🇫🇷 Paris · Parigi

Paris, the cosmopolitan capital of France, 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 the City of Love (la ville de l'amour), Paris is home to some of the world's finest and most luxurious fashion designers and cosmetics, such as Chanel, Christian Dior, Yves Saint-Laurent, Guerlain, Lancôme, L'Oréal, and Clarins. A large part of the city, including the banks of the River Seine, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city has the second highest number of Michelin-starred restaurants in the world (after Tokyo, which is much larger) and contains numerous iconic landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, Notre-Dame de Paris, the Louvre, the Moulin Rouge and the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, making it one of the most popular international tourist destinations in the world, with around 14 million visitors annually. The city of Paris is divided into 20 districts called arrondissements, numbered from 1 to 20 in a clockwise spiral from the centre of the city (which is known as Kilomètre zéro and is located at the front of Notre Dame). Arrondissements are named according to their number. You might, for example, stay in the "5th", which would be written as 5e in French. The 12th and 16th arrondissements include large parks: the Bois de Vincennes and the Bois de Boulogne respectively. The very best map you can get for Paris is called "Paris Pratique par Arrondissement" which you can buy for about €5 at any news stand. It makes navigating the city easy. The various tourist information centres and hotels in Paris also provide various city and metro maps for free and which contain all the essential details for a tourist. Each arrondissement has its own unique character and selection of attractions for the traveller: Beyond Paris, the outlying suburbs are called La Banlieue. Schematically, those to the west of Paris (Neuilly-sur-Seine, Boulogne-Billancourt, Saint Cloud, Levallois, Versailles, Poissy, Rueil-Malmaison) are wealthy residential communities, even if some more middle class suburbs can be found. Those to the north are poorer communities, and very ethnically diverse. Those to the south are a mix of rough and poor neighbourhoods alongside very affluent communities. Finally, those to the east are usually lower-middle class mingled with a few upper-middle class communities.