The Biggest Star of these Paris Olympics Might Surprise You

The star of these Olympics isn’t Leo, or Summer, or even Simone. No, the star of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris is the metro.

Admittedly, I’m biased given my Manhattan apartment dwelling parents who’d no sooner taken a taxi then they would have smoked a joint. “We don’t do that,” their answer when we’d begged them for a cab ride home from where ever we’d been coaxed into going with them. With my parents as parents, you grew to love public transportation.

“Where are you staying,” our Parisian friend asked the second day of our two week visit.

“In the 11th arrondissement,” our reply.

“That ‘s perfect because you have the 9 and the 1 close by.” The 9 and the 1. Two lines of the metro to get us in and out of the Olympic madness.

What makes the Paris metro so good is this. It’s big. It’s quiet. And during these Olympic Games, there’s a next train arriving in less that five minutes every time you come onto a station platform. Unlike our pathetic T in Boston, where you wait at least fifteen minutes for the next green line to come. And when it finally does comes good luck getting on. Here, they come and they come, and there’s been plenty of room to even sit.

“Which way?” Mary asks as we dance around the tunnels looking for our connection. The trick to navigating the metro is simple, know the name of the final station on the line you’re riding. Montreuil or Pont Sevres for the 9. New York instead mostly depends on uptown or downtown. In this two thousand year-old city, there’s no such thing. Just one big cluster of tangled lines that somehow make sense — a marvel of engineering to make it all work.

We’re here to be in Paris, and to see some Olympic events. USA!

We’re here to feel the culture and speak the language. Vive la France!

We’re here because I lived in Paris when I was a boy, long before I knew anything about riding subways and metros. Bon jour, comment ca va?

Oh, one last thing. On these hot summer days of the summer games when you wonder if you’re going to expire when watching horses trot through the gardens of Louis XIV’s Big House (Versailles), the metro’s about the only place with air condition. No, the star of these Olympics aren’t the events, or the Mona Lisa, or even the forever crowd favorite Eiffel Tower. No, the stars my friends are the quiet cars of the metro that whisk us around this great city.