Say Oui to Paris

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Experience Paris and put the joie back in your vivre

Paris stimulates the senses, demanding to be seen, heard, touched, tasted and smelt. From romance along the Seine to landscapes on bus-sized canvases to the pick-an-ism types in cafes monologuing on the use of garlic or the finer points of Jerry Lewis, Paris is the essence of all things French.

Gaze rapturously at its breezy boulevards, impressive monuments, great works of art and magic lights. Savour its gourmet selection of cheese, chocolate, wine and seafood.

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Three days in Paris will inevitably leave you yearning for more, but at least you'll have some idea of why people go ga-ga for the place.

On the first day, get up high and see Paris from above - it's a flat city and rewards the climber. Try the Eiffel Tower - it may be a cliché, but the view is still magic - or even a balloon tour. The roof of Notre Dame is a marvellous place to take the measure of the city's topography; tip your hat to the blackened gargoyles then trip downstairs for a look at the fabulous interior. Finish the day with dinner in Montmartre.

On the second day, go wild over art - this is Paris, after all. Check out the Musée d'Orsay and the Musée Rodin; recover with a pastis on the Champs-Élysées before tackling the Louvre. Then enjoy a night of mirth and gaiety in the Marais.

Start the third day slow, with brunch on the place des Vosges. Wander off to see the famous dead at Cimetière du Père Lachaise, then take in a concert, opera or ballet at the Palais Garnier or Opéra Bastille, or a play at the Comédie Française, before heading off on a bar and club crawl in Ménilmontant.

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When to Go
As the old song says, Paris is at its best in springtime, even if it is sometimes a little wet. In winter Paris has all sorts of cultural events going on, while in summer the weather is warm and lazy - sometimes sizzling. In August, when Parisians flee for the beaches to the west and south, many restaurateurs lock up and leave town too, but this is changing rapidly and you'll find considerably more places open in summer than even a decade ago. Things can get a bit hectic around Bastille Day and towards the end of the year so reservations at this time are a good idea.

Where to Stay
From the swish to the down-and-out in Paris... There's a huge variety of accommodation in Paris, ranging from sumptuous palaces and converted 17th-century townhouses to poky little holes where you wouldn't tether your dog. Make the effort to look around - if you dig you'll find character and charm without bankrupting yourself. And book early.
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Getting Around
Paris is surprisingly pedestrian-friendly: it's compact and there are few hills. Watch out on pedestrian crossings, though - cars tend not to stop.

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Paris is for all ages
Paris abounds in places that will delight children. Family visits to many areas of the city can be designed around a rest stop (or picnic) in the many parks and gardens surrounding museums and historical sights. It is a nifty idea to take children to the Eiffel Tower where they survey the city and get excited about exploring at ground level. Student and senior citizen discounts are common.

Culture, cabaret and clubbing - Paris has it all
Whatever your tastes, you'll never be bored in Paris. Music lovers can bounce from grand opera to smoky little jazz clubs to cabaret and end the night with some uplifting house or salsa. The cinema and theatre options are boundless, and the exhausted can recover in a series of stylish bars.

A taste of history
Both the capital of the nation and of the historic Île de France region, Paris is located in northern central France. Central Paris - known as Intra-Muros, or within the walls - is a nice, oval-ish shape, divided neatly in two by the Seine, with 20 arrondissements (districts) spiralling clockwise from the centre in a logical fashion. The area north of the river, the Rive Droite (Right Bank), includes the tree-lined Avenue des Champs-Élysées, running west to the Arc de Triomphe. East of the avenue is the massive Musée du Louvre, the Centre Georges Pompidou and a lively district of museums, shops, markets and restaurants. Immediately south of the Centre Georges Pompidou on the Île de la Cité is the world-famous Notre Dame. The area south of the river, the Rive Gauche (Left Bank), is home to the city's most prominent landmark, the Eiffel Tower. To the east, in the Saint Germain de Prés and Montparnasse districts, Paris' famous academic, artistic and intellectual milieus waft in and out of focus through a haze of Gitanes smoke.

France's national day, 14 July, commemorates the 1789 storming of the Bastille prison, the event that kicked off the French Revolution. Across the country, the holiday is celebrated with serious abandon, especially in Paris, where the day ends with a massive fireworks display and throngs of people in the streets.

Paris was founded towards the end of the 3rd century BC on what is now the Île de la Cité by a tribe of Celtic Gauls known as the Parisii. In 508 AD, Frankish king Clovis I united Gaul as a kingdom and made Paris his capital, naming it after the original Parisii tribe.

Paris prospered during the Middle Ages: In the 12th century, construction began on the cathedral of Notre Dame (work continued for nearly 200 years), while the Marais area north of the Seine was drained and settled to become what's known today as the Right Bank. The Sorbonne opened its doors in 1253, the beautiful Sainte Chapelle was consecrated in 1248 and the Louvre got its start as a riverside fortress around 1200.

Eat, drink and be merry
Gourmet heaven in epicurean Paris? Who would have thought!
Every restaurant with a fistful of Michelin stars inevitably seems to have a Parisian chef with a Gallic temper and a way with jus. Eating well in this city isn't an option - it's a duty, usually policed by the aforementioned chef. Overeating is not de rigueur - an amuse-gueule will do just fine.

Drink in the views of the Eiffel Tower while sipping an espresso or wine on the terrace of the Musée du Quai Branly's café, amid reflecting pools and gardens. Lunches, such as a tartine Parisienne of Parisian ham, Emmental cheese, fresh tomatoes and mustard-butter, offer a light alternative (for your wallet, too) to dining in style upstairs at Les Ombres.

Windows full of must-have treasures
Paris is a sublime place to shop, whether you're someone who can afford Lacroix or just an impecunious lèche-vitrine (window licker). Many quartiers still specialise, and the myriad boutiques are often worth a visit in themselves. The lively flea markets are full of bargains.

Sights: from Left Bank swagger to Right Bank swank
Many of Paris' significant sights are strung along its river, and its quartiers each have their own distinct personalities, so you can experience a lot without covering much ground. The museums, monuments and the two islands are a magnet for visitors but it can be just as rewarding to wander.

Musee Louvre
The Louvre may be the world's greatest art museum - but it's also the one most avoided by visitors to Paris. Daunted by its size and overwhelming richness, many people head to smaller galleries. But if you have even the merest interest in the fruits of human civilisation from antiquity to the 19th century, then visit you must.

Centre Pompidou

The Centre Pompidou (place Georges Pompidou, 4e), is the world's most successful art and cultural centre. Encased in aluminium sheeting with modular arctic-white seats, the Pompidou Centre's hyper-industrial dining room has stunning views over Paris' rooftops, especially from its terrace.

The Pompidou Centre, also known simply as Beaubourg, is all about modern and contemporary 20th-century art. Thanks in part to its vigorous schedule of temporary exhibitions, it's the most visited cultural site in Paris. Two floors are dedicated to some of the 40000-plus works of the Musée Nationale d'Art Moderne, the country's collection of 20th-century art.

The design of the Pompidou has drawn critical comment since construction began in 1972. To keep the exhibition halls uncluttered, the architects put the building's 'insides' on the outside, with each duct, pipe and vent painted in its own telltale colour: elevators and escalators are red, electrical circuitry yellow, plumbing green and air-conditioning blue.

After a massive renovation during 1998-99 the centre has a stunning reworked facade on the west side, an expanded exhibition space, and a new cinema, restaurant and cybercafe - plus new facilities for dance, theatre, CD and video.

The top floors have a magnificent view of Paris, while place George Pompidou below attracts street performers, musicians and artists.

Arc de Triomphe
The Arc de Triomphe is the world's largest traffic roundabout and the meeting point of 12 avenues. Commissioned in 1806 by Napoleon to commemorate his imperial victories, it was not completed until 1836. From the viewing platform at the top (284 steps up), you can see the avenues - many named after illustrious generals - radiating toward every part of Paris.

Since 1920, the body of an unknown soldier from WWI taken from Verdun in Lorraine has lain beneath the arch, his fate and that of countless others like him commemorated by a memorial flame rekindled each evening. France's national remembrance service is held here annually on Nov 11th.

Tickets to the platform are sold in the underground passageway - the only sane way to reach the base of the arch - that surfaces on the even-numbered side of Ave des Champs-Élysées.

Notre Dame
If Paris has a heart, then this is it. Notre Dame de Paris is not only a masterpiece of French Gothic architecture, but has also been Catholic Paris' ceremonial focus for seven centuries. The cathedral's immense interior, a marvel of medieval engineering, holds over 6000 people and has spectacular rose windows.

Although Notre Dame is regarded as a sublime architectural achievement, there are all sorts of minor anomalies, the result of centuries of aesthetic intervention. These include a trio of main entrances that are each shaped differently, and are accompanied by statues that were once coloured to make them more effective as Bible lessons for the hoi polloi. The interior is dominated by a 7800-pipe organ that was restored but has not worked properly since.

It's well worth the effort of climbing the 387 steps of the north tower. This will bring you to the top of the west facade and face to face with many of the cathedral's most frightening gargoyles, which enjoy a spectacular view of Paris.

Église St-Sulpice
Until recently, Église St-Sulpice's few visitors were fans of artist Eugène Delacroix, who painted the frescoes in the Chapelle des Stes-Agnes. Then Dan Brown set a murderous scene of The Da Vinci Code here, pivoting around the Rose Line (to the right of the middle of the nave). And yep, it's been mobbed with tourists ever since.

The Musée Guimet des Arts Asiatiques
This museum housed in the colossal and quite impressive Grande Orient de France building provides a brief introduction to the secretive world of Freemasonry, which grew out of medieval stone masons' guilds of the 16th century, and the museum is a much more popular sight since the publication of The Da Vinci Code.

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Montmartre Cemetery
Established in 1798, Montmartre Cemetery is perhaps the most celebrated necropolis in Paris after Père Lachaise. It contains the graves of writers Émile Zola, Alexandre Dumas and Stendhal, composer Jacques Offenbach, artist Edgar Degas and film director François Truffaut - among others. The entrance closest to the Butte de Montmartre is at the end of av Rachel, just off blvd de Clichy or down the stairs from 10 rue Caulaincourt. Maps showing the location of the tombs are available free from the conservation office at the cemetery's entrance.

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Père Lachaise's
Founded in 1804, Père Lachaise's 70000 ornate tombs form a verdant, open-air sculpture garden. Among its resting residents are famous composers, writers, artists, actors, singers, dancers and even the immortal 12th-century lovers Abélard and Héloïse.

One of the most popular graves is that of rock star Jim Morrison of the Doors, who died in an apartment on rue Beautreillis in the Marais in 1971. The cemetery has four entrances, two of them on blvd de Ménilmontant. Newsstands and kiosks in the area sell a detailed map, Plan Illustré du Père Lachaise.

Place de la Bastille
Nothing remains of the former prison that was mobbed on 14 July 1789, igniting the French Revolution, but you can't miss the 52m green-bronze column topped by a gilded, winged Liberty. Revolutionaries from the uprising of 1830 are buried beneath. Now a skirmishly busy roundabout, the place is still Paris' most symbolic destination for traffic-stopping political protest marches.

Place du Tertre
Half a block west of Église St-Pierre de Montmartre, is place du Tertre, once the main square of the village of Montmartre. These days it's filled with cafes, restaurants, portrait artists and tourists and is always animated.

Place des Vosges
The heart of Marais, Paris' most enchanting neighbourhood, is place des Vosges. Inaugurated in 1612 as place Royale, it is an ensemble of 36 symmetrical houses with ground-floor arcades, steep slate roofs and large dormer windows arranged around a large square. Duels were once fought in the elegant park in the centre. Only the earliest houses were built of brick; to save time, the rest were given timber frames and faced with plaster, which was later painted to resemble brick. The square received its present name in 1800 to honour the Vosges département, the first in France to pay its taxes. Today, the arcades around Place des Vosges are occupied by upmarket art galleries, pricey antique shops and elegant places to sip tea.

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Basilica of the Sacred Heart
The Basilica of the Sacred Heart, perched at the very top of Butte de Montmartre (Montmartre Hill), was built from contributions pledged by Parisian Catholics as an act of contrition after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. Construction began in 1873, but the basilica was not consecrated until 1919. Although the basilica's domes are a well-loved part of the Parisian skyline, most of its architecture is not very graceful. It's always dark in the nave, and the enormous mosaic of a plainly angry Christ over the main altar does little to dispel the gloom.

A 234-step climb up narrow spiral staircases takes you up to the dome, which affords one of Paris' most spectacular panoramas. It is, however, outside on the steps where the action takes place - lovers, buskers, locals and foreigners all converge to take in the vistas and each other.

Cluny-La Sorbonne
One of the world's most famous universities, 'La Sorbonne' was founded in 1253 by Robert de Sorbon as a theological college for just 16 pupils, going on to have its own government and laws. The main campus' imposing buildings, domed chapel and lime tree-shaded squares dominate the Latin Quarter, while its students dominate the local bars and cafés.

The Latin Quarter
The Latin Quarter was the centre of the Roman town of Letitia over 1800 years ago. The only surviving remains of the town are Gallo-Roman baths near the Hôtel de Cluny and the Arènes de Lutèce theatre, unearthed in 1869. The imposing Panthéon dominates the highest point on the Left Bank and gives super views over central and eastern Paris. Across the way is the beautiful 16th-century Église St-Étienne du Mont, home to the tomb of Ste-Geneviève, the patron saint of Paris. The best way to experience the area is on foot, making sure you leave plenty of time for rests.

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City of lights
Bateaux Mouches runs the biggest tour boat company on the Seine. Cruises depart from and return to the Pont de l'Alma and pass the Statue of Liberty and Eiffel Tower in the west, and Île St-Louis in the east. The night time spectacle of Paris shimmering off the Seine on a summer evening is an unforgettable experience.
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