Hi, I'm Rick Steves,
back with more of
the best of Europe,
and this is one of
about a million reasons
this place is called
"The City of Light."
You got it --
we're in Paris.
Thanks for joining us.
♪
As we return for
another visit to Paris,
we're enjoying an intimate look
at Europe's grandest city.
One of the great things
about Paris is how,
amidst all its grandeur,
the little joys of life
are still embraced.
We'll feel the pulse of Paris,
from village-like neighborhoods
to a magnificent
pipe organ loft.
We'll visit
a megalomaniac's tomb,
tour the world's
biggest art gallery,
and celebrate the mother
of all revolutions
with a big, patriotic
Bastille Day bang.
Paris was born
over 2,000 years ago
on this island
in the River Seine,
and many of its
highlights can be seen
from popular
sightseeing boats.
There's the Notre-Dame...
And the Louvre Museum...
And of course the Eiffel Tower,
built to commemorate
the 100th anniversary
of the French Revolution.
Paris glitters with history.
Even the bridges,
bestowed on the city
by kings and emperors,
tell a story.
Beyond its glorious
monuments and buildings,
Paris is a city
simply in love with life.
Delightful parks let commoners
luxuriate like aristocrats.
Here in Luxembourg Gardens,
there's a tranquility
and refined orderliness
enjoyed by young and old.
The gardens are
impeccably tended.
And for generations,
children have launched dreams
on this pond.
To establish
a foothold in Paris,
I like to choose a neighborhood
and make it home.
Strolling market streets
like this,
Paris has
a small-town charm.
For those learning the fine art
of living Parisian-style,
market streets
like Rue Cler are ideal.
With the help of my local friend
Delphine Prigent,
each shop provides an insight
into Parisian life.
Delphine's planning a dinner
party and she's taking us along.
Shopping on a street like this
is just a delight, isn't it?
It's really nice.
We are very lucky to able
to walk on the street
and have all these very
different shops
which are very good
for shopping.
'Cause in America,
there's one-stop shopping.
We go to one big place.
We have one-street
shopping here.
One-street shopping,
like a market street.
It's a market street,
it is.
I think for the first course,
it would be nice
to put some shrimps
and mayonnaise.
Okay.
And so you see you have
different types of shrimps.
You have, like,
different colors,
different sizes as well,
so I think we'll
go for the moyenne,
for the medium ones,
which are
very flavorful.
It looks very fresh.
So we'll have some meat tonight
as a main course,
and we'll use
a neighborhood butcher.
You know, my mum used to
come here, and...
Steves: So you can
trust the quality.
You can trust the quality,
you know that
they give you
advice as well.
So I'm going to have
roasted beef,
and I'm going to ask the man
for some tips.
[ speaks French ]
[ man speaks French ]
[ speaks French ]
[ speaks French ]
Merci, monsieur.
Steves: So what
did he say?
So he said
like 25 minutes,
and for six people,
1,200 grams.
1,200 grams. For six?
Big people.
[ laughs ]
So, Rick, a dinner
without a cheese course
is not complete,
so we have to go
and pick some cheese.
Before dessert,
after main course,
and we'll have
an assortment of
different cheeses.
So you create a variety.
Yes.
I create a small plate
with different cheese.
So we'll have some --
this one looks good,
some goat cheese,
and some blue, some camembert,
and some hard cheese.
Steves: Good socially,
I think.
It is very good because
you have more wine.
More wine, more cheese,
more wine, more cheese.
So once we know
what we are eating,
we are going to
choose a wine.
Oh. Beautiful shop.
Yes, it's very nice.
Bonjour.
We are going to
talk to the expert
and we are
going to tell him
what I'm going to
have for dinner
and he's going to pick
the right wines for us.
Steves: In France,
with so many wines
to choose from,
expert advice is welcome.
He recommends a white
for the shrimp,
a full-bodied red
from the Rhône Valley
for the beef,
and another white,
this time from the Loire Valley,
for the cheese plate.
Nice to have the advice
for the little details
of the menu.
In France, any good meal
comes with fresh bread,
and that requires a visit
to the local boulangerie.
Prigent: So you'll have
some bread for the dinner.
No meal without
today's bread.
Today's bread?
No bread, no party.
No bread, no party.
So we'll have
some baguettes
and we'll have some
special bread as well
for the cheese.
Oh, so it's
a variety of bread
with the cheese course.
Steves: And the final touch,
flowers for the table.
Prigent: It's very bright
and they're going to be
beautiful on my table.
It's great.
Steves: We're hopping the Métro
to visit another neighborhood.
Paris has the most extensive
subway system on the continent,
and it's clearly the fastest
and most economic way
to get around town.
Trains come frequently
and the system is easy to use.
The Marais is another distinct
Parisian neighborhood.
I'm always impressed
by how you can just sit
and savor Parisian
street scenes like this.
Once a mucky slum --
"Marais" means "swamp" --
it was gentrified in
the 17th century
by King Henry IV.
With Henry's vision,
Place des Vosges
became the centerpiece
of the finest
neighborhood in town.
Stroll along its elegant,
gallery-lined arcade.
The park-like square is
a reminder that Paris
is not just a collection
of world-class museums.
For millions of people,
it's home --
a place to meet a lover,
enjoy a relaxed retirement,
or raise a family.
In the 18th century,
as Parisian high society
moved elsewhere,
immigrating Jews gradually
settled here in the Marais.
In the historic heart of
this neighborhood,
you'll find Paris'
Jewish Quarter,
with kosher eateries
and falafel joints
that draw
an enthusiastic crowd.
Strolling its
characteristic lanes,
pause and observe.
It's a celebration
of cultural diversity.
The Marais is also the city's
gay district,
much enjoyed for
its lively cafes and clubs.
And, straight or gay,
trendy Marais boutiques
make for fun
window-shopping.
Paris' original neighborhood,
the Île de la Cité,
is well worth exploring.
While a church has stood on this
island since ancient times,
the iconic Gothic cathedral
we see today,
dedicated to "notre dame,"
or "Our Lady,"
is only 700 years old.
You can brave the line for
a look at its interior
and climb to the top
of its bell tower.
But the church I like
to visit in Paris,
especially on Sunday mornings,
is St. Sulpice,
to enjoy
its magnificent pipe organ,
arguably the greatest in Europe.
For organ lovers,
a visit here is a pilgrimage.
After Mass, enthusiasts
from around the world scamper
like 16th notes
up the spiral stairs
into a world
of 7,000 pipes.
Before electricity,
it took three men
working out on these
18th-century Stairmasters
to fill the bellows
which powered the organ.
The current organist,
Daniel Roth,
carries on the tradition of
welcoming guests
into the loft to see
the organ in action.
As his apprentices
pull and push the many stops
that engage
the symphony of pipes,
a commotion of music lovers
crowd around
a tower of keyboards
and watch the master at work.
St. Sulpice has a rich history,
with a line of
12 world-class organists
going back over 300 years.
Like kings or presidents,
the lineage is
charted on the wall,
and overseeing all this,
Johann Sebastian Bach.
This sacred music
continues to fill
the spiritual sails
of St. Sulpice,
as it has for centuries.
The good life in Paris --
music, culture,
an appreciation of
its rich heritage
and fine architecture --
is easy to take for granted,
but today's freedoms
and a government
that seems passionate
about its people's needs
didn't come to France
without a struggle,
and the pinnacle of
that struggle,
an epic event that
reverberates in the spirit
of its people to this day,
was the French revolution.
The symbolic launch pad
of the French Revolution
was a notorious prison
called the Bastille,
which stood on this square.
In 1789,
angry Parisians stormed it,
released its prisoners,
and tore it down.
It's one of Europe's
great non-sights --
there's nothing left to see.
While Parisian back lanes feel
peaceful and content today,
during times of revolution,
they hid hotbeds of discontent.
Before French political leaders
learned the wisdom
of subsidizing
the cost of baguettes,
hungry peasant mobs
would set up barricades
in narrow lanes like these.
Generals like Napoleon
were fond of quieting
the streets by loading
chains and nails into cannon
and giving the malcontents
what they called
"a whiff of grapeshot."
Later, the government
commissioned Baron Haussmann
to modernize the city.
He ripped up most of
medieval Paris
and created the city's
grand boulevards.
Great city planning,
but really,
it was great
military planning.
Heavy artillery
and grand armies work better
with long, broad streets
as battlefields.
Paris was made easier to rule,
and more elegant.
Today, like a citywide game
of "connect the dots,"
wide Parisian boulevards
lead to famous landmarks,
like the Pantheon...
The old opera...
The Arc de Triomphe...
And the Hotel des Invalides.
Built by Louis XIV in the 1600s
as a veterans' hospital,
this massive building
now houses
Europe's greatest
military museum,
and, at its center,
under a grand dome which
glitters with 26 pounds
of thinly pounded gold leaf,
lies the tomb of Napoleon.
It's hard to imagine a building
dedicated to a mortal
that's more impressive.
Gazing at Napoleon's tomb,
I love to ponder the story
of the charismatic leader
who took France from
revolutionary chaos
to near total dominance
of Europe,
and then,
catastrophically,
to near ruins.
Just a humble kid from Corsica,
Napoleon Bonaparte
went to military school
here in Paris.
He rose quickly
through the ranks
during the tumultuous years
of the Revolution.
By 1799,
he was the ruler of France.
After that,
within five years,
France had conquered
most of Europe,
and Napoleon declared himself
emperor of it all.
As the head of France's
grand million-man army,
he blitzed Europe.
His personal charisma
on the battlefield
was said to be worth
10,000 additional men.
Imagine Napoleon the emperor,
all of Europe at his feet.
The laurel wreath, the robes,
and the Roman eagles
proclaim him
equal to Caesar.
As emperor,
he worked feverishly
to implement the ideals
of the revolution into
a well-designed
and modern society.
Probably no single individual
destroyed so much
and yet built so much.
To this day,
the French remember Napoleon
for his legacy --
infrastructure,
education system,
and legal code.
But, ultimately,
his megalomania
got the best of him.
Napoleon invaded Russia with
the greatest army ever assembled
and returned to Paris
with a frostbitten fraction
of what he started with.
Two years later,
the Russians marched into Paris,
and Napoleon was deposed.
After a brief exile
on the isle of Elba,
in 1850, Napoleon skipped parole
and returned to France,
where he bared his breast
and declared,
"Strike me down
or follow me!"
For a hundred days,
the people of France
followed him,
until finally in Belgium,
Napoleon was defeated
once and for all by
the British at Waterloo.
Exiled again, Napoleon spent
his final years
on a remote island
in the South Atlantic
until he died in 1821.
The Arc de Triomphe
was finished just in time
for the funeral procession
that welcomed Napoleon's body
home from exile in 1840.
The arch is
a memorial to France's
many military campaigns,
and is particularly stirring
on national holidays,
when it flies the French flag.
It crowns the city's main drag.
Europe's grandest boulevard
is the Champs-Élysées.
Built for the queen
in the 1600s,
it originated
as a carriageway
leading away from
the palace gardens.
The population of France is
becoming increasingly diverse,
and this is particularly true
here in its
cosmopolitan capital.
The largest immigrant group
is from its
former colonies in Africa,
especially Muslims from
North Africa.
Paris' mosque
is a reminder that,
even though its
colonial empire is long gone,
cultural connections
remain strong.
The challenge for both France
and its immigrants
is to assimilate comfortably
into an ever more
multi-ethnic society.
Welcoming visitors,
the mosque's tranquil courtyard
provides a calm
and meditative oasis
in the midst of
the hubbub of Paris.
The adjacent Cafe de la Mosquée
provides a tasty alternative
to French cuisine.
Parisians and North Africans
alike enjoy couscous,
tagine, and a characteristic
glass of sweet mint chai
with the ambiance
of a Moroccan teahouse.
Nearby stands the home
of the Arab World Institute,
a partnership between France
and 22 Arab countries.
With a museum,
art galleries, and library,
its mission is to
build understanding between
the Arab world and France.
And from its
rooftop terrace,
the rest of the city beckons.
The Palais du Louvre
was once the palace
of the ultimate kings
and the biggest building
in the entire world.
Today, the vast,
horseshoe-shaped palace,
built in stages over
eight centuries,
with its striking
20th-century pyramid entry,
houses the world's grandest
collection of art treasures.
These people are waiting
not to get into the Louvre
but to buy a ticket
to get into the Louvre.
With a city museum pass,
I save money, and,
more importantly,
lots of time.
Anyone with this pass
can walk right in.
Once inside,
take a moment to enjoy
the modern pyramid entry,
a work of art in itself.
It leads to three wings.
We'll limit our visit
to the Denon wing.
The Louvre's huge collection
covers art history
from ancient times
to about 1850.
It can be overwhelming.
A key to enjoying your visit --
don't even try to
cover it all.
Enjoy an excuse to return.
Remember to look up
for a sense of how,
long before it was a museum,
this was Europe's
ultimate palace
and home of its
mightiest kings.
In fact,
the collection includes
royal French regalia,
such as the crown of Louis XV
and the crown Napoleon wore
on his coronation.
This museum is one of
the world's oldest,
opened to the public during
the French Revolution in 1793.
I guess it just makes sense.
You behead the king,
inherit his palace
and a vast royal
collection of art,
open the doors, and voila --
a people's museum.
The statue of Winged Victory
seems to declare that
the Louvre's ancient collection
is Europe's finest.
Two centuries before Christ,
this wind-whipped masterpiece
of Hellenistic Greek art
stood on a bluff celebrating
a great naval victory.
And just past her stands
an entourage of twisting
and striding statues,
each modeling
the ideal human form.
Venus de Milo
has struck her pose
like a reigning beauty queen
for 2,500 years now.
There must be more
famous paintings here
than in any other museum.
The crowded grand gallery,
while a quarter mile long,
displays only a small part
of the Louvre's collection.
We'll feature
a few paintings
representative of
three styles --
Renaissance,
Neoclassical,
and Romantic.
Francois I,
who ruled through
the early 1500s,
was France's Renaissance king.
His private paintings became
the core of
the Louvre's collection.
It was trendy
for kings to have
a Renaissance genius
in their court.
One of Europe's greatest kings,
Francois Premier,
got Europe's top genius,
Leonardo da Vinci.
Leonardo's work epitomized
the aesthetics
of the Renaissance,
and the Louvre's collection
of his paintings demonstrates
his lasting influence.
His Virgin of the Rocks
illustrates his trademark
sfumato technique --
the subtle modeling
of his faces,
and, in landscapes,
how he shows distance
by making it hazier
and hazier.
And this portrait,
Mona Lisa,
believed to be of the wife
of a Florentine merchant,
is Leonardo's
crowd-pleasing masterpiece.
With her enigmatic smile,
she seems to enjoy
all the attention.
Her body is solid
and statue-like,
a perfectly balanced pyramid,
angled back so we can
appreciate its mass.
Her arm,
level with the frame,
adds stability
and realism.
And again,
Leonardo creates depth
in Mona's dreamy backyard.
For me, this painting
sums up the Renaissance --
balance, confidence,
and humanism,
the age when
the common individual --
Mona Lisa --
becomes art-worthy.
Like the museum,
Napoleon was a product
of the Revolution.
One of the Louvre's
largest canvases shows
Europe's grandest coronation --
Napoleon's.
The pope traveled from Rome to
Paris to crown Napoleon,
but Europe's most famous
megalomaniac,
crown confidently in hand,
pretty much ran
the coronation show himself.
The pope looks
a little neglected.
The French Revolution was
all about ending kings,
so Napoleon
crowned himself emperor.
The politically correct
art style of the time
was Neoclassical.
Napoleon would approve of
everything in this room.
Greek, Roman, heroic,
or patriotic themes,
clean, simple, and logical --
it's pure Neoclassical.
This Parisian woman,
wearing ancient garb
and a Pompeii hairdo,
reclines on a Roman-style couch,
perfectly in vogue.
Neoclassicism was
an intellectual movement.
After all,
during the Revolution,
everything was subjected to
the "test of reason."
Nothing was sacred.
If it wasn't logical,
it was rejected.
The reaction to Neoclassicism
was a romantic movement --
"Romanticism."
Romanticism meant putting
feeling over intellect,
passion over
restrained judgment.
Logic and reason were
replaced by a spirit
that encouraged artists
to be emotional
and create not merely
what the eyes saw
but also what the heart felt.
What better setting for
an emotional work than the story
of an actual shipwreck?
In Gericault's
Raft of the Medusa,
we see a human pyramid
ranging from death and despair
at its base
to a pinnacle of hope
as one of the survivors
spots a ship,
which ultimately
comes to their rescue.
If art controls
your heartbeat,
this is a masterpiece.
The Romantic Movement
championed nationalistic causes
of the 19th century.
Delacroix's Liberty
Leading the People
shows the citizens in 1830,
once again asserting their power
and raising the French flag
at a barricade
in those troublesome
back streets of Paris.
This painting
and that struggle reverberate
with the French people
to this day.
France's national holiday is
July 14, Bastille Day.
That's today,
and that means a big party
as all of France indulges in
a patriotic bash.
In Paris,
that means lots of flags
and lots of parties.
Everyone's welcome
to join in.
Like towns and villages
all over the country,
each neighborhood here
hosts parties
until late into the night.
The local fire department's
putting on this party,
so I guess it doesn't matter if
the fire marshal drops by.
♪ Let's live it up ♪
♪ I got my money ♪
♪ Let's spend it up ♪
♪ Go out and smash it ♪
♪ Like oh, my god ♪
♪ Jump off that sofa ♪
♪ Let's get, get off ♪
Traditionally,
crowds pack the bridges
and line the river for
a grand fireworks display
over the Eiffel Tower.
[ crowd cheering ]
Paris is a cultural capital
with many dimensions,
and it certainly knows how to
celebrate its freedom.
Thanks for joining us.
I'm Rick Steves.
Until next time,
keep on travelin'.
Vive la France!
I hope there's
lots of wine.
We'll have more fun
with wine.
Oh, that's for sure.
Angry Parisians stormed it,
released its prisoners,
grabbed its arsenal,
and tore it down.
It's one of Europe's
incredible non-sights --
there's nothing left to see!
And never get enough of what to
me is the capital of Europe --
[ loud bang ]
Paris.
I'm Rick Steves.
Until next time --
ugh!
