My wife and I spent 2 weeks in France last Oct and really enjoyed it. Paris like most big cities can be expensive ( London much more so), but if you stay away from the real touristy areas, I generally found eating and drink cheaper than at home.
Sure you can spend $300.00 on a meal( which we did, only once though)We drink a fair amount of wine under normal conditions and I think we must had an average of three bottles per day.
Outside of Paris meals are even cheaper and found we were spending say 200FF (about $30) for a meal including wine, which we would have spent $70 to $100 or more at home.
If you drink the local wines especially in Bordeaux,the Loire Valley or in Burgundy you could get descent wines for about $5 per bottle. Never forgot seeing bottles of Cote de Rhone in wine shops in Avignon for 10FF = $1.50.
The cost of your coke, I suppose one could it compare to eating at say Disney World, it costs a fortune and some visitors think the, rest of the country is that expensive.
Mike

[This message has been edited by MIKESILV (edited 10-11-2001).]