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Comment by julienchastang | Hacker News Reader

I am part Parisian. (I used to live there and my family is from the city and nice banlieue). I love Paris, but what shocks me every time I go back is the quantity of dog poop (and also trash) in the streets and the inability of city officials to do anything about it. Here are a few tips for visitors:

- When interacting with locals, always start off by saying Bonjour Monsieur, Bonjour Madame. That will help disarm cranky Parisians. If doing an AirBnb make sure to do this when seeing people on the “palier” — stair landing in Parisian apartment buildings.

- Consider going to the top of the Tour Maine-Montparnasse, instead of the Eiffel Tower. You will have 1/100th the foot traffic and you won’t be surrounded by pickpockets. Plus you’ll be able to see the Eiffel Tower :-)

- Check out and buy food from the local street market in your area.

- My favorite thing to do in Paris still is flâner — to stroll about the lovely city.

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> Plus you’ll be able to see the Eiffel Tower

A story about Guy de Maupassant always makes me smile. He hated the Eiffel Tower (“I left Paris and even France because in the end, the Eiffel Tower annoyed me too much”) and yet supposedly ate lunch there every day. Why? Because it’s the only place in Paris where you can’t see the Eiffel Tower.

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/09/20/priority-french-wr...

Seconded about Tour Montparnasse. The Tour Eiffel has become an expensive, crowded, dangerous nightmare. You have to go through airport-level security just to approach it, and going up requires previous reservations or waiting in very long lines. Tour Montparnasse is as pleasant as Tour Eiffel was 20 years ago. Tip: Go just before sunset and stay at the top as the sun goes down. Paris is loveliest during the sunset transition.

"I love Paris, but what shocks me every time I go back is the quantity of dog poop (and also trash) in the streets and the inability of city officials to do anything about it."

Is the amount of dog poop in Paris even worse than in Berlin? I cannot imagine that.

As a Berliner, dog poop (like litter in general) is very localized. There are large parts of Berlin (especially in the south west) that are very clean and if you e.g. live in Zehlendorf and work in the nice/wealthy parts of Charlottenburg you will not be overwhelmed by dog poop and grime.

I would also recommend not being too loud, French people usually are pretty quiet in restaurants or public spaces, and being loud is frowned upon.

You might have only been to higher-end restaurants, and not the "good ol' french" types that are as much about the atmosphere as they are about the food. The kind of thing I could only name as "à la bonne franquette". For a representative sample of the kind of place I'm talking about, try 'Chez Gladines' in the 13th arrondissement.

I have worn my earplugs (still carried from the flight that morning) in a Paris restaurant where the locals were watching the football.

It was a great atmosphere, but I was glad when the waiter asked us to swap tables to the other room — he rearranged all the noisy people into one room, and the quiet ones into the other.

I’m from a place where “bouchons” is exactly this :P still less loud than any restaurant in the US

> still less loud than any restaurant in the US

Sounds like you might need to try some restaurants in the US. It's more than McDonald's and TGI Fridays.

> French people usually are pretty quiet

It's not just French people. American tourists have a reputation in many countries for being annoyingly loud.

An American colleague sent his children (7 years old ish) to the British International school on a foreign assignment, as there was no American school in the city.

The teacher sometimes asked the children were to "use their one metre voice".

As a European I'm still shocked at how loud Americans are. I cannot stay more than a couple minutes in an American bar or pub

Same, it's pretty rough.

Not true in the South of France. Boisterous, fun, loud.

> quantity of dog poop

You should checkout San Francisco, it's not only dog poop here though ;)

In all seriousness, I'm Married to a French woman, lived in France for a little while. Paris is my favorite city, followed by Tokyo probably

PS: Last time I visited the Eiffel Tower I was 4 years old.

This advice on the Tour Maine-Montparnasse reminds me of my advice to people visiting New York City:

- Touring the Statue of Liberty is a great experience, but if you just want to see it, then the Staten Island Ferry has a great view of it, and it's free to and from Staten Island

- The view from the Empire State Building is amazing, but if you instead go to the top of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, then you get to see the Empire State Building and Chrysler Buildings, and in general get a better experience.

Eiffel Tower in summer was fine, even when Paris was ridiculously hot.

It is so iconic that I think folks should do it.

Also, highly recommend waking up at dawn and visiting Trocadero. The views of the Eiffel Tower are just ridiculous amazing: https://www.danaberez.com/paris-instagram-spots/

Our family (8, 5, 5, myself and wife) had a very good time last summer as Paris tourists (with day trip to Versailles — grounds better than palace tour).

Paris also has Uber, so traveling around isn’t difficult even if you don’t speak French.

This is my milage, been there 5 times. I agree with the salutations. Just learning a few lines of French goes a long way of the locals liking you. They truly appreciate the effort and was able to have quite a few conversations and even was invited to a night into town, it was fun to experience Paris through the eyes of a local.

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