Geography and history have
combined to give Paris a
remarkably coherent and
intelligible structure. The city
lies in a basin surrounded by
hills. It is very nearly circular,
confined within the limits of the
the ring road, the boulevard périphérique,
which follows the line of the
city's nineteenth-century
fortifications. The capital's
raison d'être and its lifeline,
the
River Seine , flows
east to west, carving the city in
two. Anchored at the hub of the
circle, in the middle of the
river, is the island from which
the rest of Paris grew: the
Île
de la Cité , home of the
capital's oldest religious and
secular institutions - Notre Dame
cathedral and the Palais de
Justice.
The north or Right Bank
( rive droite ) of the
Seine is characterized by imposing
government buildings, sweeping
vistas and elegant boulevards. The
longest and grandest thoroughfare
is the so-called Voie
Triomphale , which runs from
the Louvre to the Grande Arche de
la Défense in the northwest,
taking in the Tuileries gardens,
Champs-Élysées and Arc de
Triomphe, each monument an
expression of royal or state power
across the centuries. To the
immediate north and east of the
Voie Triomphale spread the
commercial and financial quarters,
site of the stock exchange, the
refurbished nineteenth-century passages
and Les Halles shopping centre.
Just to the east of Les Halles lie
the Marais and Bastille
quartiers, two of the city's
liveliest and most happening
areas.
The south bank of the river, or
Left Bank ( rive gauche
), owes its existence to the
cathedral school of Notre-Dame,
which spilled over from the Île
de la Cité and became the
university of the Sorbonne,
attracting scholars and students
from all over the medieval world.
Ever since, it has been the
traditional domain of academics,
writers and artists.
The city is divided into twenty
arrondissements , whose
spiral arrangement provides a
fairly accurate guide to its
historical growth . Centred
on the Louvre, they wind outwards
in a clockwise direction. The
inner hub of the city comprises
arrondissements 1er to 6e, and
it's here that most of the major
sights and museums are to be
found. The outer or higher-number
arrondissements were mostly
incorpor ated into the city in the
nineteenth century - some, such as
Montmartre, Belleville and Passy
, have succeeded in retaining
something of their separate
village identity. Historically,
the districts to the west
attracted the aristo cracy and the
newly rich, while those to the
east accommodated mainly the poor
and the working class,
distinctions which largely hold
true to this day, though much of
the east is gradually being
gentrified.
Paris is not particularly well
endowed with parks. The largest,
the Bois de Boulogne and
the Bois de Vincennes , at
the western and eastern limits of
the city respectively, do possess
small pockets of interest, but are
largely anonymous sprawls. For a
break from the bustle of the city,
it is best to try an out-of-town
excursion, to the gardens of Giverny
, for example, or the forest of Fontainebleau.
