10 Best Comfortable Mens Walking Shoes

Best Comfortable Mens Walking Shoes in 2023

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The Top Ten: Visiting Paris for the First Time

Paris, the City of Lights, the world's most beautiful city. If you are making your first visit to Paris, consider these suggestions on where to go and what to see. Comfortable shoes are a must and leave the calorie counter at home.

Perhaps you've experienced 'déj�vu', which is French for 'already seen'. It's a feeling that someplace, something or someone seems terribly familiar when surely you've never been there, done that nor met before? That's how I felt as a a first-time visitor to the City of Light and perhaps you will, too.

Paris Opera, Place de l'Opéra
Stepping foot my first time in Paris was upon exiting the Métro at Place de l'Opéra, jet-lagged and dragging an old wheel-less suitcase up the steps to encounter the beautiful facade. Built in 1875, it is a youngster of a building by the Parisien architectural timeline, but a stunning one. Place it on to your list of ten things not to miss for a first time visit to Paris and don't worry if you've run out of daylight hours, as it is even more beautiful illuminated at night. If you've seen the exterior, thought kindly of the storied Phantom trapped inside, then you're all done. Really no need to go inside. which is frequently locked, unless you want the tour or you are planning to attend a performance. Tickets for the tour are sold at the side entrance around the back.

Bateaux Mouches
For many years, I avoided the tour boats on the Seine, considering them to be too touristy. I was wrong. Hopping on an hour-long cruise to escape the heat on a steamy day last June, it was thoroughly enjoyable seeing the city from the inside out. The tour gives you a quick look at highlights up and down, left bank and right bank along the Seine and a sense of the city's geography. The boat offers the ideal vantage point for observing the famous flying buttresses of Notre Dame, situated on its own island, Ile de la Cité. There are lunch and dinner cruise options, day or evening tours, open top or canopied boats for rain, narration in several languages. The tour boats are operated by a handful of companies departing frequently from several starting points along the Seine. If you head for the EIffel Tower, you will see signs for Pont de l'Alma where tickets are sold or which may be reserved on line.

Eiffel Tower
Several boat tours disembark near the Eiffel Tower, which is the centerpiece in a park called Champ de Mars, once the entrance to the 1889 World's Fair. Tour brochures cite this as the most-visited monument in the world, it is the symbol of Paris and its tallest at about the height of an 81-story building. Those with acrophobia can enjoy a coffee on a park bench while first-time visitors select a level of ascent from the three viewing platforms above. Tickets are purchased according to how high you wish to go and whether you'd prefer to take the 300 stairs for each level or the elevator, the top level being accessed only by elevator. There are two restaurants on the first and second levels in the tower, one of which, Jules Verne, is Michelin-starred. Whether you go up or not, the atmosphere around the Eiffel Tower is fun, French and full of families. Curiously enough, looking up through the steel mesh from the base of one of the four corner pillars is an astonishing way to enjoy the Eiffel Tower, too.

Champs Elysées
The avenue is a mile and a quarter in length and pedestrians have both the Arc de Triomphe and the Place de la Concorde to admire in full view for its entire length. Wide and lined with chestnut trees, it is often referred to as the most beautiful street in the world. Some of the highlights nearby are not actually on the avenue but a block off it on either side, including the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, which are beautiful glass domed art museums. Also, the Elysées Palace, seat of the French government, is a block over at 55 Rue de Faubourg Saint Honoré. Arrive at the Arc de Triomphe, built by Napoleon to honor his victories which are engraved on it, to face a crazy intersection of dare-devil local drivers. It is called 'L'Etoile', or star, because twelve avenues converge here. Ensure that you use the underground passage for crossing the road to the monument and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers of World War I. Hearty visitors can walk up to the top of the arch via 292 circular stairs for great views of Paris.

Musée d'Orsay and the Louvre
Exploring the gigantic Louvre would take the better part of a week. Among the highlights are the ancient Greek statue, Venus de Milo, and the 16th-century Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece, the Mona Lisa, the latter which most visitors remark upon being so much smaller than expected. The strikingly modern glass pyramid extension to the Louvre, controversial when proposed and built in the 80s, has now become generally accepted and admired. Regardless of the beautiful architecture of the Louvre and the stunning setting in the Tuileries park, many visitors prefer to head across the park and just over the river to the Musée d'Orsay, the former train station converted to impressionist art museum in 1986 to house the vast collection. Museums are closed on Mondays. The only time I have ever seen a short line at the Musée d'Orsay entrance was at opening hour, 9:30am. Thursday evening is late night, until 9:45pm and admission is free on first Sunday of the month. During French school holidays, the museum is generally packed. Manet, Monet, Degas, Van Gogh, Renoir, Cézanne, Surat, Sisley, Gauguin galore.

Musée Rodin
"The Thinker" and "The Gates of Hell" reside in the garden of this beautiful house, formerly the sculptor's workshop, now the Rodin Museum. "The Kiss" is inside and even the museum weary enjoy this small charming museum and gardens with an outdoor cafe and restrooms.

L'Hotel Nationale des Invalides and Napoleon's Tomb
On the way in or out of the Rodin Museum in the 7th arrondissement, you can walk past the military museums and monuments documenting France's history of campaigns, successes and failures. Under a huge, frescoed baroque dome, sits the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte, former Emperor of France. Here his remains were placed in a second burial following their return to France after Napoleon's exile and death in St Helena in 1821. The tomb is a moving sight, especially the words inscribed above the door taken from his last will and testament, "I wish my ashes to rest on the banks of the Seine among the people of France whom I so much loved."

Sainte-Chapelle and Notre Dame
A climb up Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris to lean out over the rooftop gargoyles is the reward for climbing up nearly 400 ancient stone steps. If you know the famous 1831 book by Victor Hugo with Quasimodo, the hunchback who was made deaf by ringing the bells, it's fun to see. The biggest of the five bells weighs thirteen tons, so you can see what Hugo meant. Back downstairs and inside to admire the world's most famous cathedral, built over 200 years beginning in 1169. Check out the famous gothic Rose window from 1225 and then head for nearby La Sainte-Chapelle, also on the Ile de la Cité. Since the mid-13th century, this much smaller gothic structure has often been referred to as the most beautiful in Paris. Sainte-Chapelle is open most days, closed for lunch and open late on Wednesday evenings throughout summer, but much better to appreciate the amazing stained glass windows when the sun is shining. Many Notre Dame visitors never learn about this church.

Montmartre and Sacré-Coeur
The white domed church sits atop the hill, above the adult entertainment district where the Moulin Rouge is located. Artists have gathered in this district for 160 years. A walk up the hill, stopping for delicious onion soup gratinée, gives an opportunity to have buy a painting from a street artist or take a seat while you have your own portrait done. It's uphill all the way, so if you don't care for the crest of the hill with its 300 steps, there is a passenger elevator railway, called 'funiculaire' going up and down to Sacré-Coeur basilica, with its famous mighty organ. lt is safe, carries over two million people a year, takes just one and a half minutes and costs one metro ticket each way.

The Jardin du Luxembourg
Where Marius and Cosette first meet in "Les Misérables", the beautiful gardens are in the 6th arrondissement on the Left Bank, featuring immaculate formal English gardens surrounding the Luxembourg Palace commissioned by the widow of Henry IV, statues on pedestals, the Medici Fountain and more fountains, a marionette theatre, a vintage carousel, an apiary, a rose garden, tennis courts, pony rides, home of the French Senate and views of the Panthéon. Grab a chair or two, read a book on the grass, watch a local artist paint a canvas resting on an easel, play a game of chess or ping pong or sail a toy boat on the pond.

Annual Events in Spring and Summer
On Saturday May 14, 2020 all museums are open for free from 6:00pm - 1:00am. The French Open, one of the four tennis grand slams is held on May 17 - June 5, 2020. Bastille Day is the 14th of July and the 98th Tour de France bicycle race covering over 2,100 miles is July 2-24, 2020. During July and August, the beach, a hugely popular man-made two mile stretch of sand along the banks of the Seine will be set up with free sun loungers, volleyball, pétanque, swimming pools, kayaking, evening entertainment, a novel idea since 2002.

Final thoughts: Wherever you choose to explore on a first visit to Paris, plenty of walking is guaranteed. If you're happy to try the Métro, it is highly recommended, fast and easy. Tickets can be purchased in bundles of ten, called a 'carnet', saving a bit over single purchase. Watch your belongings. Enjoy long days and late summer evenings, with sunset falling between 9:00pm and 10:00pm throughout the summer months.