I visited my first hammam years ago in the Marais during my second stint living in Paris. It was a fun—and kind of crazy—experience, lounging around with lots of other naked and semi-naked women in clouds of steam, then being roughly scrubbed by a burly Tunisian woman who nearly smothered me with her ample bosom as she leaned over me to work before sending me off to recover with hot mint tea. I felt like a prize heifer ready for the show.
The hammam was a far cry from the gentle, pampering spas favored back home in the States, but boy, was I scrubbed pink and seriously exfoliated!
Older and more confident, less modest, with my one hammam experience under my belt, and with much-improved if still sadly lacking French, I was ready to give it another go. Start by entering at the corner of rue Geoffroy-St-Hilaire and rue Daubenton across from the southernmost corner of the Jardin des Plantes.
The door is literally set into the corner. No need to talk to anyone at this point, just push the door and go on in. The hammam accepts cash or credit cards. The lady at the counter gave me three plastic disks on stretchy wristbands to act as tickets. The lady indicated two boxes of plastic shower slippers behind me opposite the desk and told me to take off my shoes and choose a pair of slippers. I wore these for the rest of the day until ready to leave. Only one other woman, a Frenchwoman of about my age, was in the changing area when I arrived.
We exchanged a few words as we disrobed and tried to figure out the system; it was both of our first visit. Tops are optional and quite a few women, myself included, opted for topless.
