Rick Steves Paris, 26 years ago

I'm leaving for Paris in 8 days. I need to get this old video out it will be interesting. I've been watching the more recent times ones, which even predate my last 2 trips.

My first 4 visits to Paris were in '87, '89, '90, '92.
They were wonderful times, with many great memories.

Very true too with the memories and interesting to see changes and what remains in Paris. My first four trips there were in 1973, '77 (solo), '84, and '87 solo. On that '87 trip both my US Passport and a visa for visiting France were mandatory,.... all were summer trips.

I remember the rooftop observation deck at Samartaine. Great views of Paris and the Eiffel Tower. I remember there were drawings of the skyline tellling you what you were seeing (the names of the buildings.)

Paris had crowds in those days it just seems as if they were manageable. Sadly, now, Paris at times feels like a packed subway car at rush hour. Before you could get the feel of both residents and tourists in the center of the city. Now, everything is about the tourist.

C'est dommage.

Fred, I most certainly remember the visa's.....Do you remember the reason why ? My hotel around the gare du nord was 78 francs....the good old days, I guess.

@ James/NY....My 1987 trip to France (and Europe too) was the only time when I had to get a visa from the French Consulate in SF prior to going to France. It's on my US passport. Getting a visa before going to western Europe ie, France 1987, I've done it, likewise with commie Prague in 1973. Then I got the visa for the CSSR when I was in Paris, and in Sept 1977 for the CSSR again, I got that visa in Vienna.

To answer your question, I believe the reason (don't know if this is accurate as to why) was that US was ticked at Mitterrand since he refused US planes based in the UK permission to fly over French airspace on the way to bomb Libya for its role in putting a bomb on the US airliner that blew up flying over Scotland in 1986. Obviously, everyone on the plane died...horrific. In retaliation, France slapped a visa for US tourists going over to France in 1987. Visa or no visa I was going over anyway in the third week of July 1987. I don't remember how much I paid for it but do recall being inside the French Consulate among les français and waiting for the visa.

When I mentioned this visa requirement by the French government to a French professor who had taught in Calif as visiting exchange prof, she didn't think it was such a big deal and simply said to me, "You do that to us." I had forgotten that. True... she had to have an US visa to come to US as a normal, regular tourist, as did the west Germans I met in 1970s and '80s in SF.

When I went back to France again in the summer of 1989, the visa requirement had been dropped. The proof is in my passports then.

@ James/NY....In 1987 and '89 too, I stayed at a small hotel at Gare du Nord, totally unplanned, having arrived solo from Boulogne via Amiens after 23:00hrs without a place to stay. I know...lovely. I ended up staying in a two star hotel right across the street from the station. In 1989 I planned it better, knew which hotel to stay at Nord. Yes, the price was ca 75-78 francs for a single. They asked me if I wanted air condition: if I did, that would be an extra cost just as breakfast was. That you would have pay extra for AC stunned me, so I said no. No way was I going to pay extra for AC. even though it was August.

When I go back to Paris, as I did in May/June 2017, I still stay at Gare du Nord.