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Comment by bsaul | Hacker News Reader

let’s be honest. Paris center is really great, but all the rest is trash by any standard (not even the japanese one).

And i’m not even talking about suburbs, which people coming from the airport must go through. People are absolutely not what you’d expect french to look like ( and i’m not talking about size), public transport are a total trash, working only half the time correctly.. Restrooms makes us look like a third world country, etc.

I could go on and on , but i’ll just sum it up with one anecdote : i spent a month in japan, and this is the first time in my life i felt ashamed of the way we treat tourists in Paris. Food in touristic places is garbage, people are generally rude, etc etc..

My advice if you want to visit paris : rent something nice in the center, and take a cab straight from the aiport, and make the ride by night.

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I think you're being downvoted for having a negative viewpoint, but what you said is very accurate. I'm not French, but I've spent some time in France and loved it. France is a gorgeous country and people were generally friendly and welcoming, Paris is the exception. There are parts of Paris which are nice, but a significant chunk of the city is exceptionally dreary (partly due to architectural design, heavy use of brutalism, etc), dirty, and many people I encountered in Paris were very rude to me, even before I opened my mouth.

I've traveled all over the world, Paris is not anywhere near that bad compared to many places I've been, and generally I enjoy most places I spend time in because there's something positive to be found everywhere. But I wanted to reinforce your viewpoint, because it is not inaccurate, even though I find it to be somewhat one-sided. I don't believe sharing this deserves downvotes, especially in the context of the link.

Completely agree. I've been to both Paris and Tokyo in the past year. In Paris we took extreme precautions with our belongings and we still got pickpocket attempts on the subway (fortunately none successful). In Tokyo of course we just took zero precautions because crime against tourists is virtually unheard-of (with the possible exception of Roppongi after dark, where the level of caution you need is still 1/10 that of any neighborhood of Paris.) I'm very sad about how stressed I felt on my last trip to Paris and how unfriendly it seems now. I'll probably never go back.

tokyo is definitely one of the best cities in the world. i can only think of sidney as a competitor in quality of life. no european city comes close.

Osaka has a lot to be said for it too. It has as much culture as Tokyo but the pace and energy are dialed back a bit. There are also fewer English speakers and the signage doesn't use as much Romaji, so your Japanese skills need to be a little sharper.

I'm french and indeed I would not recommend someone to go to Paris. There are much nicer cities here (Bordeaux, Montpellier, are some examples.)

Also: send your tourists to San Francisco, we have even lower standards here :D

I really like Montpellier, but just like with Paris (on a much, much smaller scale of course), the center is really nice, but not so much for the rest of the city.

I think that's the case with most French cities. Nice centers but the surroundings are average at best. An exception would be Marseille, it is filthy even in the center ;).

Yeah that's pretty much the design of French cities (and maybe European cities to an extent). The center is great, around the center is meh, suburbs are to be avoided. Very different from the typical American city.

Have you ever been to Los Angeles? I love it but it is pretty gritty. Poke around with street view. Paris is a utopia in comparison--the metro map looks like a kid scribbled with crayons there are so many lines. American standards are pretty low.

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