Hi! We're Kim and Jason. We got married on June 5, 1999 in Kim's parents' church, and one week later we were on a plane to Paris, which neither of us had ever been to, and neither of us speaks French, and we had a guidebook, a phrasebook, and about $2,400 total that we'd been saving in a coffee can since we got engaged. (Well, a savings account. But the coffee can was the idea.) A lot of people told us Paris was too expensive for a honeymoon on our budget. We're here to say it isn't, if you're careful, and it was the best week of our lives so far.

Kim wrote most of this from the notebook she kept every night. Jason did the budget table and the parts about the Metro, because he became obsessed with the Metro. Photos: we shot nine rolls of film and they are at the drugstore being developed as we write this. Jason's brother has a scanner. We'll get some up as soon as we can. Until then, use your imagination and pretend we look tan and relaxed.

Left Dayton Friday afternoon, connected through the East Coast, flew overnight and landed at Charles de Gaulle at about 8 in the morning Saturday having slept maybe two hours between us. Took the RER train from the airport into the city (see The Metro, below, for our first mistake) and found our hotel, which was a little two-star place on a side street in the 5th arrondissement, near the Latin Quarter. We'd booked it by fax from a listing in the guidebook. The room was tiny, the elevator held two people if they were friendly (we were), the bathroom was down a half-flight of stairs, and it was clean, quiet, and about 520 francs a night with breakfast (bread, butter, jam, coffee) included. The woman at the desk spoke enough English to make fun of our French, kindly. We loved it.

They let us drop the bags but the room wasn't ready, so we walked, half asleep, down to the river, and there was Notre-Dame, just sitting there, like it was nothing. Kim cried a little. We got a crepe from a stand and ate it on a bench. Went back, slept four hours, got up, walked around the Latin Quarter, ate dinner at a little place with a fixed-price menu chalked on a board outside (three courses, 75 francs each), and were in bed by nine.

Went to Notre-Dame first thing. It's free to go in, and on a Sunday morning there was a service going on in the middle while tourists walked around the edges, which felt strange but the singing was beautiful. The rose windows are the thing. Then we waited in line to climb the towers (a separate entrance on the outside, a fee, and about 380 steps in a spiral staircase so narrow you can't pass anybody). At the top you're right next to the gargoyles and you can see the whole city and Jason took a whole roll up there. Your legs will be jelly. Worth it.

Walked over the little bridge to the Île Saint-Louis, which is the smaller island behind the cathedral, and had an ice cream cone that was the best either of us has ever had. Wandered the Marais neighborhood in the afternoon, sat in a park, watched old men play boules. Dinner was a baguette, cheese, a tomato and a bottle of wine (about 20 francs at a grocery) on the quay by the river with our feet hanging over the water, along with what seemed like half the young people in Paris. Total cost of the best dinner of the trip: about 55 francs.

Important: the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays, so plan around it. We went Monday. We went in through the underground shopping entrance instead of the big glass pyramid, on a tip from the guidebook, and the line was much shorter. It is enormous. You cannot see it in a day. Don't try. We picked three things we had to see and then let ourselves get lost.

The Mona Lisa: it is smaller than you think. Everyone says this and it's still a surprise. It's behind glass, there's a crowd in front of it fifteen deep with cameras, and the guard says "no flash" every four seconds. We looked at it for about a minute. Then we turned around, and the giant painting on the opposite wall (a wedding feast, the size of a garage door) was, honestly, more interesting to us. Also saw the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory on the big staircase, which was Kim's favorite thing in the museum. Then the Egyptian rooms until our feet gave out. Four hours, and we saw maybe a tenth of it.

Lunch was a sandwich from a bakery eaten in the Tuileries garden outside, in one of those green metal chairs, which are free to sit in. Dinner: a little place near our hotel, omelettes and fries, and we were asleep by ten.

Since the Louvre was closed, this was Eiffel Tower day. We got there when it opened to beat the lines and it still took a while. You can pay less to climb the stairs to the second level than to take the elevator, and we're 25 and cheap, so we climbed (around 700 steps to the second level, in the open air, inside the girders, which is a lot cooler than the elevator anyway). Then we paid for the elevator from the second level to the very top. It sways a tiny bit. Kim did not love that part. The view is the view; there is nothing to say.

Walked across the river to the Trocadéro for the postcard view looking back, then along the river. Afternoon on the Champs-Élysées up to the Arc de Triomphe (you go UNDER the traffic circle through a tunnel; do not try to cross on foot, people were honking at a family who tried). Went up the Arc too, since we were on a going-up-things kick. Dinner was at a café on the Champs-Élysées and it was our one real splurge and it was fine but not as good as the omelette place. Lesson learned: eat where the tourists aren't.

Day trip. You take the RER C train from the city out to Versailles, about 35-40 minutes, and walk up to the palace. Versailles is closed on Mondays. (Between it and the Louvre, our week had a lot of "closed on" to work around.) The palace is gold and mirrors and crowds; the Hall of Mirrors is unbelievable even packed shoulder to shoulder. But the gardens are the thing, and they go on for miles: fountains, hedges, a canal you could row on, and the little farm village the queen had built to play in. We rented bikes for an hour and rode around the canal. Packed a lunch and ate it on the grass. Got back to the city at seven, sunburned and happy.

This is the day of the train ticket mistake. See Our Mistakes.

Our favorite day, which is why this page lives in the Montmartre neighborhood. Took the Metro up to the north part of the city and walked up the hill (there's a little funicular railway you can ride with a Metro ticket if your legs are still recovering from the towers; we walked up and rode down). Sacré-Cœur is the big white church at the top and from the steps in front of it you can see all of Paris laid out below you. We sat on those steps for an hour. A guy with a guitar was playing and everybody sang along whether they knew the words or not.

Behind the church is the old village part of Montmartre with the square full of painters doing portraits of tourists. Kim got hers done in chalk for 100 francs, which was probably too much and she doesn't care, it's going over the couch. Wandered the little streets, found the vineyard (there's a tiny vineyard in the middle of the city!), had lunch at a café on a corner. Dinner back in our own neighborhood at the omelette place, again. The waiter recognized us and brought a free dessert because we told him it was our honeymoon. We'd told everyone all week. It works.

The Orsay is the old train station on the river full of impressionist paintings, and we both liked it better than the Louvre: smaller, brighter, and you can actually see the paintings. All the ones from the posters in your dentist's office are here. Two hours, and it was enough.

In the afternoon we did the tourist thing and took a boat ride on the Seine. It's not cheap but it's an hour of sitting down, which by Friday was worth a lot, and you go under all the bridges and see everything from the water. Last dinner: we'd saved up for one nice one and went to a bistro the hotel lady recommended with a 145-franc menu. Duck, and a chocolate thing, and a bottle of wine, and we sat there for three hours and nobody hurried us. Walked back along the river. The Eiffel Tower was lit up gold against the dark with the big countdown-to-the-year-2000 sign on it showing how many days were left, and we saw it from the bridge and that was the end of the trip, really.

Early train to the airport (validated our tickets this time). Long flight. Dayton at night, Kim's dad at the airport, and a whole rented-hall's worth of wedding presents waiting in the apartment. Jason unpacked and went right to the computer to figure out how much we'd spent. Kim went to bed.

The Paris subway is the best thing about Paris after Kim. There's a station every few blocks, the trains come every couple of minutes, and the map is on every wall. How it works: buy a carnet, which is ten tickets at a discount, from the window or the machine. One ticket gets you anywhere in the city on the Metro, with transfers, as long as you don't leave the station. You put the ticket in the turnstile, it pops out the top, you take it and keep it until you exit; inspectors do check. Lines are numbered and named by the station at each end, so you look for the end station in the direction you're going. Transfers are marked correspondance. If you can read a map, you can ride the Metro in ten minutes flat. We never took a cab the whole week.

The RER is the bigger, faster suburban train that also runs through the city and goes out to the airport and Versailles. Inside the city, a Metro ticket works on it. Outside the city, you need a different, more expensive ticket for the distance, from the window or machine. Which brings us to...

1. We didn't validate our train tickets. On the way back from Versailles we bought our RER tickets at the window, walked right past the little orange punch machines on the platform, and got on. An inspector came through, asked for tickets, looked at them, and explained in patient English that a ticket that hasn't been stamped in the machine (composté) isn't valid, and that this is a fine. He let us off with a warning because we were so obviously clueless and Kim said "honeymoon" about five times, but the couple two seats up got fined. Stamp your ticket in the orange machine before you board a train. (Metro turnstiles do it automatically; it's the train platforms where you have to remember.)
2. We got to the airport RER platform Saturday morning and bought regular Metro tickets for the airport train because we didn't understand the difference. Had to go back up and buy the right ones. Thirty minutes lost while jet-lagged.
3. We ate on the Champs-Élysées. Twice the price, half the food, and the waiter was the only rude one we met all week. The little places on side streets with the menu chalked on a board were better every single time.
4. We didn't check what's closed when. Louvre: Tuesdays. Versailles and the Orsay: Mondays. Many small shops: Sunday and Monday. We got lucky and only lost half a morning to this. Look it up before you go.
5. We packed too many clothes and not enough film. Bought film there at twice the price. Bring a brick of it.
6. We didn't learn enough French. Even "bonjour, madame" when you walk into a shop, and "merci, au revoir" when you leave, changes how people treat you completely. We learned that by Tuesday and it made the rest of the week nicer. Nobody was mean to us for being American; a few people were short with us for being rude without knowing it.
7. We didn't bring good walking shoes. Kim's feet are still mad at her. You will walk five to ten miles a day. Sneakers. Nobody cares what you look like.

Franc amounts converted at about 6.15 to the dollar, which is what our bank statement came out to. Numbers are rounded; Jason kept every receipt in an envelope and you're welcome to the exact figures if you e-mail him. He'd like that, actually.

So: a week in Paris for two, everything included, for under $2,500. The airfare is half of it. The rest, we spent about $30 a day per person on everything, and we never felt like we were missing out. If we'd skipped the boat and the splurge dinner and the portrait we could've done it for less, but we wouldn't trade those.

Coming soon: pictures (nine rolls at the drugstore, back next week), a page of Kim's postcards home, and Jason's complete Metro station list, which nobody asked for.

Other trip pages on GeoCities we read before we went and liked: Our Hawaii Trip: Maui and the Big Island and Hank & Peggy's Great American Road Trip. For the rest of the Paris neighborhood, see Paris and Le Petit Cafe, which made us hungry.

Planning your own trip? Questions? Write us at [email protected]. We love talking about it (ask our families).

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Last updated: September 12, 1999 • © 1999 Kim & Jason B. • Married 3 months, 1 week and counting