I can't undestand all the hatred for Paris on MN

[2026IsMyYear]

Just that really - i just don't recognise the Paris that people post about on here!

I have been many many times & spent a month there not too long ago

I adore it & would happily consider living there.

So much to see & do, so much history & beauty

I am obsessed with modernism & early 20th century literary history. There are amazing museums, galleries & libraries. Love the flea markets & clothes & shoe shops.

Great food & wine!

I've never found it smelly (certainly no worse than major UK cities) & i have never felt intimidated or been followed etc

I am now in my 50s & a v seasoned savvy traveller & I've been visiting Paris since i was 20.

I adore it but often feel like an outlier here!

I'm glad of it. The fewer grumpy moany english tourists clogging up Paris the better for me when I go there 😂

I have never seen any hatred of Paris on here. Tbh, you sound like you’re trying to advertise it.

I love it too, and lived there for a while in my 20s before choosing a London job when it came to a London/ Paris choice. I still have friends there and visit often. It’s a great city.

This. ^ What hatred @2026IsMyYear ??? Can you link to a couple of threads?

I visited Paris last year, what a dump it has become.

Sad really, I used to visit regularly and it was never so dirty and full of pickpockets.

Oh, the OP’s not inventing that! It shows up weirdly often, often in strangely exaggerated terms, as though it’s some kind of fiesta of violent crime and bad air.

Lady bug is popular with a certain age of child so my dd would love to go but sadly too expensive at the moment. Never seen anything negative about Paris on MN or tbh anywhere. Just sadly too expensive for us at the moment...maybe one day.

I agree with you OP! It’s always been complained about on MN for some reason.

I must say I didn't like it the first few times I went but then something clicked and I love it now!

I think it was just being there in groups and not feeling “in charge” of what I did that I didn’t like. Went as the sole adult with my kids and adored it!

I love this post!

Agreed.
I think we get sold some idea and are disappointed rather than seeing the lovely bits for what they are.
I’ve never found anyone ruder than the sullen staff roped into doing a Sunday lunch in the Uk.
The city is old interesting and good-humoured if engaged the right way.

There is an odd subset of people on Mumsnet who love to dislike something that most other people like...I think it makes them feel special. Paris is one that comes up a lot! See also, any film or TV show that has received broadly positive reviews and people like and any celebrity that is popular in anyway. London also gets a lot of hate on here.

I love it there and just booked a long weekend with DH and DS in the autumn as DS has never been. Very excited but what I’m finding surprising is how much more complicated it seems to be now to book entry to attractions, lots of forward planning and needing to be online at exactly a week before etc. In my head it’s still 20
years ago and you can rock up and do things spontaneously but realising this is no longer the case… it’s the same with everything now I guess!

Well, those are the things that seem to be insisted on — feeling unsafe, and the streets and/or the metro smelling of urine!

It’s one of those cities - like Dublin - that has this lore and people go expecting mystical, romanticism and find it’s really expensive, a tourist trap full of Americans, dirty, and heaving with petty crime like pick pockets and phone knicking.

Apart from that, it’s great!

I’ve seen more posters being absolutely obsessed with Paris than I’ve seen posters critical of it. I just put it down to MN skewing Francophile.

I’m indifferent to it, really. Not somewhere I’d actively choose to go again, but not somewhere I’d choose to avoid.

I also adore Dublin! I lived there in my 20s & again in my 30s & have a lot of friends there. I'm there about every 6 weeks

Again, i just don't understand the hatred for that beautiful city either!

@2026IsMyYear I love Paris and am going on my own for three nights in July, after my last solo trip was gate crashed by DD.
I’ve done all the usual touristy things, including the Catacombs etc. but please tell me some different things to enjoy this time. I love art, history, fashion and people-watching!

Can you link to any of these anti Paris comments?

Is go during fashion week and people watch. Or even better, figure out how to snag an invite to PFW.

I love Paris, but suspect that a lot of people go there wanting to see the tourist sites - Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur, Louvre - and are then surprised - and disappointed- when they’re faced with, well….tourists, rather than the romantic ‘city of light’ they thought they’d get.

Like any big city it has it’s seedy side, but if they stepped away from the main tourist places they’d see so much more: beautiful architecture, hidden streets and squares, fantastic street markets, museums, elegant gardens; it’s a city that lends itself to wandering and exploring, or just sitting with a glass of something outside a cafe and watching the world go by. For many tourists, the desire to rush around and tick the big items off their list means that they miss all the above which, for me anyway, is what makes Paris such a lovely place to visit.

It’s quite lacking in originally. They’re the same about London. Although sometimes I suspect they’re connected to the people who from time to time come down and make it smell of urine!

It was the word fiesta that made me laughed!

Paris is alright. I'll tell you what though - if ever you hear of a truly bizarre crime happening on the French news - the amount of times it seems to have occured in les Yvelines, the region just to the west of Paris is uncanny.

Things like, "Mushroom picker finds shoe by river. On inspection from the gendarmerie nationale the shoe contained a severed foot.

Mde Dupont : 'I didn't disturb it unless they came back for it later.'

The case continues."

That's a real thing I remember reading.

Another weird bunch of people from les Yvelines came on holiday on Corsica near me. Grandma, aged in her late eighties, got lost in a thunderstorm, (allegedly) so they left it for a few days in case she turned up, flew back to Paris, settled back in the 'burbs and then reported the poor woman missing!

Paris is fine. Just don't get lost in the Yvelines weeds.

I think all capital cities have their odd bits on the outskirts. Seemingly quite genteel but with a dark side.

It's a mismatch between expectation and reality. Some people lead quite sheltered lives and expect a capital city of 7 million (I think!) to be like Emily in Paris.

And, you see it here on MN all the time- there is a huge cohort of people out there whose major requirements for a tourist destination are that it's easy, safe and clean. And God forbid that its inhabitants are more preoccupied with their own lives than with centring tourists.

it ties with New York as my favourite city so YANBU