The Energon Pub

I've nearly been engaged to my fiance' for one year, and to mark the occasion, I was thinking of taking my sweetheart to Paris. However, I'm up against two problems: I'm on a tight budget right now, since things with work having gone well and I've taken a dramatic pay cut, and 2, I don't know how much spending money I'd need to actually go to Paris. 100 Euros? 200 Euros? If anybody could tell me how much I'd need, I would be most grateful.

It's been a few years since I was over there, so I don't know if a lot has changed—the dollar was pretty much equal to the euro when I went. Me and a couple of friends stayed in a hotel near the Notre Dame, which we found to be a great location because you could easily walk to some nice museums: Musee d' Orsay, the Louvre, and the Pompidou. We ate fairly inexpensively at small cafes and McDonalds since we were strapped for cash.

I guess it all depends on what you plan on doing. 100 euros won't last long, especially if you're planning on staying for a few days. You might get by with 200–300 euros if you walk to where you want to go and eat at cheap cafes.

I think you need to give us a little more info.

Where are you flying from, how long do you want to stay, how crappy of a hotel will you stay in.

Assuming you are from the US, and want to stay a long weekend (3 or 4 days), I would expect to spend at least $2000.

I base that on $500 a person round trip, 150ish a night for hotel, and the rest for food and entertainment.

It's been about 8-10 years since I went.

http://www.xe.com/ucc/
2,000.00 USD = 1,277.10 EUR

It was expensive for me back then for couple of reasons:
-I was younger = less income
-the Canadian dollar was crappier plus I was using Francs at the time (so the conversion was slightly different), the EUR was slowly being introduced at the time

My tips:
-Taking lots of pictures and videos over there should make it worthwhile as well
-Good souvenirs are a must
-Don't bother going to Euro Disneyland, it's virtally identical to the one in LA

Hope that helps

Unless it's changed in the last few years, most public cultural sites (galleries, museums, Arc de Triomphe, etc) offer free entry on the first Sunday of every month - it's a government initiative to promote interest in the arts.

You could walk everywhere to save cash, but if you want to visit more than a few places then a travel pass on the Metro (underground/subway) would probably be worthwhile for the time it saves.

On the upside, a lot of the sites are in fairly central locations or can be reached by going straight up and down Line 1 of the Metro. It's generally pretty easy to get to anywhere within the city itself using only the Metro, and most tourist sights are within that area.

A few recommendations: the Louvre is good for just wandering around; the walk up the Champs-Elysées from Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe is a tourist standard; likewise a walk around the streets of Montmartre or along the banks of the Seine (my experience is mostly of the northern part of the city, where I lived). For a more modern experience of the city, there are shopping areas all along the Champs-Elysées and Boulevard Hausmann near St-Lazare station.

Depends what you're looking for, really... check out any tourist guide to the city for more info. Don't miss the view over Paris from the steps of the Basilica du Sacré-Coeur - it's one of my favourite parts of the city (and not just because that's where I proposed to my wife!).

Glyph wrote:A few recommendations: the Louvre is good for just wandering around;

I've heard that it can be a quarter-mile walk just to get to a bathroom.

Of course, you'll have to watch out for Blast Cannon's inevitable missile strikes.