1936 On the Continent

difficult to learn to know the real Paris and the real Parisian. We have said that Paris is a feminine city, and this is also true in the sense that you must woo her with alert senses and a tender heart for a long, long time, just like a woman, before she opens up to the stranger.
    But Paris is a worthwhile conquest. Those who confine themselves to tourist traffic areas and international haunts will no doubt enjoy themselves and get their money’s worth even if they learn no more about Paris than the Etoile and the Champs Elysées, the great boulevards and a few striking spots on Montmartre and Montparnasse.
    But if you have a sense for the charming, hidden treasures of the world, if you wish not only to flirt with a lovely city but completely to possess her, then you must “knock about” in the small
bistrots
(public houses), go to the small suburban cinemas, travel about by Metro—second class!—instead of by taxi, take your
apéritif
out on the Porte de Glignancourt or in the outer half of the Vaugirard, take a stroll on a Sunday afternoon in the small streets about the Place d’Italie or on the outer boulevards or on the Butte Chaumont, leaving your Baedecker at home and allowing chance and the mood of the moment to direct you. Then you will return home from your bold expeditions through the labyrinth of Paris with some sort of an interesting episode, a slang word picked up here or there, a Daumier scene impressed oh your mind—one of those precioustrifling experiences which will endure in your memory far longer than all the monuments and “magnificent” sights, and which constitute the principal and personal enjoyment of the intelligent traveller.
Living in Paris
    It is one of the peculiarities of this city that whereas the foreigner feels at home almost instantly in the street, at the cafés, etc., he feels strange and uncomfortable between the four walls of his hotel or apartment.
    Naturally, this does not apply to the great luxury hotels, whose atmosphere is the same all the world over, i.e., un-national and impersonal. Put an experienced traveller on an aeroplane with bandaged eyes, and remove the bandage in a medium-class hotel room at your destination, and he will immediately tell you, by the furniture, the wall-paper, and a hundred and one typical trifles, what city you are in. But set him down in a room at a luxury hotel and, unless there is other evidence, he will never be able to determine whether he is at the Ritz in Paris, Berlin, London, Vienna or Warsaw. Of this type of hotel we mention here:
    Meurice in the Rue de Rivoli, where King Edward VIII as Prince of Wales used to stay;
    The Ritz in the Place Vendôme, where you will still encounter what used to be described as the “international aristocracy”;
    The Crillon, with its famous view over the Place de la Concorde;
    The George V in the street of the same name, which is the youngest among the large hotels in the international class;
    And Claridge’s, the Bristol, Majestic, etc.
    Next to the exclusive luxury hotels there is in Paris, as elsewhere, the type of hotel that is defined as “first in the second class”; that is to say, large establishments like the Lyons’ hotels which provide the greatest possible comfort without possessing the exclusive note of the first-named category. However, the English traveller ought to know from the outset that French hotels of this category have not attained the high standard as their English equivalents. The service is not so prompt and unobtrusiveas in the English hotels, the house telephone does not function so accurately, the head porter is not a walking encyclopaedia, while the maids are less “ladylike” and the waiters less gentleman-like than on the other side of the Channel. On the other hand, the traveller has a greater measure of personal freedom in the French hotel, in that he is accorded unrestricted control of his room or suite, and is entitled to receive visitors of either sex at any hour of the day and night. This is regarded as a matter of course, and neither the head porter nor the rest of the staff take any notice of it.
Medium and Small Hotels
    As examples of the category defined above we mention the following hotels: Ambassadeurs on the Boulevard Haussmann (which is not to be confused with the famous restaurant of the same name in the Champs Elysées); Regina in the Rue de Rivoli, and Lutetia on the Boulevard Raspail.
    In addition, there are countless medium-class and