All running smoothly as far as Gare du Nord. Arrived on time.
First challenge: get some Euros. I’d read that some taxis don’t take cards so left the rest of the family and dashed off to find an ATM. The station ones are out of action for some reason so head over the road to a nearby BNP. I’m aware that there are heaps of touts around Gare du Nord who will approach you to offer you an inflated rate, so we head right from the Eurostar exits to the official taxi rank to ensure we get a proper taxi running a meter.
As it turned out, I wouldn’t need the cash after all…
It’s all going well at first: a friendly security guard ushers us into an express line for families and people requiring assistance. As there’s four of us, plus a couple of big cases, and a pram, we take the first “big taxi”. Things take a turn when I give the driver our destination: we’re staying at Residence Nell in the 9th (
The Residence Nell | Opera Paris ****), which is only about 2 kms away. Taxi man is not happy.
Oh there’s an extra charge, because this is a big taxi, he says, in French, and chucks a lazy €58 fixed charge on the meter. While I don’t remember the “arguing with taxi drivers” chapter in Tricolore 1, I have enough schoolboy French to argue back: «Ce n’est pas vrai. Il faut utiliser le mètre. C’est la loi!» (I’ve no idea if this is strictly true, but I know I’m being ripped off here).
We continue to argue, in my best school French, as he continues to drive in the direction of our hotel. He downgrades the meter to €32. The lowest he can possibly do. I’m pretty sure that the correct meter fare for this journey should be €10-20 max.
Our discussion escalates when I ask him for his registration details, start taking photos, and tell him I will email the taxi regulator.
At this point I would probably have paid €30 just to get away, but he promptly resets the meter to 0, and tells us we have to get out of the car.
After we get our luggage out he stands there next to the car with the boot open so I can’t get a shot of the license plate, not realising I already have this from the sticker inside the vehicle (the one that has all the details of the correct fare structure).
Of course I will absolutely be emailing
https://www.prefecturedepolice.inte...-des-transports-particuliers-de-personnes-t3p — I’m sure it will do nothing, but it’ll make me feel better.
So we walk the last 200m to the hotel, having paid nothing, dragging our cases along the streets. As scams go, I think it needs some work.
Just before we reach the hotel, we stop off at the Patisserie over the road for a restorative sweet treat, cases, pram and all. While we’re deciding, an older local lady pops into the shop. We tell her to go first.
As she finishes up her order, she buys two extra pains au chocolat as a present for our girls.
We couldn’t get two more contrasting experiences of Paris if we tried: a taxi driver trying to scam us; a local randomly buying pastries for our kids for no other reason than just because.
Bienvenue à Paris.
. They never last long on any serving plate in my experience.
