Paris trip, DH nervous.

[MegCleary]

We have booked an Airbnb, two dds coming too and we go in two weeks. We were planning stuff and I linked DH to the apt and looking at the latest reviews there is a homeless encampment mentioned outside the kitchen window, the review mentioned being watched eating breakfast if you don’t close the blinds.
DH is VERY risk averse and now stressed about going.
Anyone had any issues like this? Advice appreciated.

Paris is a bit grim though

Paris is a wonderful place to visit and the tents are sadly, a part of it. £550 is a lot to lose and you need to just behave sensibly like in any city. Don’t walk about with your phone out, no fancy watches etc. you’ll be fine and will have a great experience. Paris is fabulous.

The area is absolutely fine - just google mapped it and it is super convenient, on a nice church square and close to the metro - well away from some of the grimy streets round the GdN and GdE train tracks.

Paris is great for a short trip with children - we took ours for a long weekend over the Easter break, saw the museums, did some shopping, and ate lots of good food. As long as you don't take any late night walks round some of the really edgy districts outside the main tourist drags then you'll have no problems.

Hello - it's Paris. It's a world city and a world centre of art, culture, fashion and food. It has a gritty edge like any world city, but writing it off as "a bit grim" just makes you sound incredibly shortsighted and parochial.

We recently stayed in a cheap hotel on Blvd de Magenta about 5 mins from Gare du nord and it was fine. As others have said, take the usual big city approach of secure bag, no phones out etc. We were out from after breakfast til evening, on foot, and never experienced any issues in the area apart from beggars outside Gare du Nord when we arrived. So I say go for it.

Maybe ask what happened to me before assuming that everyone's experience is the same?

The last time i went to Paris solo, I was followed down the street by a couple of men. They scared me.

The next day, I was smoking at the time. A man came up to me and asked me for a cigarette. I said "sorry I don't have any more."

He came right up to me. I was sitting down on a bench.

He leaned over me, glared at me and then made an action to headbutt me quickly into the face, but he stopped at the last second. He did it to scare me.

I use Gare du Nord a lot, not the nicest part of Paris, which is a lovely city imo, but I think you will be fine.

We’ve just had some Parisians visit us in London who refused to use their phones outside because of all the phone snatching videos they’d seen online!

BTW I'm far from Parochial. I've travelled to many countries.

Paris is the only place that I've had my bag stolen too.

Thanks for all the replies, am an optimistic sod a think it will be grand. Which is why DH is the balance and cautious one. The one thing he would like to do is a dinner/lunch cruise any recommendations?

I'm sorry you had a bad experience, truly, but writing off the entire city is a bit of an overreaction. There are lots of reasons to want to go to Paris, and the vast majority of tourists have a lovely time there and don't experience any crime.

Yeah I'm sure it's lovely for some people

I wouldn't go back. That's just my opinion.

But mumsnet is a place for sharing personal opinions and thoughts after all

Wow! There are other nice places in France but none are as unique as Paris.

We went on a cruise having bought an amazing picnic lunch from a boulangerie - was a great way to sit down for a couple of hours and eat lunch with all these incredible buildings just drifting by! The meal-included cruises by comparison were hellishly expensive.

That could happen to you anywhere, not just Paris.

And this means that you write off an entire city as ‘grim’?

It sounds very unpleasant and I’m sorry. However, unpleasant things happen everywhere and nothing about either of those encounters is unique to Paris. Have you ever lived in a major city?

Jesus, the people writing off Paris as a ‘bit grim’… 😂 I think they’re trying to come off as worldly, but they just sound ridiculous.

Yes of course I've lived in a major city.

The worse things that happened to me, by far, were in Paris.

Are we not entitled to have our own opinion?

Do you want everyone to write 100 posts saying "paris is amazing".

Why. Because that's what you think?

Learn to accept that people have different opinions.

She’s going to Paris. It’s booked. She’s looking forward to it despite her husband’s nerves. Why come here and tell her that her chosen destination is ‘a bit grim’ according to you because someone threatened to headbutt you once when you wouldn’t give them a cigarette? It’s a ludicrous thing to say about an enormous city.

It smacks of someone who is posturing to appear ‘worldly’ as I said, and trying to feel the big-I-am on an anonymous forum.

I'm not the only person who said that Paris is grim, on this thread.

I'm not the only poster who said that they suffered from criminals in Paris on this thread.

So why are you only having a go at me?

It could but in recent years Paris gets absolutely slated for the antisocial behaviour and its uncleanliness so perhaps worse than most.

Slated by whom, though? The type of Mners who come on saying that they’d booked to go to London at half term, and are now very anxious and is it safe? Or should they cancel? Or if they go can they walk to see the sights from their hotel in Earl’s Court because they’ve heard the tube ‘isn’t safe’?

No, the type of MNers who have been to Paris and suffered crime.

As other posters have also said on here.

One said that her car was broken into in Paris.

My car was broken into in Cromer. DH was mugged at knifepoint outside our house in Herne Hill. I was once assaulted on the street in Oxford. The only time I’ve ever been scammed via my credit card was in rural Leicestershire. So, yes, I once had some guy try to rub against me on the Paris mètro, but crime or anti-social behaviour happens everywhere. Someone having their car broken into in Paris is no reason for a general boycott.

I wouldn't say that crime and anti social behaviour happen everywhere.

I've travelled to many big cities and nothing happened to me at all.

I've travelled to Paris a couple of times, and something bad happened to me every time.