Paris

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Sights and museums

Although the last few years have brought little dramatic change on the scale of François Mitterrand‘s famous grands projets, Paris has produced a steady stream of improvements, renovations and, yes, the occasional all-new attraction.

One of the latter is a museum of non-Western arts on the left bank near the Eiffel Tower, the Musée du Quai Branly, itself a pet presidential project – the president in this case being Jacques Chirac. Opened in specially-built premises by Jean Nouvel in June 2006, the museum amalgamates the defunct Musée des Arts d’Afrique et d’Océanie and the ethnology collections of the Musée de l’Homme, and its impressively broad scope has room for Dogon and Gabonese sculpture, Vietnamese and Peruvian costumes, and masks from Cameroon.

On the ‘old renewed’ front, 2006 has been a good year, with the reopening of several major museums: the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Musée de l’Orangerie, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and Musée du Petit Palais. Just across the road from the latter, the Grand Palais has also emerged from a period of extensive renovation looking absolutely magnificent. All it now needs is a worthwhile function.

But the new and revamped are just a fraction of what Paris has to offer: this is, after all, the home of the Louvre, alone worth several museums in cities elsewhere. The Louvre, too, like a colossal work in progress, has been progressively finessed in recent years, most notably with the opening in 2005 of a brand new gallery for the Mona Lisa.

 

Elsewhere, the list is almost endless – from defining monuments like the Eiffel Tower to lesser-known but entirely cherishable museums like the Musée de la Vie Romantique. Even the city’s largest attraction, the Seine, is enjoying something of a renaissance lately, with the annual Paris Plage jamboree, a brand new floating swimming pool and regular cycle- and rollerskate-only days along the riverside roads in the city centre.

 

All this, and far more that we haven’t mentioned in this introduction, in a city that’s of manageable size and, into the bargain, blessed with one of the best transport networks in the world. Cities don’t come more visitor-friendly than Paris.

 

Neighbourhoods
Paris residents think of their city with two systems, the named districts – the Marais, the Latin Quarter, Beaubourg and so on – and the arrondissements. Of the former, many have uncertain boundaries. The latter, numbering 20, are fixed administrative districts that spiral out, clockwise and in ascending order, from the Louvre.

 

Together, they make a jigsaw puzzle compared by novelist Julien Green to medical models of the human brain, and each piece has its connotations. 5th: intello. 6th: chic. 16th: affluent and stuffy. 18th, 19th, 20th: lively and multicultural. Rightly or wrongly, residents are often assessed, at least at first encounter, by their postcodes – and many will tell you that Paris is not a city but, in fact, a coagulation of distinct villages.

 

The Champs-Elysées & Western Paris section has as its spine the famous avenue, lined with shops and concept stores; it also includes the fashion’s glammest thoroughfare, avenue Montaigne, and fashion’s second glammest thoroughfare, rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré.

 

Montmartre & Pigalle has, at its northern end, picturesque Montmartre with its steeps flights of steps, narrow windy streets and iconic Sacré-Coeur; and, to the south, Pigalle, famous for the Moulin Rouge, sleazy strip clubs and scuzzy bars, though now a far cleaner act than it was, say, 20 years ago. Opéra to Les Halles covers much of the city’s shopping heartland, as well as its biggest cultural hitter, the Louvre – ably supported by the Palais Garnier and the Musée de l’Orangerie. There’s no shortage of history, either: take a stroll around pretty Palais-Royal to see what we mean.

 

Northeastern Paris is the part of Paris visitors from the UK are likely to see first: here, at the Gare du Nord, is where Eurostar trains terminate. The area is bisected by the charming Canal St-Martin, with the length of which is a steadily up-and-coming stretch of hip little cafés and fashion boutiques; further east lies the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, with its grottoes and its romantic bridge. Marais, Bastille & Eastern Paris is barfly territory, especially along rue Oberkampf and rue Jean-Pierre-Timbaud.

 

The Marais itself is the city’s gay heartland, but is also terminally trendy, seething with art galleries and dinky little purveyors foodstuffs and accessories. The Islands – Ile de la Cité, oldest part of the city, home to Notre-Dame cathedral, and the quieter Ile St-Louis, home to shops and restaurants – are unlike any other parts of the city, and should not be overlooked.

 

Star attraction of the affluent (and often stuffy and institutional) 7th & Western Paris area is the Eiffel Tower, the monument most people think of when they hear the word Paris. Always elegant, it’s prettiest after dark, when tens of thousands of flashbulbs attached to it give the effect of a shimmering sequinned dress. The nighttime is also the best time to ascend the Tower, when queues are at their shortest.

 

St-Germain-des-Prés is, in popular mythology, the intellectual bit of the city, famous for Sartre and co. These days it’s more a pillar of fashion, and the cafés are too expensive for impecunious brainiacs. But the city’s loveliest park, the Jardin du Luxembourg is here, and it costs nothing; and the Musée d’Orsay, though not free, is still terrific value.

 

To the east, the Latin Quarter is where several of the city’s academic institutions are based – and, in pleasing contrast, home to some of its jazz institutions. South is Montparnasse, no longer the artistic stronghold of the 1920s, but good for cafés and the dead – the Cimetière Montparnasse is home to some of France’s most illustrious deceased.

 

Making the most of it
Invest in a Mobilis travel pass and travel cashless through the city by bus and métro. The Paris métro is a world champion among public transport networks and merits a ride in its own right (especially on the driverless line 14); the local buses are clean, frequent and cheap, and are ideal for getting a handle on the city’s topography. Some good bus routes to try just for their sightseeing opportunies are 24, which takes you through St-Germain-des-Prés and the Latin Quarter, 29, which goes through the Marais, 73, which runs up the Champs-Elysées and beyond.

 

But in the main, you just can’t beat walking. Your best chance of hearing this city’s heartbeat lies in putting one foot in front of the other, above ground, among the people who live and work here; only then will you be able to see the ‘museum city’ clichés for what they are. Paris is alive, thriving: joyous proof that a city can love the trappings of the contemporary world without forgetting – or fossilising – its past.

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