You’re nearly there – Paris, France’s glistening capital city! You can hardly wait to arrive . You’ve gotten your cheap international airline ticket to Paris, France , now you are trying to decide between some wonderful sounding bargains on Paris hotels in the First arrondissement. Where you are staying in the city is always an important consideration for Paris hotels 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 this neighborhood in Paris is where you want to be!

Paris: The 1st Arrondissement

Paris’s 1st arrondissement is filled with the sort of elegance and grandeur that centuries’ worth of visitors have imagined when thinking of Paris . Broad boulevards, high-end fashion , and precisely maintained parks overlooking the dreamy River Seine are all found in this arrondissement , a district mainly of office space and tourist sites. Les Halles, Paris’s unique take on a shopping mall, can be found here as well.

What To Expect If You’re Staying Here :

Why You Want To Stay Here:

Spending time in the First has many benefits. When you walk beneath the nineteenth-century arches of the arcade Rue de Rivoli , you will be following in the footsteps of generations of dandies and duchesses: vanished members of Paris of another time. You’ll be near some of Paris’s most beautiful 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 elegantly understated Faubourg Saint Honore, is unparalleled !

The Bad :

While daytime in the First Arrondissement provides access to some of Paris’s finest sights within a few moments’ stroll , the business-like character of the area means that nightlife, by contrast, is limited within the arrondissement. So unless you go to the Les Halles/St. Denis area there’s not much to do. Les Halles/St. Denis’s low-budget pleasures may appear slightly seedy to visitors over the age of 21 (that said, the area bordering the Les Halles mall is consistently nice – a good place to stop after catching a film in Les Halles’s enormous cinema, which presents many US and UK films in their original languages. But avoid going towards Rue St. Denis/Blvd. Sebastopol unless you’re consciously seeking that sort of milieu.) Furthermore, this area can get very, 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 and sights abound in the First. Take a stroll down the Faubourg Saint-Honore, where nearly every famous fashion house of the world has a store . Visit the Louvre or Tuileries Gardens near the Place de Concorde, see a play at the Comedie Francaise in the Chatelet area.

Eating Places :
Finding good French food is difficult in the First , but finding great 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 some of 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 sketchier character – not at all dangerous, but nevertheless unsavory.

Places To Shop:
If the exclusive shopping of the Faubourg Saint Honore is a bit out of your desired spending range, go 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 really cheap (think 3-5 euro) clothes and shoes, the mall itself has much higher quality items at pretty good prices.

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