Rough Guide. Paris Directions

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Contents

Ideas

Le Select

Unlike its rivals,

Le Select

hasn’t gone down

the oysters-and-champagne route, and it

preserves a strong flavour of the arty pre-

war years, if not the prices.

쑺 P.147 쑺 MONTPARNASSE 쒀

Café Flore

The classic existentialist haunt is now more

fashion mecca than philosophical talking

shop, but it remains a Paris institution.

쑺 P.134 쑺 ST-GERMAIN 쑸

Montmartre

Before Montparnasse there was

Montmartre, and this most romantic of

quarters still attracts visitors eager to see

the streets and squares made famous by

Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec and others.

쑺 P.153 쑺 MONTMARTRE AND 쒀

NORTHERN PARIS

Musée Carnavalet

Proust wrote most of his great novel,

A la

recherche du temps perdu

, cocooned in his

cork-lined bedroom, now reconstructed at

the Musée Carnavalet.

쑺 P.109 쑺 THE MARAIS 쑽

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Ideas

From on high, Paris

looks like a sea of

nineteenth-century

mansion buildings,

their pale stone

facades turning

creamy-golden in

the sun. The long

boulevards look like

leafy canyons and the

parks like great green

pools, but it’s the

cemeteries that stand out

most of all, studded with

pale stone graves that

could almost be miniature

apartment blocks. There

are no skyscrapers to hide

the old city centre, so it’s

easy to pick out the great

landmarks, from the towers

of Notre-Dame and the

giant sculpted swathe of

the Louvre to the

multicoloured pipes and

tubes of the Pompidou

Centre.

Paris views

Sacré-Cœur

The steps of the Sacré-Cœur are famously

romantic, with Paris spread out below you

to the south, and the sun full on your face.

쑺 P.155 쑺 MONTMARTRE AND 쒀

NORTHERN PARIS

Georges, Pompidou Centre

Eating is very much a secondary affair

here – it’s the stunning view of the Paris

rooftops that’s the real draw.

쑺 P.103 쑺 BEAUBOURG AND 쒀

LES HALLES

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Ideas

Tour Montparnasse

The vista from the tower-top helipad is

stunning, and you can have a drink in the

panoramic 56th-floor restaurant afterwards.

쑺 P.142 쑺 MONTPARNASSE 쑸

Eiffel Tower

The view from the Eiffel Tower is especially

spectacular at night when the whole tower

is lit up from within, and the searchlight

sweeps the skies above.

쑺 P.136 쑺 EIFFEL TOWER AREA 쒀

Parc de Belleville

A little out of the way, but worth a trek for

the splendid views of the city afforded by

the park’s heights.

쑺 P.172 쑺 EASTERN PARIS 쒀

Arc de Triomphe

Views from the top are best towards dusk

on a sunny day when the marble of the

Grande Arche de la Défense sparkles in the

setting sun and the Louvre is bathed in

warm light.

쑺 P.79 쑺 THE CHAMPS ELYSEES

AND TUILERIES

쑽

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Ideas

In the second half of

the nineteenth

century, Baron

Haussmann

flattened Paris’s

slums to clear space

for the handsome

boulevards and

grand apartment

blocks that now

define the cityscape,

destroying much of the

city’s medieval patrimony

in the process. The

notoriously filthy, narrow

medieval streets have

completely disappeared –

though the touristy area

around rue de la Huchette

preserves something of the

old layout – but a few

grander monuments have

survived. The obvious place

to go is Notre-Dame

cathedral, but there are

other, equally beautiful

things to see, especially in

the historic Quartier Latin.

Medieval Paris

Musée National du

Moyen Age

Set in a fine Renaissance mansion,

Paris’s Museum of the Middle Ages

houses all manner of

objets d’art

including: the captivating tapestry

series of

The Lady and the Unicorn

쑺 P.118 쑺 QUARTIER LATIN 쑽

St-Etienne-du-Mont

At St-Etienne-du-Mont you can see an

extraordinary clash between the flamboy-

ant Gothic style and the Renaissance

architecture of the sixteenth century.

쑺 P.121 쑺 QUARTIER LATIN 쑽

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Ideas

The Sorbonne

In medieval times Paris was famous

throughout Europe for its university colleges,

based on the hilltop on the Seine’s left bank.

Of these, the Sorbonne is still there.

쑺 P.120 쑺 QUARTIER LATIN 쑽

Conciergerie

The Conciergerie’s impressive Gothic halls

are among the few surviving vestiges of the

original palace that once stood on the Ile de

la Cité.

쑺 P.70 쑺 THE ISLANDS 쑽

Sainte-Chapelle

The Sainte-Chapelle, with its stunning

stained-glass windows, is one of the jewels

of the Middle Ages.

쑺 P.68 쑺 THE ISLANDS 쒀

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Places

Contents

Places

Contents

Places

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Places

PLACES

The Islands

There’s no better place to start a tour of Paris than with

its two river islands, Ile de la Cité, the city’s ancient

core, and charming, village-like Ile St-Louis.

 PONT NEUF

The Ile de la Cité is where

Paris began. It was settled in

around 300 BC by a Celtic tribe,

the Parisii, and in 52 BC was

overrun by Julius Caesar’s troops.

The Romans called the settle-

ment Lutetia Parisiorum and

turned it into an administrative

centre, building a palace-fortress

at the western end of the Île de

la Cité. In the tenth century the

Frankish kings transformed this

fortress into a splendid palace, of

which the Sainte-Chapelle and

the Conciergerie prison sur-

vive today.

At the other end of the island

they erected the great cathedral

of Notre-Dame. It takes some

stretch of the imagination today

to picture what this medieval

settlement must have looked

like, for most of it was erased in

the nineteenth century by

Baron Haussmann, Napoleon

III’s Préfet de la Seine (a post

equivalent to mayor of Paris).

Some ninety streets were

destroyed and in their place

were raised four vast

Neoclassical edifices: the

Tribunal de Commerce; the

Hôtel Dieu; the Préfecture de

Police; and an extension to the

Palais de Justice.The few cor-

ners of the island that escaped

Haussmann’s attentions include

the leafy square du Vert-

Galant and charming place

Dauphine.

The smaller Ile St-Louis is

prime strolling territory. Unlike

its larger neighbour, it has no

heavyweight sights; rather the

island’s charm lies in its hand-

some ensemble of austerely

PLACES

The Islands

beautiful seventeenth-century

houses, tree-lined quais and nar-

row streets, harbouring restau-

rants, art galleries and gift shops.

For centuries the Ile St-Louis

was nothing but swampy pas-

tureland, a haunt of lovers, duel-

lists and miscreants on the run,

until in the seventeenth-century

the real-estate developer,

Christophe Marie, had the

bright idea of filling it with ele-

gant mansions. One of the finest

is the Hôtel Lauzun, which

became for a while a favourite

meeting place of bohemian

writers and artists in the nine-

teenth century.

Pont Neuf

Despite its name, the Pont Neuf

is the city’s oldest surviving

bridge, built in 1607 by Henri

IV, one of the city’s first great

town planners.A graceful stone

construction with twelve arch-

es, the bridge links the western

tip of the island with both

banks of the river. It was the

first in Paris to be made of

stone rather than wood, hence

the name.

Henri is commemorated with

a stately equestrian statue

halfway across.

Square du Vert-Galant

Enclosed within the triangular

“stern” of the island, the square

du Vert-Galant is a tranquil,

tree-lined garden and a popular

haunt of lovers.The square takes

its name (a “Vert-Galant” is a

“green” or “lusty” gentleman)

from the nickname given to

Henri IV, whose amorous

exploits were legendary.

Place Dauphine

Red-brick seventeenth-century

houses flank the entrance to

place Dauphine, one of the

city’s most secluded and attrac-

tive squares, lined with venera-

ble town houses.The noise of

traffic recedes here, likely to be

replaced by nothing more intru-

sive than the gentle tap of

boules being played in the shade

of the chestnuts.

The Sainte-Chapelle

Entrance on bd du Palais. Daily:

March–Oct 9.30am–6pm; Nov–Feb

Contents

Places

RUE GRANDS-

AUGUSTINS

AVE VICTORIA

PONT

NEUF

I D

E L'H

RLO

PETIT

PONT

PL DU

PARVIS-

NOTRE-DAME

PONT ST-

MICHEL

PL DU

PONT NEUF

ST-MICHEL

St-Michel

St-Michel-

Notre-

Dame

SQ DU

VERT-GALANT

ÎLE DE LA CITÉ

DAUPHINE

PL.

LÉPINE

Palais de Justice

Ste

Chapelle

Préfecture

de Police

Hôtel

Dieu

QUAI

DES

ORFÈVRES

Châtelet

RUE DE LUTÈCE

Conciergerie

Pont Neuf

BD DU PALAIS

Cité

Crypte

Archéol-

ogique

EATING &

DRINKING

Brasserie de I’Isle

Sant Louis

Taverne Henri IV

Nos Ancêtres les

Gaulois

Le Relais de l’Île