Want Paris Hotels? A Guide To Paris’s First Arrondissement
October 1st, 2009 by Henry, under Air Travel, World Travel. No Comments
You are nearly there – Paris, France’s glistening capital city! You can hardly wait to land. You’ve gotten your Paris flights, now you’re trying to decide between some wonderful sounding bargains on a number of Paris hotels . 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 1st arrondissement so you can learn more about whether the First is where you want to be!
Paris: The First Arrondissement
Paris’s first arrondissement is filled with the sort of elegance and grandeur that centuries’ worth of travelers have imagined when thinking of Paris, France . Splendid boulevards, high-end fashion , and precisely maintained parks overlooking the dreamy River Seine are all found in this arrondissement , a district primarily of office space and tourist sites. Les Halles, Paris’s unusual take on a shopping mall, can be found here as well.
What To Know :
What’s Good :
Spending time in Paris’s First has many advantages . When you stroll beneath the nineteenth-century arches of the arcade Rue de Rivoli , you will be following in the steps of generations of dandies and duchesses: vanished remnants of an older Paris . You will be near some of Paris’s most remarkable tourist sites – the Tuileries garden to Chatelet -site of the Comedie Francaise, where Moliere once produced his plays – to the world renowned Louvre . And the shopping, on the understated Faubourg Saint Honore, is unparalleled !
Here’s The Cons:
While daytime in the First provides access to some of Paris’s finest sights within a few moments’ walk, the business-like character 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 visitors over the age of 21 (that said, the section bordering the Les Halles mall is very nice – a fine place to stop after watching a movie in Les Halles’s enormous cinema, which presents many American and British films in their original languages. But avoid going towards Rue St. Denis/Blvd. Sebastopol unless you’re consciously seeking that sort of milieu.) What’s more, this area can get extremely touristy – especially around the otherwise lovely Rue de Rivoli. So watch your purse and control your buying impulse for souvenirs until you’re a bit further off the beaten path.
What To Do:
Sites abound here. 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.
Eating Spots :
Finding good French food is almost impossible in this area, but finding superb desserts is not. Angelina, on Rue de Rivoli, has lost some of its mythic 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 among the best in Paris. For a more recent hotspot, Cafe Marley in the Louvre offers views not only of the museum’s art, but also of Paris’s current celebrity scene. For better 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 rougher 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 budget , 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 shopping centers have a particular 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.
