Crazy Things to Do in Paris
- Launched by the French Ministry for Culture in 1982, Fête de la Musique is not your typical music festival. It occurs annually in June. The metro and bars are open all night. Professional and amateur musicians are invited to perform in the various quarters. The streets are packed as the festival is free and citywide. It makes for a wild time as it gets later into the night. The music seems to get louder, the crowds thicker and the alcohol flows more freely.
- Bastille Day is France's version of America's July 4th celebration. It commemorates the falling of the Bastille on July 14,1789, and thus the old monarchy during the French Revolution. The day begins with a large-scale military parade up the Champs Elysées and finishing with various parties in the different arrondissements. The most popular in the arrondissements are at the firehouses. Each arrondissement opens their firehouses and charges admission, usually about 20 euro for the general public to enter. In essence, the firehouse turns into a mini-club for the night with music and cash bars that go well into the morning. Unlike Fête de la Musique, the metro does stop running around 2 a.m.
- Not as crazy as the celebrations mentioned above, but still different in its own right, is the Sewer Museum or Musée des égouts de Paris. Sewers have been draining Paris since the 13th century and it is not until Napoléon Bonaparte that the sewers were covered. Today, tunnels that were begun in 1850 are still available to be explored here. In the 1970s, boats were used to take tourists up and down the tunnels, but today the museum is visited on metal grates in the sewers beneath the Quai d'Orsay on the Left Bank.
Visitors looking for an alternative view of Paris and those who are a fan of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables should definitely stop by the Sewer Museum and see first-hand the inner workings of a large city.