1. L'Ile Saint-Louis
This delicious little island sits right in the middle of the Seine, almost hiding behind its big sister, l'Ile de la Cité. There's isn't really much to see in it, having no monuments and not more than 10 roads crossing it, but the many beautiful buildings from the 17th and 18th centuries, that all seem to be furrowing their grey stone brows at your little self down there, make it a very characteristic place.
You might want to walk about pretending to be interested in the paintings on show in the art gallery windows, or you might just want to sit on the parapets bordering the isle and watch the river flow, or you might like to go towards the Pont Saint-Louis, where you can bet someone is playing the accordion, and from where you can see Notre-Dame's big fat behind as she squats on the tip of l'Ile de la Cité, but whatever you do, to make it even more pleasant, be sure to get yourself an ice-cream at Berthillon's.
2. La Seine
This river is incredible. If I could I would just lean my elbows on a bridge and watch it go by all day long, with its traffic of barges and tourist boats.
A trip on the boats, allowing you a different perception of some of the city's monuments, is highly recommended, but whenever you get the chance, walk along the banks: it's so relaxing. One of the bits I like best is on the 'rive gauche', from l'Ile Saint-Louis to the Musée d'Orsay, where there are loads and loads of stalls, one after the other, stacked full with thousands of second-hand books, from which, if you're lucky, you could fish out a little treasure.
(Pardon me, did I just hear you say: "How the blinking hell am I supposed to know which is the 'rive gauche' and which the 'rive droite'"? I did? Well, allow me to suggest this very simple and sure method: look at the river. If it's flowing towards your right, you're on the 'rive droite'; if it's going to your left, you're on the 'rive gauche'.)
3. Le Canal Saint-Martin (by boat)
If you love Simenon's Maigret, the Canal Saint-Martin is the place for you: you'll discover what a lock is, how it works, and, if a dead body should turn up, you'll feel right in the middle of one of the great belgian's novels!
Go to La Villette and take a boat trip along the canal. Not long after you've started off, you'll find yourself trapped between two iron gates. As if someone had pulled the plug out of a tub, the water beneath you gets lower and lower and the boat to sink, and, where just a minute before you could see people sitting on a bench, smoking their pipe, staring at you as if you were an idiot and spitting to the ground in contempt, now, left and right of the boat, there are walls onto which millions of shellfish are clinging for life, all looking at you as if you were an idiot and squirting long jets of water to show their contempt. Then the draining stops; the boat is still. If you look behind you, you see the closed, rusty gates, along which trickles of water are dribbling down, giving you the strange impression that the canal you just left and that now lies high above you should have no other desire than to rush over the gates and drown you. Don't worry, and turn to face the gates in front of you: all of a sudden the pigeons perched on them will fly off and they will start opening, and there, right ahead of you, there's the canal again, way much lower, splendid, and green with the trees along the banks, under which couples are romantically strolling hand in hand, only to stop to stare at you as if you were an idiot. Off you go again, through other five or six locks, until you reach the Musée d'Orsay (a must see if you like impressionists).
4. Le Canal Saint-Martin (on foot)
If you should find yourself with nothing to do, a romantic promenade along the banks of the canal Saint-Martin is no bad suggestion. You'll get an even better idea of how the locks work, and, if you offer the man at the locks enough booze, he might let you manoeuvre the gates and be an éclusier for five minutes!
There is also a swing bridge, and it's quite funny to wait on the nearby elevated pedestrian bridge and watch the traffic silent and still as it swings open to let the boats through, and, once it has swung shut again, see the drivers recover the wasted time with all their vroom-vrooms and nervous beep-beeps.
As you walk on, you'll see that the canal has disappeared. This will remind you of when, during the boat trip, the lights went out, everything turned black, and the guide started talking about Victor Hugo's Les Miserables; if you're clever enough, you'll surmise that the canal runs underground. Above ground, gardens, market-stalls, merry-go-rounds and bumper cars fill its place. If you're a Maigret fan, look up at the street's name, and you'll stand with your mouth gaping: you are in Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, where that great fictitious investigator lived. Let's see if you can spot where!
From here, there won't be much of the canal to see, but, right at the end of the boulevard, pop in to the Bastille metro station: believe me, it's worth seeing.
Oh! I nearly forgot the most important thing: when you're walking on the canal banks, whenever a tourist boat passes by, you MUST stop and stare hard at the people on it, as if they were idiots.
5. Place des Vosges
Closed on all sides by a crown of medieval looking buildings, this little square is a very beautiful public garden. Take a book with you, lie down in the grass, relax and enjoy the peace, lulled by the rustling leaves and the children's joyful voices and peals of laughter.
When you're hungry, just cross the road, any one: the porticos beneath the surrounding buildings are crammed with restaurants, and some are very good.
6. Le Jardin des Tuileries
Let me confess this right away: I don't like the Louvre, mostly because I'm not too keen about pre-late-19th century art (with some exceptions, of course), and then because I hate being in a place full to the brim with ignorant people queuing up to see paintings and statues they know nothing about and about which they don't give a damn but think it's cool to go back home and say: "I've seen the Mona Lisa.""Really? What was it like?" their friends inquire. "I don't know. A japanese guy was holding his camera right in front of me. But I caught a glimpse of my new Coldplay t-shirt reflected in the bullet-proof glass, though." "Wow! Awesome!!"
Anyhow, behind the Louvre, spreading from the Arc du Carrousel to Place de la Concorde, are these very nice gardens where you can play ball, float a boat in the fountain, skip a rope, run around, or, if it's sunny enough, just lay back on a chair and sunbathe.
My favourite spot is right by the Orangerie (a small museum mainly focused on impressionism and early 20th century paintings, very nice), facing Place de la Concorde. This bit of the gardens is just a narrow strip, it's higher up than the rest and is not so crowded (except from the odd gay jogger), and you can see the Seine from here.
7. Le Père-Lachaise
If someone tells you he's had a great time in a graveyard you'll probably think he's a ghoul, some diverted religious fanatic, or just stupid. I don't think I'm neither of these, but I have really loved my visits to this enormous parisian cemetery. It's a bit like being in a museum (well, and what is a museum if not the graveyard of art?), where you can encounter Balzac, Gérard de Nerval, Pissarro, Max Ophuls, Georges Méliès, Maria Callas, Edith Piaf, Apollinaire, Oscar Wilde, Yves Montand, Colette, Chopin, Molière, La Fontaine, Stendhal, Marcel Proust, Rossini, and many more. You name them, if they're dead, they'll probably be here.
But even if you don't care about famous bones, there is loads to see and discover: the grave where Heloise and Abelard are supposed to have been reunited after the forced separation that put an end to their affair but not to their love; president Felix Faure's tomb, whose body is shown covered by the french flag, though it is rumored he died in his lover's arms; the horrible shrine that princess Marie-Elisabeth Demidoff chose as her final dwelling, and the legend about her last will by which she left an immense sum of money to whoever, living, should come to keep her company. Legend? Well, someone has indeed tried to reside in that ugly marble temple, but not for long...; the infamous bronze statue stretched on Victor Noir's grave, representing him after he was shot, his top-hat by his side. He was killed at the age of 22, and the sculptor must have thought he was in full bloom, if we're to judge by the swelling in the dead man's pants! That swelling, and other protruding parts of the statue, have strangely attracted many people's attention, and, during the years, God knows how many hands (and not only those!) have caressed and rubbed these bulges, leaving them now to shine out from the rest of the statue; the very simple but nonetheless moving monument in remembrance of the last of the communards, killed against that same wall where the inscription is; and the monuments in honor of the victims of all the barbarities of World War II, lest we forget how cruel and unhuman we human beings can be.
8. La Tour Eiffel
The Queen of Paris. Without shadow of a doubt, the best known monument in the world. Even without haven't been to Paris, who hasn't seen a film, a postcard, a friend's holidays picture, in which it's there, in the background? Who hasn't got a keyring, a t-shirt, a fridge magnet, or a little in-scale reproduction of the thing standing on a shelf?
Yet, even though you might have seen it billions of times, you can in no way imagine what the real thing is; the emotion you get when you actually find yourself beneath it is beyond compare. There's no other word for it: that darn thing is beautiful.
During your stay in Paris, the many moments you caught a glimpse of her (from the metro, from a boat, its distant tip sticking out over the trees) were absolutely nothing, just the beginning of the seduction; when you see her, so far away, you feel a strange tingle all about you, but she pretends not to see you, or, if she does look your way, she feigns indifference. But when you're there, at her feet, that's the moment she'll strike, and you've no way of defending yourself. You can only give up, and be hers, forever.
