Been there or Were there in this sentence? - Tense-Usage

Question

Look at the bold clause

He's been to France. It was fun. Although, he already was/has been here before.

Which one should I use?

I mean, to me, since the context creates some sort of timeline, I think I should use Past Simple

But, I also didn't say when that happened (in the bold clause), so, I'm confused.

And, I mean, I've been trying to learn Present Perfect for the past few months, and I'm trying to learn from context now (because I have tried without it, and it didn't work). I can use in a few cases, though, because the difference between these 2 is all subtle. And I'm not confident enough to use Present Perfect. May you help me?

Answer 1

He's been to France (present perfect) tells us that he has visited the country although it does not tell us when.

And clearly he enjoyed that visit because It was fun.

Now we go back in time to an earlier visit or visits. The tense we use to describe something in the past that took place before something else in the past is the past perfect. So:

He had already been there before.

It is not correct to say: He was already there before. We would use that construction if one person arrived at a venue before another. He was there before Mary.

And although it's possible to say that he has been there before. In this context, the past perfect (had been there) works better. It's idiomatic.

Putting things together:

He's been to France. It was fun, although he had already been there before.

Your use of although doesn't fit the context very well. It would be more natural to say something like:

He's been to France on a fun trip. Although he had (already) been there before, it was only for a weekend visit.