The Café Procope is a bit on the expensive side, but fuuuull of Revolution/Enlightenment kitsch--they have engravings with the months of the Revolutionary calendar on the bathroom walls! The food is divine, and it might be worth splurging for dinner there (plan on €20-40, plus drinks).
Berthillon ice cream is a must.
There's a place on the Rue Croulebarbe, near the former Field of the Lark, called the Auberge Etchegorry--Hugo used to eat there, their website is an amusing look into the history of the area, and nowadays they serve traditional Basque cuisine at outrageously inflated prices.
I recommend the Carnavalet bookstore, but you might want to leave any credit cards outside, or you might find yourself flat broke coming out. In general, the stuff they sell is worth going flat broke for, but when you have no money left it is difficult to ship home the 1780 map of Paris, the biography of Louise Michel, Duchâtelet's report on prostitution in Paris in the 1830s and 40s, the British edition of Mark Steel's Vive la Révolution, and all the other things you have just spent all your money on.
Let's see, what other random stuff? There's an absinthe store in the Marais, in a side street off the Rue de Sévigné. And Mariage Frères if you like tea. Don't bother going up the Eiffel Tower unless you absolutely have your heart set on it; it's not worth the expense and the long lines, and there are other places (Montmartre, the Parc de Belleville, the Tour Montparnasse) where you can get a view that's just as good.
Paris is stuffed full of tiny offbeat museums--definitely hit up Hugo's house and the sewer museum if you like Les Mis, and if you're interested, there's also Balzac's house, Delacroix's house, the history of medicine museum (not for the faint of heart or stomach), the Musée Dupuytren (ditto), the catacombs (tritto), the fanmaking museum (has a still-operational atelier), the Musée des Arts et Métiers (ENORMOUS museum on the history of science and industry), the wine museum, the letters and manuscripts museum, the museum with the historic musical instruments, the Gobelins tapestry workshop, etc. Wikipedia has a list of them, I think under "List of museums in Paris." The weird off-the-beaten-path ones are always worth it.
When are you going to be in Paris? There's a Les Mis meetup on the weekend of June 5-6. And if you want to meet up and do geeky things together, I'll be there until the end of June.
As far as Vienna goes, if your historical interest extends to Habsburgs, it's probably wonderful. Mine doesn't, so I've just been shaking my head at all the Imperial dick-waving that must've gone into building the city. The museums are expensive; the youth hostels are nice (there are two right near the train station, Wombat and Hostel Ruthensteiner, which is where I am); the center city is pretty but there's not much there, you have to go out to Neubaugasse and Mariahilferstrasse to find decent shops and cafés.
I'm going to Berlin this coming weekend and really looking forward to it. :)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-04-27 05:16 pm (UTC)Berthillon ice cream is a must.
There's a place on the Rue Croulebarbe, near the former Field of the Lark, called the Auberge Etchegorry--Hugo used to eat there, their website is an amusing look into the history of the area, and nowadays they serve traditional Basque cuisine at outrageously inflated prices.
I recommend the Carnavalet bookstore, but you might want to leave any credit cards outside, or you might find yourself flat broke coming out. In general, the stuff they sell is worth going flat broke for, but when you have no money left it is difficult to ship home the 1780 map of Paris, the biography of Louise Michel, Duchâtelet's report on prostitution in Paris in the 1830s and 40s, the British edition of Mark Steel's Vive la Révolution, and all the other things you have just spent all your money on.
Let's see, what other random stuff? There's an absinthe store in the Marais, in a side street off the Rue de Sévigné. And Mariage Frères if you like tea. Don't bother going up the Eiffel Tower unless you absolutely have your heart set on it; it's not worth the expense and the long lines, and there are other places (Montmartre, the Parc de Belleville, the Tour Montparnasse) where you can get a view that's just as good.
Paris is stuffed full of tiny offbeat museums--definitely hit up Hugo's house and the sewer museum if you like Les Mis, and if you're interested, there's also Balzac's house, Delacroix's house, the history of medicine museum (not for the faint of heart or stomach), the Musée Dupuytren (ditto), the catacombs (tritto), the fanmaking museum (has a still-operational atelier), the Musée des Arts et Métiers (ENORMOUS museum on the history of science and industry), the wine museum, the letters and manuscripts museum, the museum with the historic musical instruments, the Gobelins tapestry workshop, etc. Wikipedia has a list of them, I think under "List of museums in Paris." The weird off-the-beaten-path ones are always worth it.
When are you going to be in Paris? There's a Les Mis meetup on the weekend of June 5-6. And if you want to meet up and do geeky things together, I'll be there until the end of June.
As far as Vienna goes, if your historical interest extends to Habsburgs, it's probably wonderful. Mine doesn't, so I've just been shaking my head at all the Imperial dick-waving that must've gone into building the city. The museums are expensive; the youth hostels are nice (there are two right near the train station, Wombat and Hostel Ruthensteiner, which is where I am); the center city is pretty but there's not much there, you have to go out to Neubaugasse and Mariahilferstrasse to find decent shops and cafés.
I'm going to Berlin this coming weekend and really looking forward to it. :)