Destination guides
Paris Travel Guide
Paris is a thriving, ever-changing city that captures your attention and senses straight away with its vibrant culture, architectural marvels, world-class galleries, stylish shopping, smoky wine bars and fantastic food. Added to all this is the city's most powerful tug, an elusive Parisian je ne sais quoi. This hard-to-define essence is an effortless balance of old and new, of traditional elegance and creative innovation.
Paris is often thought of as one of the most romantic places in the world, it is glamorous and stylish; literary and intellectual; full of artists, dissidents and writers.
Central Paris is divided into 20 arrondissements [ or districts], spiralling out clockwise from the Louvre.The dividing line is the River Seine, with its right bank [Rive Droite ] lying north of the river and the left bank [Rive Gauche] to the south. Numerical divisions, indicated by postcodes starting with 75, are used by Parisians more than
area names. The Rive Gauche, or Left Bank, the southern side of the Seine, is home to a high concentration of publishing houses and bookshops and residents are well-heeled rather than down-at-heel. The Latin Quarter Latin to the east is, however, still home to the Sorbonne, the capital's oldest centre of learning. It is now filled with lively restaurants as well as markets and galleries.
At the very heart of the city, emerging from the river, are two small islands - île de la Cité and île St Louis - joined to the mainland and to each other by a network of bridges. Birthplace of the city and home to the gleaming Notre Dame cathedral, this is an intimate part of the city with more tourists than traffic. Quaint, narrow streets are lined with luxury food shops, gift boutiques and art galleries.
West of St Germain is the chic and imposing 7th arrondissement. Wide streets have luxury apartments alongside a number of key landmarks. These include the Eiffel Tower and Les Invalides, but also the Musée d'Orsay, the École Militaire, government offices and embassies.
Since the 19th century this Left Bank quartier to the southwest of the centre has had a reputation as a place of entertainment - cabarets, dance halls and the infamous late-night drinking cafes, immortalized in the 1920s and 1930s by an influx of Americans made wealthy by a favourable exchange rate. Despite what today's cultured residents would have you believe, things are not as wild and interesting as they were in the interwar years. In fact, modern Montparnasse can be stuffy and ugly, but it is home to some fine restaurants.
West of Les Halles, the main pull of this elegant area is the Louvre, royal palace turned palace of the arts. Tourists buzz around the place du Carrousel snapping the Louvre and the glittering Pyramide in one direction, and the Arc de Triomphe and the Tuileries gardens in the other. Window-shoppers throng the boutiques on the rue de Rivoli, and place Vendôme, as well as the grandiose department stores on boulevard Haussmann. Only the most elegant Parisians live here, and take their equally elegant toddlers to play with the boats in the Tuileries gardens.
Even more so than the Opéra and Louvre areas to the east, the Champs-Elysées has become synonymous with wealth, sophistication. The Champs Elysées itself and the 11 other main avenues radiate out from the place Charles de Gaulle.
Paris is small enough to sample a number of different quartiers just by taking a stroll. In just over 2 hours you can walk from St Germain-des-Pres to Montmartre, so you are never far away from anything. There are some lovely parks in Paris, such as the Jardin des Tuileries which offers those who visit a tranquil retreat away from the hustle and bustle of the main centre. The Eiffel Tower is probably the most famous and popular sights to see and towering over the city it provides spectacular views. The Notre Dam, built in 1163, is a Gothic masterpiece and never fails to impress those who visit for the first time.
There are more than 150 museums in Paris, from the art giants like the Louvre, Musée d'Orsay and Centre Pompidou, to the Musée Rodin. A museum pass gives you access to 70 of these museums and helps to avoid the queues at museum entrances.
