Our Weblog: Excerpts of Exports
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Les egouts de Paris
You recognize the Eiffel Tower in Paris. (I included this picture to get your attention.) But what do you know about what lies beneath the Eiffel Tower?
When I developed my website to promote export and export services and training, I promised that it would not only be informative, but fun. I include information and resources that appeal to the young and young at heart so that you can combine your business trips abroad with a family vacation. Over the next weeks, I will be adding resources on activities and interesting sites for the children as well as the parents.
Now I don’t know if a sewer tour in Paris will strike anyone in the family as fun. I can say it is different since I myself took this tour with students a few decades ago. That was long before the Internet so finding unusual things to do required scanning the fine print in tourist books.
The sewer tours are covered in the book, Take Your Kids to Europe, 5th: How to Travel Safely (and Sanely) in Europe with Your Children by Cynthia W. Harriman. While I haven’t read this particular book, it does get many good reviews and with used copies at less than a dollar, what can you lose!
The sewers of Paris were planned during the reign of Napoleon I and constructed primarily during the reign of Napoleon III, the nephew of Napoleon I. Construction took 50 years. There was an expression they were taking sewage from all in the street to all in the sewer. Sewage from the bath, from the chamber pot and from the kitchen was typically dumped out the window and into the gutters in the street. It became fashionable and also functional when women’s dresses were shortened to eliminate contact with the vile stuff.
I don’t remember a lot about the sewer tour but I do remember that it did not have the same romance or sense of adventure as Jean Valjean’s exploits in Les Miserables. Nor did I get a sentimental feeling about my excursion in the sewers of Paris when I saw the Phantom of the Opera. But it was sort of fun and very different. I hardly find anyone who has taken le tour or le voyage if they went by boat when it was available.
While in Paris, you might want to stay in accomodations that also offer a different experience. I try never to stay in a hotel but rather a pension or a small hotel. One example is Hotel Saint-Merry in Paris, a small botique hotel in the Marais qarter of Paris. It looks like a great place and the reviews are excellent.
While I have not as yet had the opportunity to stay at one of the unusual hotels, I plan to on my next trip abroad. Staying in an unusual hotel is often not any more expensive than a regular hotel. But guaranteed it is much more memorable. .