revolution_fr | (no subject)

Hello, all!

I know it's a busy time for a lot of people - I'm currently in the midst of finals myself - but I was hoping that people might be able to take a little time out to help me out.

I also dearly hope that this isn't massively off-topic and is permitted to be posted. It does deal quite heavily with the FR, at least! : )

Anyway:

I'm heading off to France in a few weeks - Paris for a few weeks, then a break-neck tour around some smaller towns (Arras, Blerancourt, Strausborg, you know the drill), then a week or so down in Monaco (which normally I would avoid due to price, but someone very kind has offered to lend me lodging, so I'm going. ^^)

I need advice on where to go and what to do/see - I know a bunch of people here are either francophiles, FR geeks, live in and/or have been to France recently, or a combination of the above. So - help! Anyone have any links to online tour guides (of the French Revolution, Les Miserables, historical geekery, etc. variety)? Suggestions of places to go? Books I should look at? Does anyone have a list of the current locations of the major FR historical sites (Robespierre's house, etc.)? I'm generally interested in historical or fandomish sites, good places to eat, and other stuff to do.

Any advice at all, even the obvious, is extremely welcome! I got nothing, really. ^^

I've sort of left specific planning to the last minute, so, um, help! (Also, if you know any other places on LJ I could post this cry for help to where it wouldn't be obnoxious and would get some useful tips, I'd be grateful!)

(Less related: if you know anything about Switzerland, Germany (Berlin and Munich), Prague or Vienna, it would also be useful - I'm hoping to hit a city on my way out from Paris, and would like advice for those places as well)

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I have a web site (http://www.chanvrerie.net/tourguide/index.html) with places related to Les Misérables, if you haven't seen it. :) It's even been updated quasi-recently.

As for the Revolution: the Conciergerie is fairly cool, but the real jackpot is Carnavalet, the Parisian history museum. They have an amaaaazing RF exhibit, a bookstore full of geeky historical oddities of all varieties, and I've never chatted with the staff but I assume they're knowledgeable. And it's smack in the heart of the Marais too, across the street from where the prison of La Force used to be. Be sure to stop by the Rue des Rosiers while you're there and hit up L'As du Falafel, which is not related to anything historic but has the best falafel in Paris. Possibly in the world.

If you do the Marais walk on my website, it'll take you by a bunch of Les Mis spots as well as the Place de la Bastille, and all you'd have to do is add a couple extra stops: Carnavalet, which is practically on the route, and the Temple, not far from the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire.

(The Bastille metro stop is fairly cool--the Line 1 station has RF-related murals on the walls, and the Line 5 station still includes a bit of the fortress's foundation.)

EDIT: I'm doing my grand spring-break tour of Europe at this very moment--writing this comment from a youth hostel in Vienna--and I have to say, if you're willing to go a bit further afield, Krakow is amazing. The Old Town is all touristified but still worth a lap, and Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarter, is incredible.

Edited 2010-04-27 16:15 (UTC)

Oooh, thank you! I'm completely printing out your website's info for further use. ^^

I will definitely go to those museums - they're on the list! - and yay! Food recommendation! (double so: falafels!) Any other good restaurants I ought to make sure to hit? I'm going to be in Paris for nearly two weeks, so I have plenty of time to go get good food and see interesting sites. Any good bookstores/shops/interesting places that you can recommend in particular?

Heh, I'm vastly amused that you're in Vienna at the moment! (Any recs or warnings for things to do there, since you're there? Is the youth hostel you're in good?) Where else are you planning on going/have been?

I would love to go to Krakow, but my itenerary is generally planned around "where do I know people who would be willing to lend me accomodations and/or advice", so I'm generally limited ot the cities I listed. But it sounds amazing, though. Bah, now I want to go there tooooo...really, why haven't they invented the Star Trek immediate transporation device yet? Travel needs to be cheaper. : )

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. :)

Hee, thanks! (I thought I had replied to this yesterday, but apparently LJ ate the comment. Ah, well.) Thank you so much for the recommendations!

I'll be in Paris for the second half of May, then disappearing for a week or so, then coming back up for the June 5th Les Mis meetup. The rest of June I'll be gone, alas, or else we should definitely meet up and do geeky things together. ^___^

*snerks at the phrase 'Imperial dick-waving'* That sounds about accurate to what I've heard, actually. Tell me how Berlin is! ^__^