"Paris by the dashboard light" is one of Meatloaf's best songs, and it's easy to see why he loves this city so much.
One of the greatest cities in the world, and I have thought so ever since my first night here. But definitively not since my first day here, which was quite different. I had just crossed the English Channel (La Manche) with a rental car for the first time, and we had explored the beautiful towns and villages of northern France along the way, and were very tired.
So after a night of traveling from Oxford to London to Northern France, we made it here to Paris for my first-ever visit with the original love of my life, and I have to say I had very mixed feelings about it. I think largely because it was too hot and we were too tired and the traffic in this city is just too unbelievably bad.
So after our bad day of heavy traffic and confusion, we came back into the city at night and drove around and got to know Paris when nobody was on the streets, and my God what a beautiful f**king city. The time to drive around Paris is definitely at night. I guess it's like London in that regard, perhaps Rome too, as in you don't want to drive around this town in the daytime. Maybe it's beter to be on foot in the daytime, but the driving is better done at night.
I will remember that lesson in future, and now that it's out of the way, I can say that I've had some of the best North African food imaginable in this city - as good as in North Africa itself - and also the street Crepes and Street kabobs are second-to-none, especially the street crepes in Bacteria Alley located near Notre Dame, which is just spectacular and unmissable for food. I'm not surprised the French call it Bacteria Alley, as they're an extremely snobbish bunch, and cheap greasy street food is always going to be something they'll turn their nose up at.
But food in Paris is no joke, and the cheap kind is my kind. And there are lots of little cafes and whatnot that I've discovered over the years, and the backstreet bakeries are surprisingly just as good as the ones in the little villages around France - and just as cheap too, if you know which ones to go to.
I haven't yet been to Jim Morrison's grave but I'm looking forward to it. And for modernity, La Defense is the built-up business skyscraper area (like the Docklands), and it seems pretty cool. I visited both the stadiums and the Stade De France is a spaceship and an amazing one as well. I suppose my joint favourite is the Parc Des Princes where PSG play (who I don't like), and I like it because the park next to the stadium - the Bois De Boulogne - is famous in folklore and in The DaVinci Code, and in my life too, partly because the entire park is absolutely full prostitution, and I'm talking about some extremely sexy women and trans people. I'm more known for selling it than buying it (lol) but if you're into viewing or even purchasing such things (legally), the BDB is a sort of open-air in-the-bushes-literally Paradise Buffet, and it's amazing.
Then there's the sex District next to the Moulin Rouge and what not. You can't go wrong with that. And the area around it - Montmartre - is perhaps the prettiest neighbourhood in any city in Europe. With steep cobbled hills and passageways and beautiful old time lamplights, as well as Sacre Coeur towering over Paris, looking down over this unmissable, unrivaled, unmatched city, the heart of the world (although London, New York, perhaps Berlin, Hong Kong, Los Angeles and Tokyo would argue about that one), and certainly the city that is the heartbeat of France, of Western Europe, of Europe in general, and of love.
I was inside Paris once. Not Hilton unfortunately, but there's a movie about that.
And remember what the late, great Peter Gabriel told us:
Oh
Think Twice
It's just another day for you and me in Paris, nice! read more