Travel to Paris

Paris is a huge city with several district articles containing sightseeing, restaurant, nightlife and accommodation listings — consider printing them all.

Paris, the cosmopolitan capital of France, is - with 2.2 million people living in the dense (105 km²) central city and almost 12 million people living in the whole metropolitan area - one of the largest agglomerations in Europe. Located in the north of the country on the river Seine, Paris has the reputation of being the most beautiful and romantic of all cities, brimming with historic associations and remaining vastly influential in the realms of culture, art, fashion, food and design. Dubbed the City of Light (la Ville Lumière) and Capital of Fashion, it is home to the world's finest and most luxorious fashion designers and cosmetics, such as Chanel, Christian Dior, Yves Saint-Laurent, Guerlain, Lancôme, L'Oréal, Clarins, etc. A large part of the city, including the River Seine, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city has the second highest number of Michelin-restaurants in the world (after Tokyo) and contain numerous iconic landmarks, such as the world's most visited tourist sight the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Louvre Museum, Moulin Rouge, Lido etc, making it the most popular tourist destination in the world with 45 million tourists annually.

Introducing Paris

Well informed, eloquent and oh-so-romantic, the ‘City of Light’ is a philosopher, a poet, a crooner. As it always has been, Paris is a million different things to a million different people.

Paris has all but exhausted the superlatives that can reasonably be applied to any city. Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower – at sunrise, at sunset, at night – have been described countless times, as have the Seine and the subtle (and not-so-subtle) differences between the Left and Right Banks. But what writers have been unable to capture is the grandness and even the magic.

Paris probably has more familiar landmarks than any other city in the world. As a result, first-time visitors often arrive in the French capital with all sorts of expectations: of grand vistas, of intellectuals discussing weighty matters in cafés, of romance along the Seine, of naughty nightclub revues, of rude people who won’t speak English. If you look hard enough, you can probably find all of those. But another approach is to set aside the preconceptions of Paris and to explore the city’s avenues and backstreets as if the tip of the Eiffel Tower or the spire of Notre Dame wasn’t about to pop into view at any moment.

You’ll soon discover (as so many others before you have) that Paris is enchanting almost everywhere, at any time, even ‘in the summer, when it sizzles’ and ‘in the winter, when it drizzles’, as Cole Porter put it. And you’ll be back. Trust us.

St-Denis

For 1200 years St-Denis was the burial place of French royalty; today it is a quiet suburb just north of Paris’ 18e arrondissement. The ornate royal tombs, adorned with some truly remarkable statuary, and Basilique de St-Denis that contains them (the world’s first major Gothic structure), are worth a visit. St-Denis can also boast the Stade de France, the futuristic stadium just south of Canal de St-Denis.

Cooking in Paris.

What better place to discover the secrets of la cuisine française than in Paris, the capital of gastronomy? Courses are available at different levels and lengths of time and the cost of tuition varies widely. One of the most popular – and affordable – for beginners is the Les Coulisses du Chef Cours de Cuisine Olivier Berté (01 40 26 14 00; www.coursdecuisineparis.com; 2nd fl, 7 rue Paul Lelong, 2e; Bourse), which offers three-hour courses at 10.30am from Wednesday to Saturday with an additional class from 6pm to 9pm on Friday. ‘Carnets’ of five/20 courses are available.

Much more expensive are the Paris Cooking Classes with Patricia Wells (www.patriciawells.com) led by the incomparable American food critic and author at her cooking studio in rue Jacob, 6e. The class runs from Monday to Friday, is limited to seven participants and includes market visits, tastings, local transport and daily lunch.

Other cooking schools in Paris include the following:

Coin-Cuisine (01 45 79 01 40; www.coin-cuisine.fr, in French; 110 rue du Théatre, 15e; Av Émile Zola) Courses of various themes and levels lasting from one to four hours.

Cook’n with Class (06 31 73 62 77; www.cooknwithclass.com; 21 rue Custine, 18e; Château Rouge) Morning/evening/full-day classes are available.

École Le Cordon Bleu (01 53 68 22 50; www.cordonbleu.edu; 8 rue Léon Delhomme, 15e; Vaugirard or Convention) Dating back to 1895, the Cordon Bleu school has professional courses as well as one-day themed workshops on topics like terrines and viennoiserie (baked goods), and two- and four-day courses on classic and modern sauces and the secrets of bread and pastry making.

Source: http://www.lonelyplanet.com; http://wikitravel.org