Paris is expensive, although that is from the viewpoint of living in Mississippi most recently - but it was expensive when we lived in Belgium years ago, although not as bad as Belgium. The food can be really disappointing, whereas you can rarely get a bad meal in Brussels or Rome, Berlin or Croatia. It's a little more difficult to find a really decent moderately priced meal when wandering through an unfamiliar neighborhood. The Louvre is my least favorite major museum. I hate that they closed the Jeu de Paume and moved the Impressionists to the much less intimate Orsay - that is ancient history now, though. People don't always curb their dogs.