Normandy, Brittany & the Best of the North_ With Paris (Fodor's) - Fodor's [109]
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From Notre-Dame to the Place de la Concorde | From the Eiffel Tower to the Arc de Triomphe | The Faubourg St-Honoré and Les Halles | The Grands Boulevards | The Marais and the Bastille | The Ile St-Louis and the Latin Quarter | From Orsay to St-Germain-des-Prés | Montmartre
For the first-timer there will always be several must-dos at the top of the list, but getting to know Paris will never be quite as simple as a quick look at Notre-Dame, the Louvre, and the Eiffel Tower. You’ll discover that around every corner, down every ruelle (little street) lies a resonance-in-waiting. You can stand on the Rue du Faubourg St-Honoré at the very spot where Edmond Rostand set Ragueneau’s pastry shop in Cyrano de Bergerac. You can read the letters of Madame de Sévigné in her actual hôtel particulier, or private mansion, now the Musée Carnavalet. You can hear the words of Racine resound in the ringing, hair-raising diction of the Comédie Française. You can breathe in the fumes of hubris before the extravagant onyx tomb Napoléon designed for himself. You can gaze through the gates at the school where Voltaire honed his wit, and you can add your own pink-lipstick kiss to Oscar Wilde’s bedecked grave at Père-Lachaise Cemetery.
If this is your first trip, you may want to take a guided tour of the city—a good introduction that will help you get your bearings and provide you with a general impression before you return to explore the sights that particularly interest you. To help track those down, this chapter’s exploration of Paris is divided into eight neighborhood walks. Each quartier, or neighborhood, has its own personality, which is best discovered by foot power. Ultimately, your route will be marked by your preferences, your curiosity, and your state of fatigue. You can wander for hours without getting bored—though not, perhaps, without getting lost. By the time you have seen only a few neighborhoods, drinking in the rich variety they have to offer, you should not only be culturally replete but downright exhausted—and hungry, too. Again, take your cue from Parisians and think out your next move in a sidewalk café. So you’ve heard stories of a friend who paid $8 for a coffee at a café. So what? What you’re paying for is time, and the opportunity to watch the intricate drama of Parisian street life unfold. Hemingway knew the rules; after all, he would have remained just another unknown sportswriter if the waiters in the cafés had hovered around him impatiently.
FROM NOTRE-DAME TO THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE
In the center of Paris, nestled in the River Seine are the two celebrated islands, the Ile de la Cité and the Ile St-Louis. Of the two, it’s the Ile de la Cité that forms the historic ground zero of Paris. It was here that the earliest inhabitants of Paris, the Gaulish tribe of the Parisii, settled in about 250 BC, calling their home Lutetia, meaning “settlement surrounded by water.” Today it’s famed for the great, brooding cathedral of Notre-Dame, the haunted Conciergerie, and the dazzling Sainte-Chapelle. If Notre-Dame represents Church, another major attraction of this walk—the Louvre—symbolizes State. A succession of French rulers was responsible for filling this immense structure with the world’s greatest paintings and works of art. It’s the largest museum in the world, as well as one of the easiest to get lost in. Beyond the Louvre lie the graceful Tuileries Gardens, the grand Place de la Concorde—the very hub of the city—and the Belle Époque splendor of the Grand Palais and the Pont Alexandre III. All in all, this area comprises some of the most historic and beautiful sights to see in Paris.
TOP ATTRACTIONS FROM NOTRE-DAME