One Month in Paris

It can be difficult to resist the temptation to see as much as you can when you're traveling.  There is so much to see, and you feel like you're cheating yourself if you don't see it all.  However, it often pays to slow down and experience a place instead of seeing the sights.  Although Magge and I had felt that we were doing a good job of mixing the two approaches, we wanted to pick a city where we could plant roots for a while and lean more towards experiencing.

Paris seemed the ideal place for this, so we rented an apartment for a month.  For roughly the same price as getting two dorm beds in a hostel (and much cheaper than getting a private room in a hostel), we were able to rent a small room in a great neighborhood.  We're staying in a quiet residential area of Montmartre, away from the waves of tourists that pack the Sacre Coeur Basilica and Place du Tertre.  It's a tree lined neighborhood that reminds us a lot of the West Village area where we lived in NYC, except without the 4am cross dressers.

So what are we going to do for a month?  We'll still take in the sights, of course, but we'll also to do things Parisians do: shop at local food markets, hang out in cafes, eat lunch in the park, hopefully get to know our local baker and butcher.  Maybe we'll even participate in a strike.  We won't be working, but the French don't do much of that anyway.

Our art deco apartment building below.

More apartment and neighborhood pictures in the full post.

All 180 square feet of our apartment

View from the balcony

The streets around the apartment

Old school elevator that has twice tried to stop and strand me in darkness