Your Guide To Paris’s First Arrondissement
You are nearly there – Paris, wonderful Paris! You can hardly wait to get there. You’ve gotten your bargain flights to Paris, France , now you are trying to decide between some great looking specials on Paris hotels throughout Paris. Where you are staying in the city is always an important consideration for hotel accommodation in Paris, France even if you are looking at hotels in Paris city centre. Here’s a guide to Paris’s First arrondissement so you can learn more about whether this neighborhood in Paris is where you want to be!
Paris: The 1st Arrondissement
Paris’s 1st arrondissement is filled with the elegance and grandeur that centuries’ worth of tourists have imagined when thinking of Paris, France’s capital city. Refined boulevards, haute couture, and well maintained parks overlooking the smoothly flowing River Seine are all found in this neighborhood, a district mainly of office space and tourist sites. Les Halles, Paris’s weird take on a shopping center , can be found here as well.
What To Expect :
Positive :
Spending time here has many benefits. When you stroll beneath the 19th arches of the Rue de Rivoli arcade, you’ll be following in the steps of generations of dandies and duchesses: vanished members of Paris of a bygone era . You’ll be near some of Paris’s most lovely tourist sites – the Tuileries garden to Chatelet -site of the Comedie Francaise, where Moliere once produced his plays – to the fabulous Musee de Louvre. And the shopping, on the understated Faubourg Saint Honore, is unparalleled !
What’s Bad About Staying In The First :
While during the day here provides a visitor with access to some of Paris’s top sights within a few moments’ stroll , the business-like nature of the area means that nightlife, by contrast, is limited within the arrondissement. So unless visitors go to the Les Halles/St. Denis area there’s not much to do. Les Halles/St. Denis’s low brow pleasures may appear slightly seedy to those over the age of 21 (that said, the area bordering the Les Halles mall is actually nice – a fine place to stop after catching a movie in Les Halles’s enormous cinema, which presents many US and UK movies in their original languages. But avoid going towards Rue St. Denis/Blvd. Sebastopol unless you’re consciously seeking that sort of milieu.) Moreover, this area can get very touristy – especially around the otherwise lovely Rue de Rivoli. So watch your handbag and control your buying impulse for souvenirs until you’re a bit further off the beaten path.
What To See:
Sites abound in the First. Take a walk down the Faubourg Saint-Honore, where nearly every top fashion house of the world has a presence. Visit the Louvre or Tuileries Gardens near the Place de Concorde, see a play at the Comedie Francaise in the Chatelet area.
Where To Go To Eat :
Finding good authentic French food is hard in the First , but finding outstanding desserts is not. Angelina, on Rue de Rivoli, has lost some of its world renowned elegance, but the aging-grande-dame feel of the place makes the yellowed mirrors and creaky chandeliers worth seeing on their own merits. Plus, their famously rich hot chocolate and Mont Blanc desserts are some of the best in Paris. For a more contemporary hotspot, Cafe Marley in the Louvre offers views not only of the museum’s art, but also of Paris’s current celebrity scene. For good food, the area right around Les Halles has a number of good brasseries, but, as said earlier, the area closer to Rue St. Denis and Sebastopol has a slightly seedier character – not at all dangerous, but nevertheless unsavory.
Where To Shop In The First :
If the haute couture of the Faubourg Saint Honore is a bit out of your desired spending range, head to the Les Halles mall. A surprisingly beautiful, art nouveau-inspired underground city (complete with street names, a swimming pool, park, and more), Les Halles proves that even Paris’s malls have a Parisian flair. While the area around the mall is useful for super-cheap (think 3-5 euro) clothes and shoes, the mall itself has much higher quality at affordable prices.
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