FCUS GUIDES

Paris, capital of France, is located in the north of the country. It's the most popular leisure travel destination city in the world. More Brits than any other nationality visit Paris, totalling more than 1.3 million each year. On average, they stay 2.5 nights. The Eurostar high-speed rail journey time from London makes a short break – even a one-nighter or a day trip – very feasible, especially for those living within reach of the Eurostar stations at London St Pancras and Ebbsfleet in Kent.
   There seem to be 101 reasons to go at any time. Paris can be enjoyed simply as a shopping trip, an indulgent celebration, or a cultural feast. 
 

Paris can be exhilarating - but also confusing, so it's wise to plan carefully in advance if you are new to the city. There are hundreds of hotels, some much better located than others. If you want to see the sights, be sure of a decent dinner and take in some entertainment as well, it can be best to book a short break package: these often give a choice of excursions, shows and dinners. It's worth knowing in advance that Paris hotel rooms - like those in many big cities - tend to be small.
 

Paris tourist office (comprehensive, easy to use website) has moved from the Champse Elysees and is now located at several different offices around the city. Gare du Nord, Montmartre, the Louvre and (May-November) the Eiffel Tower. There’s a tourist information phone line, 0892 683000 (0.34€ / min).
 

Gare du Nord - Eurostar arrives at this big railway station on the northern edge of the city centre. If you arrive by air at Charles de Gaulle airport, your rail connection will also bring you to Gare du Nord. 
Place de la Concorde - This vast square beside the River Seine is the heart of the city. It's close to the Louvre, while in the other direction the Champs Elysées leads grandly away from the Place.
The districts - Just as France is a nation of régions, so Paris is a city of quartiers, or districts. Hop from Montmartre to Montparnasse, from Arc de Triomphe to Place de la Bastille. The Métro will take you from one area to another in minutes. Central Paris is small enough for much of it to be covered on foot, and perhaps this is the best way to absorb its flavour and atmosphere.
 

As soon as you walk out of the Gare du Nord, you’ll feel it. Brave the Gallic traffic and cross the cobbled roadway to the elegant Terminus Nord brasserie with its heaped seafood displays. For a café, an aperitif or a meal, it makes a wonderful start to a few days under the spell of the French capital.
 

There's an excellent, punctual, clean, efficient public transport system, especially the Métro (5.30am-12.30am), and the RER rail lines which run from the city centre to the suburbs. A carnet of 10 Métro tickets is useful for single journeys taken from time to time. For more frequent travel during a short stay, the Paris Visite pass gives unlimited travel on public transport for up to 5 days, covering any specified area from just the central zone right up to all eight zones. This can be bought before leaving home or on arrival at the Métro station beneath the Gare du Nord (the prices are the same). As a bonus, the Paris Visite pass gives discounts or offers at many Paris attractions. There's also a good bus service, including a night service. Taxis are reasonably priced and there’s no need to tip.
www.ratp.fr
 

There are hundreds of restaurants in all price brackets, as well as more basic brasseries and inexpensive eating places, including fast-food outlets. To eat well at a good price is easy - chose a set fixed-price menu in any eating place that takes your fancy. For more gastronomic dining, consult one of the many food guides such as the Michelin Red Guide.
   It’s worth splashing out to savour the cultural and historic pleasure of some of the grand old brasseries. Have a drink (or, for the rich, a snack) at the greatest, the grandest, of all Paris brasseries, Brasserie Lipp on Boulevard St Germain by the church of St Germain des Près. If you can’t get in, or can’t afford to, try one of its almost equally renowned neighbours, the Deux Magots or Café Flore.
   Hotels too are numerous and very varied. The tourist office website has searchable pages on the city's hotels, and you can reserve rooms online. Here are two of my favourite places to stay in the city.
Hôtel Crillon  – You’ve arrived! This is de luxe as only Paris knows how, housed in a former palace, and with an absolutely perfect location on Place de la Concorde at the start of the Champs Elysées. It has a top restaurant too.
Hôtel Terminus Nord  – So convenient! Directly opposite the Eurostar terminal, with friendly, efficient 24-hour service and quiet, comfortable rooms. (A Mercure hotel)
 

 * The Eiffel Tower 
West of the city centre's other sights, this is the city’s ultimate tourist cliché. Which doesn't mean you should give it a miss - going up the lifts inside the astonishing iron framework of Tour Eiffel is one of the great Paris experiences. The second étage is more interesting than the very top: you can identify landmarks and get a thrilling overview of a beautiful city centre. Since June 21 2003, the Eiffel Tower is covered with 20,000 lights that blink on and off during the first 10 minutes of each hour after nightfall until 2 am in the summer and 1 am in the winter - this will continue for exactly 10 years!
Métro: Bir-Hakeim, Trocadéro.
www.tour-eiffel.fr

 Musée du Louvre   (The Louvre)
Though it today contains the world’s greatest art collection, the Louvre - formerly the palace of the king of France - is more than a museum. It’s an experience, and to do it justice would take weeks. The art collections cover the world's art over the last 3000 years. There's far too much to see, so you have to be selective - if you gave every item just 1 minute of your time and it would take over 3 months to see everything in this extraordinary treasure house. Instead, set a reasonable goal: decide in advance what type of art, of which period, you wish to see. But even a quick visit is rewarding. The Louvre's most famous works are, among paintings, the Mona Lisa, and Radeau de la Meduse; among sculptures, the Victory of Samothrace, and the Venus  de Milo; among historic artworks, the Ancient Eygptian collection.
   The entrance is through a monumental glass pyramid  designed by American architect I.M.Pei. On one side of the Louvre are the Tuileries Gardens, a handsome wooded park beside the Seine.
Address: Place du Louvre.
Métro: Musée du Louvre.
www.louvre.fr/

 * Musée d’Orsay 
On the south (Left) bank of the Seine stands the bright, spacious Musée d’Orsay, a former railway station, now housing a huge collection of art, notably several of the world’s finest Impressionist paintings in a special upstairs gallery. For many, the d’Orsay building and collections are more enjoyable than the venerated Louvre treasures.
Address: 62 rue de Lille.
Métro: Solférino.
www.musee-orsay.fr

 Les Invalides 
Perhaps best appreciated from a distance, the huge structure of Les Invalides was Napoleon’s grandiose hospice for wounded soldiers. Its Dome church contains Napoleon's tomb. The building is now an impressive Musée de l'Armée, or Army Museum.
Address: Hôtel national des Invalides, 129, rue de Grenelle.
Métro: Invalides.
www.invalides.org/

 * Champs-Elysées    
The Tuileries Gardens run as far as the gigantic Place de la Concorde, beyond which opens the immense Avenue des Champs-Elysées. Perhaps one of the most compelling qualities of Paris is these awesome urban landscapes, inspiring vistas of monumental architecture and grand avenues. Stroll towards the massive shape of the Arc de Triomphe. Before you stop for a drink at one of the thousands of Champs-Elysées pavement tables, reflect that their prices, like the architecture, are on a grand scale.
   This immense boulevard has a special place in the heart not only of Paris, but of France - here the people come en masse to mark great moments in the nation's history and celebrate at times of national rejoicing. On ordinary days, though, it is crowded, with a lot of traffic. And for the most part, the Champs-Elysées doesn’t offer real luxe. For that, turn off to parallel Rue du Faubourg St Honoré.
Métro: Concorde, Champs-Elysées, Roosevelt, George V, Etoile.
www.champselysees.org/

 * Latin Quarter 
The lively Latin Quarter on the Left Bank is the low-budget student area around the Sorbonne University. In narrow streets and lanes to either side of the vivacious main thoroughfare, Boulevard St Michel (or Boul’ St Mich’), a plethora of cheap eateries, jazz venues, piano bars and café theatres, bookshops and street fashion outlets keep the place buzzing day and night.
Métro: St Michel, Cluny.

 * Notre Dame and the islands 
Cross the water onto the Ile de la Cité - there are five bridges to choose from. Paris - home of the Parisii tribe conquered by the Romans - was born 2000 years ago on this island in the middle of the river. Now it’s an island of peace in the midst of the capital, covered with dignified historic buildings, chief among them the gloomily majestic Notre Dame cathedral and the much more appealing Ste-Chapelle church. Daily flower markets brighten the river quays. Cross to the smaller and quieter island, Ile St Louis, which - surprisingly - is mainly residential and has almost a village feel.
Address: Place du parvis de Notre Dame.
Métro: Cité.
www.cathedraledeparis.com

 Marais 
This former Jewish quarter on the Right Bank close to Ile de la Cité is one of the most fascinating parts of the city and one of the few keeping some feeling of Paris before the Revolution. With an intriguing mix of narrow lanes and fine squares, shabby terraces and splendid mansions, it has changed from being one of the least desirable places in the city to one of the most fashionable. There are many listed buildings and historic 'hotels', one of which houses the Picasso Museum (see below). The area has plenty of restaurants, bars and nightlife, while around the old main street Rue des Rosiers there are a handful of Jewish eateries ranging from falafel take-aways to popular restaurants.
Métro: St Paul.
www.parislemarais.com

 Picasso Museum 
This extraordinary and diverse collection is the state's inheritance of the works of Pablo Picasso. In payment of inheritance tax, Picasso's estate gave the French nation over 200 paintings, some 160 sculptures and more than 3000 drawings. Most of the work was done after the 1920s. Also on display are works by other modern artists which were once owned by Picasso. The museum is located in a handsome 17th-century mansion.
Address: 5 rue Thorigny.
Métro: Saint-Sébastien Froissart, Saint-Paul.
www.musee-picasso.fr/

 Pompidou Centre   
(Centre Beaubourg)
The weirdly inside-out Pompidou Centre (or Beaubourg), although itself a ridiculous, dated-looking monstrosity, houses the city's leading collection of late 20th/21st-century art and has many imaginative exhibitions and events. Named for the president who created it, the museum's aim is not to be a "temple of culture" but an open, free, accessible place bringing the latest modern art to all.
Address: Musée national d'Art moderne (Centre Beaubourg-Georges Pompidou), Plateau Beaubourg,  19 rue Beaubourg.
Métro: Hôtel-de-Ville, Rambuteau, Châtelet.
www.cnac-gp.fr

 * Montmartre 
If sleaze can be atmospheric, there’s plenty of such red-light atmosphere at the foot of the hill of Montmartre, the “Butte” as Parisians call it, rising to the north of the city centre. The once-risqué Moulin Rouge is now a respectable evening out compared with the newer offerings alongside.  Montmartre itself, on the higher ground, is a popular, crowded, intoxicating mix of elegant and bohemian, with charming squares and lanes, cafés and cabarets. It lives on the memory of its heyday, a century ago, when it was home to many young painters later to become the great names of late 19th/20th-century modern art - among them Pissarro, Sisley, Degas, Manet, Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir and Van Gogh. Several houses and cafes may look familiar from their paintings.
   The district is full of surprises though - for example, it has a vineyard, reached down a side street, producing a drinkable wine. Above it all rises the vast, ornate, other-wordly white shape of the Sacré-Coeur basilica, reached up a multitude of steps like the stairway to heaven (or, by funicular!), to give the best view in all Paris. 
Métro: Lamarck-Caulancourt (on N. side), Anvers (foot of Sacre-Coeur steps), Abbesses (SW side), Blanche (outside Moulin Rouge).
www.montmartrenet.com

When to go: All year is wonderful except maybe January (too cold – and many things are closed). August can be very hot, but has its own appeal, as most Parisians are away on vacation, there's less traffic, and parking is free even in the city centre. Autumn is the conference season – so book well ahead for a hotel room at that time. Best of all is spring and early summer.
Best add-on: A Museum Pass allows unlimited visits, without queuing, at the city’s greatest art museums including the Louvre, d’Orsay, Beaubourg (Pompidou) and the Picasso.
What’s on: Pariscope or L’Officiel des Spectacles, from newsstands, are the main guides to the coming week in Paris.
 

• Click here for forthcoming events in Paris.

Worth a journey
Babylone
14 March – 2 June 2008. Musée du Louvre
Remarkable treasures and artworks of ancient Babylon are brought together for an exhibition on the myths, history and culture of this legendary empire.

Marie-Antoinette Exhibition
15 March - 16 June 2008.
Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais
Meet France's most notorious Queen at a major art exhibition devoted to the personality, beauty and indulgent life of Marie Antoinette.

Major events during the Paris year
Foire de Paris - 30 April - 12 May 2008
Massive shopping extravaganza at Porte de Versailles.
Fête Nationale - 14 July ("Bastille Day")
Commemorates the start of the Revolution, so has a special importance in Paris. Celebrations begin on the previous day.
Montmartre Grape Harvest Festival
1st Sat in Oct
Join the locals in a celebration of the new vintage from the only vineyard in Paris.