Things you will find only in Paris

Things you will find only in Paris

Paris is unique! It is beautiful, historically rich, but it is also full of curious places and elements you will probably see nowhere else but there! If you notice anything else weird during your stay, please share in the comments, we will be glad to add it to the list! Here’s our list of things you will find only in Paris…

Unique bakeries

The first element foreigners who come in Paris are amazed by are the bakeries. Not especially by their size. You know the French like small things, but by what they contain! Firstly, the bread, there are lots of different varieties of breads, and above all the baguettes. A bakery without the French baguette is not a bakery, and France without bakeries is not France anymore. 320 of these baguettes are produced every second in the country! Secondly, real bakeries in Paris have to propose enough pastries for you to face the biggest dilemma of you whole life. You have the éclair au chocolat, the religieuse à la vanille, the millefeuille, and the fraisier. There is too much variety! I’m sure you will lose a lot of time trying to figure out which ones to pick!

Showing you such tempting pictures without telling you where you can buy them would be kind of cruel, right? So, here are some good bakeries locations: Pierre Hermé, there are about seven boutiques in Paris. One is located next to the Opera Garnier at 39 rue de l’Opera. You can get there by taking the metro lines 3, 7 and 8. The metro station is Opera. Then, you can also go to Ladurée, which make the best macaroons ever. Located at 16-18 rue Royale, you can take the metro lines 1, 8 and 12, and stop at metro station Concorde. And if you want French pastries with a twist, you can go to the more exotic Japanese confectioner Sadaharu Aoki, at 56 boulevard du Port Royal, on metro line 7, station Gobelins.

>> Read this article to know more about Parisian bakeries.
>> You will also enjoy this article that presents some of the best Parisian desserts. A few of them are the yummiest pastries ever!
>> If you want to know more about French food, read out five fun facts about it.

A place to bet on horses

The second oddness that has to be present on our list of things you will find only in Paris are the PMUs, which stands for Pari Mutuel Urbain, which means “Urban Mutual Bet” in English. The capital counts about 1500 of these places. There are actually bars in which most people come for the sole purpose of betting on a horse for the next races…

Cheese stores

Now let us talk about the fromageries, which are the shops where you can only buy cheeses. But such delicious cheeses… There are no less than 1600 kinds of them in France. Yes, you’re read it right. 1600 different ways of turning milk into something amazing! What is so special about the French is indeed the way we shop for food. When we have time to do so, we avoid the grocery and the supermarket, and buy each item in a specific shop. We buy meat in a boucherie, fish in a poissonnerie, baguette in a boulangerie obviously, and my personal favorite, cheese in a fromagerie.

>> Read our top 5 fun facts about French cheese.
>> You will also probably enjoy our top 10 French food specialty you can get in Paris.

The habit of people-watching

Another one of the things you will only find in Paris is all about the specifics of people sitting at the terraces of the cafés. I don’t know if it only happens in Paris, but it’s typical of Parisians! Parisian people, and even couples, never sit in front of each other, but side by side, so as to give free rain to their favorite pastime: people-watching. Commenting on the passersby’s outfits and remake the world while smoking a cigarette and enjoying a glass of red wine is more than a cliché. It is an old French tradition. From 1925 – which is the date of this famous black and white photograph– till today, nothing has changed.

>> Read about our favorite Parisian clichés.

Every city is unique and has its own customs. You will find typical and specific aspects of the city you visit everytime you travel. I hope you’ve enjoyed my article about the things you will find only in Paris. Let me know if you’ve found more stuff you’d like to share! See you soon in one of our tours!