I have to admit that my vision of Paris has always been stuck in the 1900s. An idealised picture of luscious dinners eaten after the theatre; ladies in long dresses with elegant cigarette holders; gentlemen who would never leave the house without a hat; and cafés full of smoke and talk of philosophy. Maybe Jane Eyre would even be knocking about. Of course I would be completely out of place in this city but I can’t help wishing that I saw Paris in its heyday. Watching Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris hasn’t helped much.

I had resigned myself to never seeing the Paris of my dreams until a few months ago. In celebration of their 75th Anniversary, Fodor’s offered a free download of their very first guide book 1936 On the Continent – The Entertaining Travel Annual by Eugene Fodor. This was going to be good, I thought. A chance to see what Paris was really like back in the day and how much it has changed since. And I have to say, Fodor’s didn’t disappoint.

The best part of the guide is probably the style in which it is written. Blatantly racist in a way you could get away with before the war, it makes sweeping generalisations at least once in every page. The kind of sweeping generalisations that idylls are built on.

“You also see in the cafés, particularly in the vicinity of the Place Pigalle, from early afternoon onwards, those peculiar men who seem to have been born with their hats on their heads and a cigarette stuck into the corner of their mouths.”

Fodor insists that the REAL Parisian…

Dreaming of Old Paris

“Dawdles, loiters, loafs, seems always to be sitting at a café and doing no work whatever, yet he looks twice at a sou before he spends it and is so capable and efficient, in an unobtrusive, un-German way, that he retires from business on the stroke of his fiftieth birthday and buys himself a house in the country in order to devote the rest of his life to growing radishes.”

Clearly English writers in 1936 had no use for political correctness.

“The Parisian, and particularly the Parisienne, drives the Freudians to despair for they know nothing about “repressions” and “complexes.” Timidity, prudery and the inferiority complex are strangers to the Parisian. They laugh and shout and “spoon” in the underground as freely as at home. The children do their “small business” in the street and it is regarded as amusing.”

The descriptions go on and on – unladylike maids and ungentlemanly waiters; the concierge and his wife as “watch-dogs and dreaded tyrants” housed in a glass cage; wheezing, moaning elevators whose small size are responsible for shoving together many marriages; and wallpaper with flower and bird patterns you still see when your eyes are shut. Hotels like these are a dying breed in Paris today (probably for good reason) but there are still a few around, their owners unconcerned with the passage of time and the needs their visitors.

Only the vehicles have changed

There are a lot of other areas where the city seems to have stood still for the last 75 years – Sacre Coeur, Notre Dame, Îlé de la Cité and the Champs Élysées are still exactly as described, even if the vehicles that clog their arteries have changed. Even a handful of the restaurants recommended in the guidebook – like La Coupole are still recommended by Fodor’s today. According to Eugene Fodor the best way to see Paris in 1936 was to just walk around, not just the central areas but less central arrondissements too – advice that holds strong today (although the ‘working class’ neighbourhoods have moved a little further away now). The Seine and its banks are just as much the heart of the Paris of 2011 as they were in 1936.

“You will also see a few people standing on the quay and apparently angling, but in reality they are merely gazing into the air and reflecting on what sort of apéritif they are going to drink.”

Who hasn’t seen a couple of them on the banks of the Seine? It almost goes without saying that the guide’s description of the Jardin du Luxembourg is pretty familiar sounding too. There's something timeless about the place.

Jardin du Luxembourg: some things never change

“The Luxembourg Garden! If you carefully avoid the sometimes abominable statues and plaster casts, you will see many delightful idyllic things. There is, for instance, the big pool where the children sail their wonderfully well-rigged ships. The sailing ships are hired by governesses and mothers at 3 francs per hour from the “Admiral”, a lame ex-solider of the Great War. Naturally, the adults derive more enjoyment from this game than the children. They stand round the pool and exchange expert remarks about tacking, port side and lee side, the force of the wind and tacking. The children themselves are fairly blasé and one is inclined to suspect that they are only engaging in the show for the benefit of their elders."

"Then there are those famous old gentlemen with their croquet games. They have their own playground and no one under fifty is allowed to join in the game. Most members wear beards and the ribbon of the Legion of Honour. They never cease quarrelling but only come to blows very occasionally, and they are masters of croquet.”

Maybe most thrilling is how little the shopping scene seems to have changed. Granted there aren’t as many independent seamstresses and hat makers as there were back in the day but Paris is still at the cutting edge of fashion and a lot of the big names are still around.

“Yes, Paris has something for everyone. The big department stores have all excellently equipped dressmaking departments. For instance, at the Trois Quartiers you will find just the gay little dress you want; at the Printemps, the loveliest blouse; at the Galéries Lafayette, the hat that suits you….. Gloves and handbags for sport should be bought chez Hermès.”

“And you shouldn’t forget either Jeanne Lanvin, that remarkable little seamstress who has climbed to the front rank of creative dressmaking, or Chanel, to whom we owe, among other things, the fashion of short hair.”

Yes, that is THE Coco Chanel he's talking about. The Coco Chanel who, around that time had a handful of her own stores and was just starting to create costumes for the “pictures” in Hollywood. She wasn’t quite sure how it would pan out yet.

Of course some of the most interesting bits of the book are the bits that have changed beyond recognition. Like the dances.

“There still are a number of little Bal-Musettes with a genuine “local colour,” where you dance to the traditional accordion, a very sentimental and very squeaky instrument, paying for every dance. When a dance is over the attendants enter the hall roaring Envoyez or A vous poches, and not until you have paid up are you allowed to go on dancing."

Don't forget Chanel!

Or high society.

“The Lido on the Champs Elysées, where you dine on the edge of a swimming bath and where you can indulge in a swim yourself or, if you choose, you may confine yourself to watching the water babies maintained by the establishment.”

Or what they did instead of heading to the local noodle shop.

“The traditional conclusion of a nocturnal expedition in Paris is a gratinée or onion soup in the morning. It is most enjoyable in the grey twilight of dawn when you are beginning to feel out of sorts.”

Advice like ‘going local’ by riding second class on the metro makes for quality reading. As does chat about a Latin Quarter where accommodation costs only £2 a night and all the restaurants are cheap. And Montmartre?

“What is the Montmartre like by day? A hill crowned with a vast, fortress-like church; a late medieval village with narrow streets, steps, corners, cats, children, sleepy prostitutes, bumpy pavements, and refuse boxes at every turn. That is the enchanted panorama of the slopes which were formerly covered with luxuriant vineyards.

This is the Paris I came looking for on my first visit and one I never really found. Although that in itself may be something I have in common with the Eugene Fodor of 1936. Throughout his book he laments the lost Old Paris in the way that you still hear us foreigners complaining about it today.

“The former type of Parisienne, about whom our grandfathers used to rave, who was glorified in novels and operas and who was the embodiment of Pairs to the passionate youth of those names, the little seamstress, the midinette of Montmartre, the sweetheart of artists and students, is no more.”

I wonder did this Parisienne ever exist? Or if Paris just stopped being the city of tourists’ dreams the day that tourists arrived here looking for it. Clearly visitor attitudes have changed little in 75 years.

“The Eiffel Tower itself, which you must ascend at least once in your life, partly in order to enjoy the view, partly in order to satisfy your own conscience. But if you do go up the Eiffel Tower keep it a dead secret and do not mention it to anyone, as, for some unfathomable reason, such an undertaking is regarded as ridiculous and provincial, though of course the Eiffel Tower belongs to the past and has something grandfatherly about it.”

Paris' guilty pleasure

I’m off to start my search for the 1736 guide to Paris, written by the first ever tourist to visit the City of Lights – one who was in raptures about the New Paris. But until then I would definitely recommend that anyone who ever had an idealised vision of Old Paris should download 1936 On the Continent immediately. Have a flick through it and then follow Eugene Fodor’s itinerary to the letter. I bet it will surprise you.

Viva la difference!