Video: This Is The Way To Experience Paris

Thursday, March 11, 2010

With over 29 million visitors a year, Paris is the most visited city in the world. With that number of visitors, truly it must be impossible to find your own little nook of the city where you can blend in and experience the city like a local. Right?

Cue The Frugal Traveler, circa summer ’08, who, in the above video, decided the best way to see the city was to shack up in a rented apartment in the 10th Arrondissement he found on one of the rental sites, VivaStreet.fr and pap.fr (it’s not clear which one gave him the the most luck).

A block to the east was the Rue du Faubourg du Temple, “an immigrant entrepreneurial zone where halal butchers hacked lamb shanks and West African restaurants were almost indistinguishable from the traditional French brasseries next door.” To the west was the Canal St.-Martin and the waterside cafes and shops exuding a youthful, artistic vibe.

At 2:48 Matt hits up Librairie Ulysse, the oldest travel bookstore in the world, where he picks up a copy of Nicholas Bouvier’s “The Way of the World,” a book the owner describes as “the best travel book ever.” Bold statement. I’m at least adding it to my Amazon wish list.

*Editor’s Note: I was this close to posting about a video by Rick Steves on Lisbon, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. In the interest of full disclosure, here’s a link to the video. It’s actually a pretty good clip. You just didn’t hear it from me.