When travelling I like to go and live as a local, do what the residents do, and study and interact with the people there. The point of a holiday is to get away from what you are used to, and discover new experiences. This is why I like to go to France in winter and not in the peak season of the summer months, when it is full of visitors including many familiar faces from the GCC.
I love Paris. Wide tree-lined avenues, old buildings, beautiful architecture, refined living, interesting culture, history, entertainment, gastronomy; it has rich history in its blood. The city is stunning in the way everything ‘fits’ with an almost Swiss watch precision. Every landscape is immaculately conceived, every place is a perfect compliment to its surroundings. In Napoleonic times, the architects employed were encouraged to create beautiful buildings as individual entities, stunning edifices meant to be admired individually. This, I believe, made it the first capital to be conceived architecturally as a place to try and impress foreign dignitaries, even before Washington DC. Like the obelisk in Place de la Concorde – a gift from the then viceroy of Egypt – French colonialism is echoed in many of the buildings and squares. Each building is beautiful in its own right.
I no longer feel like a tourist, as I visit so often. I do enjoy exploring the lesser-known, more modest parts of Paris too. The weekly food markets are excellent, and collecting little oddments there is even more of a pleasure than visiting the high-end boutiques on the Champs-Elysees.
In years gone by I would stay at the Hotel Intercontinental Paris, at the Tuileries Gardens. Once that building was taken over by Westin Hotel Group, I tried somewhere new, and found the superb George V (Four Seasons). Service at the George V is excellent, the décor is exquisite, and location is excellent for proximity to many of the tourist hotspots. The name carries great weight, and I am sure there are many equally great places to stay – possibly more reasonably priced too – but once you become a patron of their hotel, they always ensure you are welcomed like an old friend.
Of my friends in Paris, one of my business partners is the most eccentrically French, so it came as no surprise that he recommended Crazy Horse as the best cabaret in town. I confess I have never been, but Lido is a show I have seen several times, and is one of my all-time favourites. It is the original dinner and nightclub theatre, and the food is very good. Sometimes I find the Michelin starred restaurants are bettered by the more modest eateries. Paris is not short of places to grab a bite to eat, and every type of food is available. Small bustling cafés are where the Parisians eat most often, and the atmosphere is alive with the lunch-time rush.
The first time I went I did all the main tourist sites, these days I tend to just go there for a period of time to live in the city and be a Parisian for a while. It is just as great a place to live as it is to visit, and I cannot get enough of the café culture. The power of culture in Paris is so strong that even the most ‘ordinary’ person has a greater level of refinement here than anywhere else I have seen. The French are renowned for it, and Parisians have it in bucket loads. I even get a kick out of the character of Parisians, as they know their behaviour is famous and are happy to reinforce this notion, they take it as a compliment, just like New Yorkers. Paris is an expensive place to live or visit yet remains the most popular destination in the world. Sixteen million people visiting annually can’t all be wrong.
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