As one of the biggest cities in the world, within its 20 districts of this geographically small city, there are 2.5 million residents (accounted for, not including the high number of homeless people all over the place). On top of that, as the French love to tell you, it is the most visited city in the entire WORLDAccording to the city of Paris, there are 27 million visitors a year who don't live here.That means there are, on a very crude average, around 75 thousand visitors per day wandering around the city and not at work.
So write this down,
Point #1: Paris has a lot of residents
Point #2: Paris has a lot of tourists
Now, a lot of the visitors are European, and are here for short weekend getaways as you can travel almost anywhere in Europe within 2 hours (flight/train/care what have you). So on weekends, Paris has more tourists than the average number. Let's say roughly 25% more so than weekdays. So we are talking approximately 100 thousand tourists on weekends.
Point #3: There are even more tourists on weekends than weekdays.
So let's so, if you were a resident, what would you do? Run your shopping and our errands on weekdays and avoid the crowd on a weekend? Easier said than done! Here is what the average store opening hours are like in Paris:
Weekdays: 10am to 8pm
Saturdays: 9am to 6pm
Sundays: CLOSED
If you are an average working person that's in the office from 9am to 6pm, or even 10am to 7pm, the chances of you doing anything after work is next to impossible. If you are lucky, there might be a express grocery store near you that you buy something quick after work. Generally, you are probably pretty damn tired from the one hour commute squashed between the rat race and 75 thousand tourists who are wandering the narrow metro stations trying to figure out where they are going, or simply taking their time to smell the stench flowers.
Point #4: It is difficult to run errands and grocery shop on weekdays if you work
Point #5: You cannot run errands and tourists cannot shop on Sundays
And there you have it. Saturdays in Paris are a NIGHTMARE. 100 thousand tourists are wandering the city, many who are trying to get their shopping on on Saturdays while all residents are racing to the grocery stores and malls, hoping to get everything they need to do done by the time the store close.
Saturdays are not for sleeping in or resting your brain from a long week of work! It is even more work....having to navigate between the tourists who don't seem to understand what living in a big city is like. They get on the metro, and instead of gunning as inside as possible so that all the people behind them can get in before the doors close, they step in the door, STOP, then check to see, if there are seats available, which seats they want, and if not, where they would like to stand....in the meanwhile, all you want to do is completely your chores so you can continue to live like human beings (have food, warm clothing, and clean shelter).
Saturdays in Paris are the worst.
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