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It’s been a little while since I have left Paris so my recollections of the city aren’t as crisp as they were for my other posts, which were written as I was in the process of leaving them, but I have a few lasting impressions.

Paris is definitely a city with character. The people, the buildings and the culture are absolutely unique to the Paris. However, this isn’t necessarily a good thing.

As a tourist, it was easy to discover that there are a limited number of points of interest. We visited the Louvre, the Champ Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame Cathedral and the Eiffel Tower. Besides these main attractions, there are little other draws to Paris. At least nothing you wouldn’t be able to find an equivalent version of in London. Why make that comparison with London? We’ll it comes down to the different experiences I had of each city.

London works, its clean, its easy to traverse (the buses and Tube are exceptional) and there are numerous landmarks that it takes more than 2 weeks to ensure you’ve seen all of them. I saw Paris in the space of 4 days and was done, I was ready to go home.

Paris is crowded, mainly due to the fact that there are so little attractions. We went to the top of the Eiffel Tower, which was a 30 minute wait to go up and a 45 minute wait to go back down again. There were so many people up there, you didn’t get a chance to enjoy the moment because you hardly got a chance to stop. The Arc de Triomphe was equally as busy and the Louvre was worse! I saw the Mona Lisa, but I didn’t get a chance to take it in and enjoy the Mona Lisa because there was an effective press scrum of tourists trying to get a look and take photos, it was hot and crowded and is a poor museum when compared to the British Museum.

The times I did enjoy in Paris was when we were eating. There is almost an over supply of good restaurants, so it was easy to find a quiet place to have a good meal. In that aspect, it was better than London, but it may be the only concession I can give Paris.

Paris was also the only place I felt worried for my personal safety and that of my belongings. I felt compelled to continually check that I still had my wallet, camera, iPhone and passport as the scores of apparently Bosnian Gypsy beggars and shady tourist targeting street venders was a little unnerving. Continually being asked “do you speak English?” followed by a request for money by the beggars was a little weird, especially as they were everywhere! Train stations and tourist attractions. If you are able to coordinate yourselves across a city like Paris in such large numbers, you shouldn’t be begging! The street venders offering cheap Eiffel Tower models (1 Euro!) were a little confronting. With half a dozen on each street corner, you are continually being hassled! If I said no to the first, why would I say yes to the any of the next 5?

With graffiti on the INSIDE of train tunnels and dog poo on the street, Paris is a city that has become worn. Where London and Tokyo have managed to re-invent themselves whilst holding on to the most important parts of their history, Paris has seemingly been left behind as a world capital, desperately holding on to the times of Napoleon and the times were they were once competitive with London as a world capital.

Paris is definitely a place you have to visit at least once in your life, but once is definitely enough.