Paris, beyond the postcards: a second-trip guide with Oliver Gee from The Earful Tower

Foreign.

This week's episode of the Travel Intent podcast, we're going to be going to Paris, France.

We've done some episodes on Paris before.

If you go back in the archives, you're going to find a great episode on a first family trip to Paris.

But today's episode is a little bit different.

Today we're looking at a second trip to Paris where you really get to get beyond some of the main tourist attractions and really get a much better sense of the city.

I was fortunate enough over the last few months to make both my second and third visit to Paris, a couple of conferences that I was attending over Europe and got to spend a couple of days before each of them passing through Paris and experiencing it in a little more fulsome way than I ever had before.

And on one of those trips, I had a chance to sit down with Oliver G. Oliver is the host of a great podcast called the Earful Tower, which I think is probably the best podcast you're going to find on Paris.

I think he's got now in excess of 400 episodes.

He does a weekly show every week talking about something new to see and do in the city.

It's one of the top travel podcasts in the world and Oliver just does great, great content.

In addition to that, he also does walking tours of the city as well.

So if you're going to Paris, I would first of all recommend checking out some of his podcasts, but also looking up Oliver and the opportunity to do a tour with his company as well.

And we'll put I'll link to that in the show notes in today's episode.

But as I was passing through Paris, I had a chance to go sit down in the 11th district, one of the cooler neighborhoods in Paris and a place I really enjoyed staying.

Got to sit down at a local cafe with Oliver and talk to him about his impressions about that second trip to Paris.

Really what you need to do to really immerse yourself more in the city and really get a sense of what life in Paris is all about.

So I hope you enjoy this conversation.

With Oliver G. So I've done the first, first trip to Paris before.

I've seen sort of the major sites, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Luxembourg Gardens, so that sort of stuff.

This is my second trip, so I'm looking to see more some local neighborhoods, some cool things here.

Locally, you know Paris better than anyone.

So what are your some of your top recommendations for?

I know you've done a show on this.

The second visit to Paris.

Ah, that's funny that you listen to that.

What?

I. I honestly think that I'm not interested in people's first trip to Paris because that's when you got to take things off.

You got to take things off the list.

And I'm like, do it.

Go and hopefully fall in love with it.

And then when it comes to the second visit is when I'm here and I'm ready, I'm ready.

So the second visit is where you don't waste your precious.

How long are you here for?

I've only got till Monday, so it's 48 hours that I'm trying to see as much of the cool head inside of Paris.

And you don't want to see the Louvre and Muse Dose and stuff like that anyway because there's queues and stuff that you don't want to navigate.

Yeah.

I think what you want to do is take a step off that tourist track and go in, like you said, cool neighborhoods.

So, like, we're seeing the 11th neighborhood, which I often call the trendy 11th.

Okay.

19Th and 20th are similar like that.

Lots of restaurants, cool cafes, and smaller museums, I think.

And then you want to focus on some smaller museums, some places, some landmarks that people don't even know back home.

But when you talk to the Paris Francophiles, they'll be like, oh, you went to the.

For example, the covered passages.

You know about the covered passages?

I don't.

So 150 years ago, it was muddy, it was hard to, you know, everyone was on horses.

You couldn't go shopping in the rain.

It was disgusting.

They built these kind of like, when I say covered passages, I mean like a long, beautiful corridor with shops on the inside.

And they built a whole bunch of them, right.

Maybe even 200 years ago.

And then only like 10 of them have survived till today.

And they're these beautiful glimpses into Paris Pass.

And they've got everything.

Some of them are full of restaurants, some of them are full of little boutique kind of shops.

Okay.

Most of them are just beautiful.

So, like, for example, I'll give you a very tangible example.

The Gallery Vivienne Galleries like the Passage.

And you walk in there, it's these mosaic tiles on the floor.

Just even if you don't look in any window, it's a beautiful place to be.

Yeah, you want to go see those things when you go back to Canada and you say, oh, I saw the Gallery Vivienne.

The people who know will be like, this guy knows what he's doing, you know?

And I tell you, when you go home and say, I saw the Mona Lisa.

Nobody cares.

That's all.

No one cares.

And the worst is some people will ask, oh, you went to Paris.

Did you see the Mona Lisa?

That's the conversation ends.

Yeah, that's it.

There's nothing you want?

Yeah, take it to the next level.

So that's where I think you should start with those kind of things, you know.

Now what about some like local foodie favorites?

Wherever you say.

If people are looking to go to some more like budget friendly places that local Parisians love to go, where would you recommend?

Maybe in this neighborhood?

I think for me especially because I got two kids dinners don't happen anymore.

To be honest, we don't go out for dinner, but I go out for lunch quite a lot.

And I think what I do sort of lean towards are the cool cafes that are doing lunch spots.

So there's a good place around the corner from where we're sitting called Kids Cafe.

Cafe Mericourt in English.

There's a place called Holy Belly, which is a really.

So you want it trendy and cool.

These have been a trendy, cool place for the last couple years.

But also this coffee.

The cafe movement is going wild here right now.

My job is to keep up with this stuff.

I've given up.

There's so many new cafes.

We're sitting in one that's pretty cool right now.

Passag.

They're just opening all over the place.

So I would recommend you go lunch in some of these places for dinner.

Another, I'll give you the ultimate tip for a cheap dinner.

Something I want you to do while you're here.

There's these places, they're really old and they're called bouillon.

Have you heard?

You know what I'm talking about.

I don't.

They're like, they built them for the.

Workers.

To have cheap food 100 years ago, whatever.

And they're all extraordinarily beautiful restaurants.

I mean like, like you walk in, it's like an Instagram is dream.

The food is like unworldly cheap.

Okay.

You could eat.

If you don't get a lot of extra things, you can have dinner, dessert and wine for like €15, which is nothing for the city.

But the food is very average.

Like it's average.

It's classic French food.

I don't really like old spirit, but when I'm in there, I'm like, this is a paradise.

Visually, like, the ambience is amazing and it'll be better than.

What was it called?

Sorry, it was.

They all got different names, but there's like the word Chartier.

Chartier in English.

Or Bouillon.

Like B, O, U, I, L, L, O, N, I think.

But they're all over the place.

There's Maybe.

There's maybe 10 of them.

And they're busy.

They got queues, and the queues move quick.

It's very like.

It's not.

It's the show.

The waiters are out there moving quick.

Sometimes they'll write the.

They'll do the.

The bill on the table with a pen on.

On the paper on the table.

You know, it's a big show and it's a.

It's not a touristy trap at all.

Like, all the locals go there.

So.

So there's one near Vapublique Republic Square, not far from where we are.

There's one in Pigalle.

There's one in Montparnasse.

They're all over the place.

I'll write it so you can put it in your show notes.

Okay.

Okay.

So that's.

That'll keep you going for every lunch and every dinner and every coffee.

Excellent.

Good luck.

One last question.

I know normally when I'm doing trips like this, I've got my family along with me.

This time, I'm on my way to a conference over in London, so I'm traveling solo.

And here.

Here in Paris alone for the weekend for solo travelers.

Any.

Any specific recommendations?

Anything that jumps out to mind that you would say is kind of a can't miss or.

This might sound like a tourist trap, but I think the Moulin Rouge is really cool.

Really?

Yeah.

I think I've been to a couple of the dances over the years.

Yeah.

And it's so historic and it's so fun.

And I think a lot of people around the world are scared that it might be a bit, I would assume.

Very cheesy and touristy, but.

No, but it's.

It's not.

Or is.

But it's.

It's still worth seeing.

Like, when I went there last, fairly recently, I was like, with all due respect to them all, like, I love it.

I think it's great.

But I was like, it's silly.

It is silly because they're wearing big feathers on their head.

Like, it's a silly thing, but it's fun, you know?

And the reason I say if you're going solo, like, I live in Paris.

I'm.

You know, there's a lot of nerdity, but I don't think it's a big deal.

But a lot of people traveling with Kids, my go with your kids.

Also traveling with a big family of mature kids.

It's very small and like it's huge, but there's not much room.

And it's like the idea of bringing in even young kids or old kids just kind of a drag.

But like if you're by yourself or it's just you and your partner or whatever, I think it's, I think it's a, a night out that you'll remember.

And it doesn't have to be Moulin Rouge.

There's a million cabarets.

Really, there's like a million of them.

From the big famous ones to the ones.

There's like three people in the audience and I think it's more fun than.

People think in terms of where to stay this time around.

I'm staying in an Airbnb and I'm surprised to see Airbnbs are quite cost effective here.

And there's quite a few, you know, quite, quite nice or quite cool Airbnbs throughout the city that you can, you can get quite cost effectively.

But beyond Airbnbs, I mean anywhere you would recommend in terms of like a go to place.

It's so hard because it depends like if, if you're a 90 year old woman listening to us, my answer is going to be so different for.

If you're a 16 year old guy.

Yeah.

If you're a family or solo traveler, whatever.

But I think my usual advice is there are a few things that you should not be too budget worried on and accommodation is one, like stay as central as you can.

Okay.

There are some neighborhoods that are cool, like Montmartre, the 18th is really cool and it's a little bit further out.

Okay.

But you can get that wrong too.

You can stay in the wrong part of that district and you won't enjoy it.

But the one thing is like, look, you're here for a couple nights, your time is surely very important to you.

You don't want to be staying too far out that you've got to commute to get to the good stuff.

Okay, so like when I say central, the districts, there's 1 to 20 and it spirals out from 1 in the middle to 20 in the distant suburbs.

Okay, so basically the higher you go, the further you're getting out of snail.

Right?

So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, all the way around to 20 up in the, in the northeast.

And I would tell people, if you can stretch the budget, stay in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, okay, maybe even 7, 8, 9, 10 or 11.

But like, you know, also the other thing I say spend money on, I know everyone's on different budgets, but when you get into the airport, I recommend people take a taxi.

I don't know if you.

Did you take a taxi?

I chose to take the metro and wow.

I would definitely recommend the taxi because it was a really bad experience.

There you go.

I'm glad you said that.

Because it's €50, €60 for the taxi and you get door to door, you don't have to carry your luggage.

Even if you have the most lovely metro experience ever and everyone's nice to you, you still got to carry luggage down the steps.

Well, my family just like I've traveled around the world and cities with different public transit.

The app here didn't work.

It kept glitching out.

I couldn't buy my ticket.

My backpack got caught the gate.

And that's the thing.

The problem with that is that's your first impression of Paris.

And I think that sucks.

And it killed like 90 minutes of kind of screwing around with it.

That I should have been, what a.

Terrible first impression into this wonderful city.

So if you can't stretch, everyone's got different budget.

But if you stretch it to the €60, the cool thing about a taxi ride from either of the two airports to pretty much any hotel, if it's kind of central, is that ride just gets better by the minute.

So you're out in the suburbs, like where the airports are, and you just gradually it becomes these housemanian buildings.

You get across the big ring road, you start seeing more and more apparition into the windy streets.

And then you're at your hotel and you step out of the cabin to your hotel or your Airbnb.

You, you don't need to lug your luggage through the streets, which is kind of embarrassing in a chic city like Paris.

Door to door, best money that you can spend.

And then if you stretch it, stay in a.

In a central place as well.

That's my tip.

Two very, very quick last questions around that.

One is, can you get rideshares out of the airports here?

Do they allow, like Uber?

And I've never heard of anyone doing it.

Okay.

But it, it might be possible.

Might be possible.

And then if people let me just add you, you can take the metro and there's nothing wrong with it.

I really do.

Like, I would do it.

Yeah.

But for your first impression, if you've.

Got the budget stretch and that your time is your focus, I don't think.

Everyone should do it, but I think I just want to make that clear?

The metro is.

Metro does well.

Metro's lovely Metro.

One of the first.

Yeah.

Anyhow, what was the second?

And then the second question is if people have a choice in terms of airports they're flying into.

I've always just given to Charles de Gaulle, but I'm not familiar with the other.

If I had personally about a choice, I would always go with Orly.

Okay.

Because it's smaller and it's way more user friendly and Chaldeguard is so busy and sometimes there's like the stories of.

Thank goodness.

I've never been affected by it.

But like you're waiting an hour and a half, two hours to get to.

Their immigration, super busy airport.

Yeah.

Talking about bad first impressions, you know.

So all is usually I don't.

Yeah, it depends where you're flying from, obviously, but.

And it's quicker if you're staying on the left bank.

You can get in really quickly and they've just improved it so that you can take a minute.

Metro.

A really good Metro from Orlais to Gare Leon, which is close to where we're standing now.

Yeah.

And I live near Gare Leon and I got.

How's this for an advert for.

I got from the plane seat to my couch seat at home in 40 minutes.

He's like, isn't that amazing?

Yeah, I should work for Marbles.

Not telling anyone.

It's good because I could.

I've never had that experience in my life.

So.

Yeah, I mean, I'd aim for Orly.

If you're fortunate enough to have the choice, go for Ori.

Well, not surprisingly, super helpful tips for you.

And I know, you know, people probably are very familiar with your.

Your podcast the Eiffel Tower, but they might not know you also do walking tours here at Karen Paris.

So people are interested and have the time to sign up for one of those.

Where can they find out more about your walking tours?

You can go to my website, the eifltower.com tours.

And what I do is we've got a whole team of people that do these, you know, If I got 30 seconds to.

Absolutely.

A lot of tours I think are really boring and they stand.

The guide stands at a statue and tells you what year it's from and a king's name, the unit.

My tours are like sort of real discovery tours, telling stories, slipping through courtyard doors to see little treats and treasures, these kind of things.

And like I said, we got a handful of great guides, but I do a Monday morning tour every week.

Something like 95% of the time, it's me that's leading it and I go around the Marriott and I been a really nice way to meet listeners and fans of the show.

So you want to meet me?

That's the best way to do it.

The Monday morning tour.

All right, awesome.

Thank you for your time.

My pleasure.

Thank you so much.

So following this conversation with Oliver, I.

I basically spent the next two days.

Going and checking out much of what he recommended throughout the city.

Certainly the covered passageways that he suggested are really at campus, and I would highly recommend going and checking out some of those throughout the city.

Galeries Vivienne that he mentioned was beautiful.

Two that I really enjoyed were Passage Bordeaux and Montre Mar and Passage Joufrey, two other covered passageways.

And the second one there, Passage Jouffre had a great hotel in it as well, quite reasonably priced historic hotel called Hotel Chopin.

So that if you're looking to stay in one of the covered passageways, that could be a unique opportunity for a great place to stay as well.

And right around the corner from that was a great vintage store called Kilo Shop, has a couple of different locations in Paris where you could buy vintage clothes.

Buy the Kilo.

And when I came back to Paris a few weeks after this with my daughter, took her to Kilo Shop and definitely got her her recommendation as well.

Those bullion restaurants that he recommended, you know, I did check out several throughout the city as well.

Bullion Chartier that he had suggested and another one called Bullion Pigalle.

Bullion Pigalle was a little bit more modern of the two.

Bullion Chart was very much more classic.

You know, it's been there for hundreds of years.

It is really, if you're only going to go to one, that's really the one I would go check out.

Both had, you know, great food, great atmosphere.

You know, it's not the best French food you're ever going to have, but it's really solid.

Great French food in a great atmosphere, but it attracts a large crowd as well.

So expect to wait, you know, around peak meal times, but if you can go kind of off peak hours, you can often get in much shorter or even without a wait.

So just factor that into your planning as well.

We're going to be coming back with one more episode right after this.

Again, looking at that second trip to Paris and what to see and do this time.

Getting a bit more into the markets of Paris and talking with some of the market vendors that we had a chance to meet up with on our trips there this year.

And also some of my recommendations for my favorite hotels in the city and then finishing off with one.

Can't miss that.

I would really recommend everyone check out if they have an opportunity to when they're visiting Paris as well.

So please come back for that next episode.

And if you're enjoying the podcast, it's super helpful to us if you can go on to Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Just take a couple of minutes and drop us a review, a rating that really helps people find this on the various different podcast platforms.

And we'd love to hear your experiences in Paris.

So please feel free to drop us a line with if some of our suggestions were helpful in planning your trip, any recommendations you have or any questions you have as well.

We always love to get listener questions that we'll answer as well.

So hope you come back for our next episode as we continue on with a second trip to Paris.