Central Paris is divided into 20 arrondissements, or districts, spiralling out clockwise from the Louvre in the 1st, to Ménilmontant in the 20th.These numerical divisions, indicated by postcodes starting with 75, are used by Parisians more than area names. Paris is divided in two by the meandering River Seine. 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 pretty bridges. Birthplace of the city and home to the gleaming Notre Dame cathedral, this is intricate, romantic Paris, 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. Tiny cafés do good business serving slices of homemade tart and luscious ice-cream. The Rive Gauche, or Left Bank, the southern side of the Seine, was once the cradle of anti-establishment intellectuals and impoverished writers. Even today, there is a high concentration of publishing houses and bookshops, though inflated prices mean that the tinkle of tourist chatter has largely replaced debates on Existentialism and Surrealism, 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. Baron Haussmann’s brutal 19th-century town planning ignored the winding medieval backstreets of these neighbouring areas, now filled with lively restaurants as well as markets and 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. Amidst such formal grandeur, the animation of the market on rue Cler is a welcome surprise. 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. Still, it is blessed with more than its fair share of good – if rather stiff – restaurants. These three adjoining quartiers represent the eastern end of the Rive Droite, or Right Bank. Les Halles is the quartier Parisians most love to hate. Lurking around the Pompidou Centre and the cheap clothes shops are skateboarders, buskers and gangs of youths that pour off the RER from Paris’s demonized suburbs. To the east is the Marais, the atmospheric quartier of Jewish eateries, boho-chic bars, designer boutiques and mansions-turned-museums where twisting, narrow streets spiral out from the 17th-century place des Vosges. The Marais bleeds into the Bastille to the east, a quartier that has oozed attitude since the heady days of the Revolution. 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. Well-dressed celebs and 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 and shop assistants who shudder at unsuitably attired customers. The Champs Elysées itself and the 11 other main avenues radiate out from the place Charles de Gaulle, southwest of where is the equally exclusive Chaillot area, with the disappointingly scrubby Trocadéro gardens, the trendy Palais de Tokyo, expensive apartment buildings and luxury hotels. Until the end of the 19th century Montmartre was more of a hilltop village on the northern outskirts of the city than a quartier proper. Once property rates started rising Montmartre’s struggling artists, composers and writers began drifting south of the river to Montparnasse. A century on and the prices are still rising. South of La Butte are the funky bars and alternative shops of Abbesses and the red-lights of Pigalle. The leafy stairways, twisting streets and cosy cafés may verge on the twee, but they retain some charm. In summer the endearing qualities can be submerged by tourists.
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Paris - £5.99
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