FAST FACTS
CURRENCY: Euro
OFFICIAL LANGUAGE: French
OTHER LANGUAGES: English spoken by many, particularly those in the service industry
SHOPPING TOOLS: See our useful Shopping Tools section for links to assist you with your travel/shopping plans to any one of our featured cities including: currency exchange, translation, time differences, sizing charts, visa information etc.
Paris: City of a Hundred Villages
Few cities in the world are as delightful to shop in as Paris. Imagine strolling down a narrow, cobblestone street and ducking into a tiny boutique, where the owner greets you with a polite “bonjour, madame” and leaves you to browse through a beautifully presented selection of unique clothing or hand-crafted jewellery. In the next block, you might happen upon a bustling street market, where you’ll find incredible deals on pashminas or purses between stalls selling brie and baguettes. Or will you find retail nirvana in an upscale department store, where you can take a break between floors at an intimate champagne bar?
Paris has it all, and ChicWalks.com is here to guide you to it. Our mission is to help you find that perfect handbag, exquisite scarf or divine little dress — something that will make your friends back home exclaim “where did you get THAT?” Your answer will be as precious as the unique items you found: “In Paris.”
Paris is abound with shopping opportunities, including: French, European and international chain stores; grand department stores that are historic monuments; discount department stores and outlet malls; consignment shops; overstock, designer resale and clearance outlets (known by the French terms degriffe and depot vente); pedestrian-only permanent market streets; temporary street markets filled with stall after stall of merchandise; historic covered shopping malls (known as passages); flea markets; even shops in Metro and RER stations — the variety is almost endless. Our Paris walks are accompanied by famous landmarks as back drops — the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Seine River — adding frequent bouts of ‘wow’ factor to your excursions.
Check out all our walks, pick ones that tickle your fancy and get ready to tread the cobblestones for great finds.
Finding Your Way Around
First, you need to know that Paris is a series of neighbourhoods called arrondissements. They are all numbered and start in the centre of the city, continuing in a snail-like spiral from there. Take a look at our city map and you’ll see what we mean. Every address is identified not only by its street and number but by its arrondissement, you’ll get the hang of it. Paris can be confusing to navigate because of its thousands of streets going this way and that, squares and boulevards. We recommend buying from a news kiosk a complete Paris map book that lists ALL streets in every arrondissement. The tourist maps provided at the hotels show only some of the main streets.
Opening Hours
Most Parisian shop owners take Sundays off to spend with family and friends, which means you’ll find a lot of shuttered store fronts, including major department stores. Some areas are open for business on Sundays, however, and we’ll tell you where they are.
Many stores, especially small boutiques, also observe the French tradition of lunch-hour closings, usually an hour or more between noon and 2 p.m. And some restaurants and cafes close between the lunch and dinner hours, usually 2 to 5 p.m. In general, don’t expect opening and closing hours to be standardized, even in a mall or a passage — individual retailers and restaurateurs set whatever hours they see fit.
Holidays
Parisians head out of town en masse during the summer months, particularly August. So you may be frustrated to find that the boutique or cafe you’re looking for is closed, even in an area that’s swarming with tourists. And the French also take their statutory holidays seriously — there are so many that they’re hard to keep track of, but many are in May. Some stores and cafes stay open for those, but many don’t.
Sizes
French clothing sizes are different than North American ones — the rule of thumb is to subtract 32 to get your size. So a size 42 blouse, for instance, would be a size 10 in the U.S. or Canada. Even so, most Parisian women work hard to stay slim, so you may have to go up a size to get the fit you’re used to. Generally, French clothes are made to closely fit the body — jeans fit snugly around the waist and thighs, and jackets are nipped into the waist. If this isn’t your style or if you’ve got a larger frame, look for lines called grand tailles. But if you have a small frame, you’ll be in fashion-fitting heaven.
Taxes and Tips
All goods sold in France are subject to a 19.6 per cent value-added tax called TVA. This amount is included in the base price, so what’s on the tag is what you’ll pay at the register.
Visitors from outside the European Union can get a refund of 12 per cent on this (called détaxe). Currently, the minimum amount for a tax refund is 175 euros, and to qualify for a tax refund, you must spend that all in one store on the same day. So it’s a good idea to plan a big haul in a large department stores or pool your purchases with friends. The grands magasins have areas right in the store where you can fill out the forms to claim the détaxe. Make sure to follow all the procedures, which involve mailing the completed form to the French government.
Tips are included on bills at restaurants and cafes, so don’t make the mistake of tipping again on the entire amount. However, it’s customary to leave anywhere from half a euro extra for a cup of coffee or a few euros for a restaurant meal on top of this.
Getting the Bill
‘Café Society Paris’ dictates that you can stay as long as you like at a café or restaurant without getting hustled out the door, which is nice. The downside is that your waiter will only bring your bill when you can get his/her attention and ask for it. When you’re ready to leave, politely say “monsieur (or madame), l’addition, s’il vous plait” or make a motion with your fingers like you’re signing your signature in mid-air. Either or both will save you the frustration of waiting for a bill that never arrives. If you’re planning a very short pit stop, ask for the bill as soon as you receive your meal or drink and pay right away if you require change.
Niceties a Must
In all but the largest department store, shopkeepers will expect you to greet them a pleasant “bonjour madame” or “bonjour monsieur” when you enter and “au revoir” when you leave. Ignore this at your peril — no matter how bad your French is, you’ll get a much friendlier reception if you play by the rules.
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