any sense of him when I peered into the infamous “Box 5.” He may be hanging out in the basement.
There really is a “lake” beneath the opera house, just like it’s described in the book and play. When the foundation was being built, they couldn’t keep the groundwater away, so they worked around it. The water is available in case of a fire, which in the 1880s was a serious threat.
Visit the Phantom and his theatre in the 9th arrondissement of Paris.
Notre-Dame
Notre-Dame de Paris, aka Our Lady of Paris, is a French Gothic cathedral who has been gracing us with her majesty for about the last 900 years. I was fortunate to spend time inside before a massive fire in 2019 damaged the cathedral. Now, you can only visit the outside until it reopens – scheduled for 2024.
Being at the cathedral is an almost religious experience (pun, but really). The stained glass and massively high arches are stunningly elaborate in a way only French Gothic architecture can be.
In true French fashion, many of the arches, windows, and even bells have names. Twenty-one bronze bells make up the bell of Notre-Dame. They are called Gabriel, Marie bumblebee, Anne-Geneviève, Etienne, Maurice, etc. … you get the point – over the freakin’ top.
Latin Quarter
Since you can’t go inside, you’ll have extra time to stroll the surrounding streets of the picturesque Latin Quarter. Make sure to stop at Shakespeare & Company bookstore nearby, where you’ll find plenty of English titles and a friendly cat. Recommended purchase: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo.
Find Notre-Dame at 6 Parvis Notre-Dame – Place Jean-Paul II in the 4th arrondissement of Paris.
Paris Catacombs
The Paris Catacombs are an ossuary created in the tunnels of former quarries in the late seventeen hundreds. Also known as Hell on Earth.
Many years ago, to clear Les innocents Cemetery, quarry workers transported the bones of about 6 million bodies to the unused tunnels under the city. There they artfully positioned them along the pathways. The tunnels are now available for tours.
At the site, you go down a narrow staircase the depth of a 5-story building. There are 131 steps to go down and 112 steps to climb up … and I hope you’re not claustrophobic.
I’m just 5′ 3″, but the passageway is so short and narrow I could touch the sides with my elbows and the ceilings with my hands. The mile-long tunnel opens up eventually, and you find yourself in a bone vault.
Artfully arranged bones and signs that depict the cemeteries and sections that bones came from. It’s captivating and also makes for a speedy run.
Visit the catacombs at 1 Avenue du Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy in the 14th arrondisment in Paris.
Pere la Chaise Cemetery
This cemetery is one of the most unique and artistic I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a few of them. The list of famous buried here includes 40 singers, 40 composers, and 75 painters, so it should be, right?
It is one of the most visited cemeteries in the world, so stop by and say hi to my old friends. Over 70,000 burial plots include Jim Morrison, Balzac, Chopin, Molière, Pissarro, and Oscar Wilde, so make a day of it.
Just be wary of the “helpful” people who offer to show you around to the popular graves. They will want your money.
Find it at Face au 21 boulevards de Ménilmontant, Paris in the 20th arrondissement of Paris.
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