Fun things to do in Paris

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Paris is a great city for people on a budget! For instance, most people know 10 museums were removed from the Museum Pass but not many people know why. They were removed because they were city museums and the then-mayor made them free. Ergo . . . no pass was needed because there was no charge!

Here is a small sample of absolutely free things to do:
Bourdelle, Musée, 18 rue A Bourdelle. . open 10–6:00
Carnavalet, 23 rue Sevigne . . open 10–6:00
Cognac-Jay Museum, 8 rue Elzévir. . open 10-6:00
Modern Art Museum (Palais de Tokyo). . . open 10–6:00
Petit Palais (city fine art museum). . . open 10–6:00
Victor Hugo House. . open 10–6:00
Musee la Vie Romantique ... open 10–6:00
Viaduc des Arts . . . prefer Spring, Summer and early Autumn http://en.parisinfo.com/professionnals/3623/paris-viaduc-des-arts

and for one euro . . . Gardens of the Musee Rodin (you pay to go inside the museum)

Churches are all free . . . many with exceptional art

Gardens with lots to see and do are free
Fountains at Place Stravinsky by the Pompidou Center
Arènes de Lutèce in the Latin Quarter
Jardins des Tuileries behind the Louvre
Jardin du Luxembourg off Blvd. St. Michel
Parc du Champ de Mars beneath the Eiffel Tower
La Madeleine at Pl. de la Concorde (with sculpture by Rude)
St. Sulpice with meridian line in da Vinci Code
Jardin Catherine-Labouré on rue de Babylone 7eme
Sq. Récamier off rue de Babylone 7eme
Sq. Denis Bülher at end of rue Amélie 7eme
Parc de Monceau 8eme
Place des Vosges 4eme
Jardins du Palais Royal 1ere
Jardin des Plantes 5eme

All city museums of Paris are free. http://www.paris.fr/portail/loisirs/Portal.lut?page_id=4693

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My grandmother once showed me a cartoon she had saved from her childhood (she was born in 1877, and the cartoon was from around 1890) showing a school class going on a class outing in a balloon in 1950. In fact the whole sky was full of balloons in this cartoon, because they thought balloon flight would be the most common form of transportation in 1950, which just goes to show that you can't always predict the future by extrapolating from the present.

When I saw that I could go up in a basket under the world's largest balloon for a trifling 12 Euros I of course had to do it. The flight only lasted ten minutes, but it was invigorating and we had some great views of the western half of Paris.

Second photo: Looking north at the Seine and its bridges, with the Allee des Cygnes and the Statue of Liberty, which you can perhaps just barely see at the end of the island.

Third photo: A mother and daughter on the balloon flight.

Fourth photo: Coming in for a landing.

Fifth photo: The winch that lets the balloon rise and then pulls it down again.

The Pont Neuf was commissioned by Henry III in 1576.
Despite its name, which translates as New Bridge, it is now the oldest bridge in Paris.

Henry III was in tears when he laid the foundation stone for the bridge in May 1578.
This was because he had just returned from funeral services for two close friends who had been killed in duels. So, at first, the bridge was refered to as the "Bridge of Tears".
This was soon replaced with the name Pont Neuf because in its construction, Henry broke with tradition whereby all Parisian bridges had houses on them from one end to the other. No houses were to be built on this bridge.

Before the construction was finished Henry III was assassinated and the bridge was completed in 1604 by his successor Henry IV.

When Henry IV was assassinated in 1610 the Grand Duke of Tuscany presented his widow, Marie de Medicis, with a bronze horse as a memorial. The boat that transported the horse to France sank off the coast of Sardinia in 1613 and the horse went down with the ship. A year later it would be found and set on to Paris. It would be placed on the Pont Neuf rider-less for twenty-one years.
In 1635 Louis XIII had a statue make of his father Henry IV and placed him on the horse. This it would sit for the next 157 years.
In 1792, in the third year of the French Revolution, the Paris mobs took down the horse and the riding king. They smashed them both to bits. Most would go off to be melted down while the rest went into the Seine.
The Pont Neuf would remain without a statue until the return of the monarchy in 1814.

Louis XVIII then ordered a replica of the horse and Henry IV cast in bronze, using part of the melted down statue of Napoléon that had been on top of the Vendome column.
The caster was happy for the work, but also was a Bonapartist.
He is said to have placed a small statue of Napoléon in the right arm of Henry IV's right arm. In the belly of the horse he placed papers containing songs and celebrations from the Napoléonic era.

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There are several splendid works of architecture dispersed throughout Le Marais, ranging from Medieval houses to elegant 18th century mansions. Here’s an example of a short itinerary that will allow you to see some of Le Marais’s most remarkable constructions.

Start at the corner of rue St-Antoine and rue St-Paul, where you can see and visit St-Paul–St-Louis church. The cornerstone was laid out in 1627 and the first mass was celebrated by Cardinal Richelieu in 1641. When it was built, its 60 m dome was the highest one in Paris. A lot of its art work was destroyed during the Revolution, but there remains Delacroix's "Christ in the Garden of Olives" and Pilon's "Mourning Virgin".

From there, walk down rue St-Paul and turn onto rue du Figuier. At No. 1 du Figuier you’ll see L’hotel de Sens, one of the three remaining Medieval residences in Paris. Built between 1474 and 1519, it became the domain of King Henry IV’s ex-wife, Marguerite de Valois (better known as Queen Margot), where she lived a tumultous life of drunkeness and debauchery. It now houses the Forney art library.

Keep going on rue du Figuier and turn left on rue Charlemagne, which will then become rue de Jouy and then rue Francois Miron. At No. 11-13 Francois Miron sit two of the oldest houses in Paris, dating back to the 14th century. Both were heavily renovated a few years ago, but they have kept their stunning exterior appearance.

Keep going down the street until you come upon St-Gervais–St-Protais church. Construction of this church began in 1494 and was completed over 150 years later. The church itself is Gothic in style, but its facade combines three styles of classic architecture: Doric, Ionic and Corinthian.

At the end of the street, you can turn onto rue des Archives and go up a few blocks, until you reach rue des Francs Bourgeois. At No. 60 des Francs Bougeois is L’hotel de Soubise, a splendid mansion built at the beginning of the 18th century for the Princess of Rohan, where you can rest for a while before going on your next walk!

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One of the more vicious acts of vandalism in recent Paris history was the destruction of the right bank in the 1960s for the purpose of installing the Voie Express Georges Pompidou, an expressway for eastbound motor vehicles by the side of the River Seine.

Georges Pompidou (1911-1974), for whom the expressway was named, was the prime minister of France from 1962 to 1968 and was president from 1969 until his death in 1974. Like many politicians of his generation, he was intent on making cities fit for cars, not people.

Fortunately, times have changed. The current mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, was elected in 2001 and reelected in 2008 on a clear platform of reducing motor traffic and re-allocating urban space to give more of it back to the people.

One of his first major projects, starting in 2002, was Paris Plages (Paris Beaches), in which the Voie Express is closed off to motor vehicles for a month every summer so the people can use it for strolling, cycling, playing music, lying in the sun and generally having a good time by the side of the river. It is open to everyone, but is particularly intended for people with low incomes who can't afford to take expensive vacations.

Paris Plages was very controversial at first, and even now, after seven highly successful summers, there are still people who are opposed to it -- motorists, of course, who bemoan the loss of their near-monopoly on the use of public space, but also rich people who live nearby and don't like to have us impecunious folks loitering around near their neighborhoods.

Second photo: Deck chairs and sun umbrellas are provided at no cost, paid for mainly by corporate sponsors who are identified quite discreetly, because the city made clear right from the start that Paris Plages was not going to be blatantly commercialized.

Third photo: People strolling at Paris Plages 2008.

Fourth photo: Here the misting fountains are still running just before sunset -- they were turned off shortly after I took this photo. The idea of the misting fountains is that on hot afternoons you can walk under them to cool off. (Yes, that's the Eiffel Tower off in the distance.)

Fifth photo: All along Paris Plages there are cafés and also stands where you can buy something to eat or drink. Here a friendly Iranian man is making me a crêpe with nut nougat cream.

Especially after a light rain, I love to wander narrower backstreets in Paris at night.

Though there are Latin Quarter jazz and funk clubs on some of the corners, rue Galande is really beautiful when it gets quiet after midnight on weeknights and late Sunday night, yet there is music and action always right close by.

A cheap, magic date, do it on your own or with someone who knows how to shut up during a magic-time stroll.

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To wind the clock back two millennia: after defeating the native Gauls, the Romans needed an administrative base. A site on what is now the Ile de la Cite had the advantage of being readily defensible and at a major crossroads. The resulting town of Lutetia became so congenial that in 358, the Roman Emperor Julian based himself there for three years – he even proclaimed himself Emperor while living there (predating Napoleon in that regard by nearly one and a half millenia)!

Now, here’s the amazing part: you can visit the remains of Lutetia (Lutèce in French) for very little cost, yet most visitors to Paris walk right across them without knowing they’re there! Where are they? Under the Place du Parvis, the large square in front of Notre Dame Cathedral, in what is called the “Notre Dame Archaeological Crypt”. A tangle of very old buildings occupied this area until the 19th Century, but they had been built on top of the remains of Lutetia. When those buildings were removed, their footings and the more ancient underlying layers were left undisturbed. Only quite recently have archaeological studies been made, and it is the findings from these which you can visit. Here you will find the footings of the Roman city wall, dating from the year 308 (main photo); sections of Roman mosaics (photo 2); parts of the Roman thermal baths (photo 3); not to mention the remains of other buildings spanning nearly two thousand years (photo 4)

Cost: Sorry, I didn’t keep a record, but very moderate and with discounts for the Paris Museum Pass.

This might be my most favorite place on the planet. Before coming here, I was never really a big lover of Monet, but now I’m a die-hard fan. He got it so right that you feel as if you are literally in a painting. It’s so much fun to peer over the shoulders of artists sketching and painting and outlining their versions of the place. For some reason, every time I’ve gone, there’s been some little group of school children on a class trip who are always dressed in little uniforms and holding hands. Unfortunately, every time I’ve gone, it’s also been blazing hot, which in the gardens isn’t that big a deal, but in his house, it can feel like a sauna.