PARIS

Why is Paris worth a visit?

Paris – the city of love, fashion, art, literature, cafes, good food and light. Paris has many epithets and just as many clichés accompany the French capital. Whatever you may believe about it, the fact is that Paris is one of the most beautiful, interesting and therefore worth seeing cities in the world.

The Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomph, the Champs-Élysées, the Louvre, Sacré-Cœur, the many world-class museums, the countless beautiful palaces, gorgeous boulevards and magnificent parks of the city – in Paris one tourist highlight follows the next. No wonder Paris is the most visited tourist destination in Europe, next to London.

Here are our top 10 reasons to travel to Paris:

1. Paris is a dynamic city. Here, history accompanies you at every turn. Despite this, Paris is not stuck in the past, but is constantly reinventing itself.

2. Paris is a beauty. Largely spared from major wars, fires and other catastrophes, there is hardly any other city in the world with such beautiful and well-preserved historic buildings as the French capital.

3. Paris is a photogenic city. Apart from the fact that there are really many worthwhile photo motifs in the French capital, most of them are also very good to photograph. With its wide boulevards and architectural sightlines, the city is every amateur photographer’s dream.

4. Paris has, in sum, the best art museums in the world. The Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, the Centre Georges-Pompidou, the Musée Picasso, the Musée Rodin, the Louis Vuitton Foundation, and so on – the list of top addresses for old and modern art could be continued for a long time.

5. In Paris you can eat out very well. There is not much more to say about it.

6. Although Paris is a world metropolis, the French capital has plenty of greenery to offer. The city’s gardens and parks, such as the Tuileries Garden, the Jardin du Luxembourg, the Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de Vincennes, are among the most beautiful in the world.

7. There is always something going on in Paris. With the cultural, sports and other programs of the city, you simply can not get bored.

8. in Paris you can shop fantastically. From luxury department stores to flea markets, the French capital has the right shopping experience for every taste and budget.

9. Paris has a wonderful café culture that is simply part of the city’s savoir vivre.

10. There is much to discover in Paris, even off the beaten tourist track. If you take an unplanned turn into a side street or just drift aimlessly through the city, you will see and experience lots of things that are not in a travel guide.

For whom is Paris worth a visit?

Sightseers:

Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame, Arc de Triomph, Champs-Élysées, Louvre, Sacré-Cœur – if you are looking for a city with many world-class sights, you will hardly find a better destination than Paris.

History buffs:

Paris was already an important city under the Romans. As the residence of the French kings, European and world history was written in Paris over many centuries. No wonder that in the French capital you will encounter (world) history at every corner.

Architecture buffs:

Unlike many other cities, Paris has been largely spared major disasters such as wars and fires throughout its history. That is why there is hardly any other city that still has such a well-preserved historic building stock. Large parts of the banks of the Seine are therefore UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Museum visitors:

Paris is a paradise for museum visitors. Especially art lovers get their money’s worth in the French capital. Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Centre Georges-Pompidou, Musée Rodin, Musée Picasso, Cité des sciences et de l’industrie, Louis Vuitton Foundation, Musée du quai Branly – Paris has a long list of world-class museums.

Gourmets:

Whether Paris is the pinnacle of culinary pleasure or not will never be definitively answered. The fact is that in hardly any other city can you find such a diverse and outstanding gastronomic offer as here.

Shopaholics:

Together with London, Paris is the shopping mecca of Europe. Those who have a somewhat thicker wallet and love luxury items will find their happiness in Paris. But also for visitors with a somewhat smaller purse, the French capital has great shopping opportunities.

Green lovers:

Although Paris is a world metropolis, the city has plenty of greenery to offer. And what’s more, Paris’ gardens and parks are among the most beautiful in the world.

Best time to travel

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Paris is a great destination at any time of the year. The French capital is at its best in spring and summer, when the weather is usually relatively good and you can enjoy the city’s many beautiful green spaces, the terraces of cafés and bistros, and outdoor life in general. But even in fall and winter, Paris has plenty of indoor activities to offer with its countless museums and other attractions.

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Getting there

By car:

It is not advisable to travel to Paris by car. On the one hand, the French capital is notorious for its notorious traffic chaos. And on the other hand, one often makes much faster progress in the city with the public transportation (especially with the subway) than with the car.

By train:

From Germany and Switzerland there are very good rail connections to Paris. From Cologne you arrive at the Gare du Nord, from Frankfurt and southern Germany at the Gare de l’Est and from Switzerland at the Gare de Lyon.

By plane:

Paris has two major airports: Charles-de-Gaulle and Orly. CDG is the main airport of the French capital and offers regular connections to all major cities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. From Orly, there are rather low-cost airlines with a correspondingly thinner network of connections.

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Shopping

Paris is a true shopping mecca. When you think of shopping in the French capital, fashion, perfumes, cosmetics, delicacies, champagne and luxury goods of all kinds pass your mind’s eye. And in fact, there is probably no other city in Europe where you can spend as much money on beautiful things as in Paris.

Paris is known for its world-famous department stores, first and foremost the beautiful art nouveau Galeries Lafayette, the largest department store in the city. Here you can shop to your heart’s content on 68,000 square meters, especially women’s and men’s fashion. In addition, when it comes to shopping, you should definitely see the Forum des Halles – France’s largest shopping center. In the huge underground center, you will find an enormous selection of stores from all the well-known French and international brands.

Speaking of fashion, Paris is of course the world capital of haute couture. If you want to dress yourself in the latest creations of French or international designers, it is best to walk along Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. It is the noblest and most expensive shopping street in the French capital, which is not cheap anyway. The brands represented here read like a Who’s Who of the French and international fashion and cosmetics world. Of course, Paris also has numerous fashion stores to offer, where you can buy great fashion at affordable prices.

If you are looking for jewelry or a watch and have a well-filled wallet, you should definitely visit Place Vendôme. Here you can spend a few euros on a new piece of jewelry or a timepiece at Cartier, Chanel, Dior, Piaget, Patek Philippe, Jaeger-LeCoultre Breguet and many other top brands.

The two boulevards Avenue des Champs-Élysées and Rue de Rivoli are also attractive shopping streets. However, they tend to be home to flagship stores and branches of large chains. Those looking for small stores and boutiques in Paris should rather try their luck in side streets or a little away from the center anyway. In the neighborhoods of Marais and Montmarte there are many small, charming stores where you can find extravagant things. But other neighborhoods also have their very own shopping charm.

Food and drink

France is not without reason considered to be one of the countries in the world that places the most value on good food and drink. No wonder that Paris, as the capital of the country, represents for many people the pinnacle of haute cuisine. Paris offers its visitors an incredible bandwidth of gastronomic offerings and culinary delights. In hardly any other city in the world is one spoiled for choice between so many star restaurants as in Paris. But also the typical Parisian bistros are known for their partly excellent cuisine. And, of course, Paris also benefits in gastronomic terms from its very international population structure. In the capital of France, you can therefore not only eat good French food. Speaking of French food: There is actually no typical Parisian cuisine in this sense, but there are dishes and specialties from all corners of France.

Nightlife and entertainment

What would Paris be without its most notorious nightlife!? In the evening and at night, the French capital awakens in many neighborhoods and streets to even more life than it already has in it during the day. The city has an almost endless selection of bars, cinemas, theaters, discos and clubs to offer. If you can’t or don’t want to choose a particular location, you should definitely take a walk through Paris at night, because after dark the city has a very special flair.

Each Parisian district has its own nightlife options. In the student district Latin Quarter, students still populate the pubs and cafes. Many tourists think that the Champs-Élysées are a good place to party and go out, but quickly realize that this is more of a tourist cliché, and a rather overpriced one at that. Among bar visitors and clubbers, the Oberkampf neighborhood is very hip. Among Parisians it is considered “Bobo” (abbreviation for “bourgeois bohême”), that is, a little “alternative”. Here you can find numerous cocktail, wine and beer bars, as well as pubs and nightclubs.

The Montmartre district is indeed heavily frequented by tourists at all times of the day and night. Nevertheless, you can find many good nightlife options here as well. At the foot of Montmartre is Pigalle, the disreputable red light district of Paris. In addition to peep shows and strip clubs, you can also find some good music venues here. And of course it’s not far from there to the world-famous Moulin Rouge, whose shows still thrill today. In addition to the Moulin Rouge, there are of course several other excellent variety theaters in Paris that offer much more than just cancan.

The Bastille district is a hive of activity – on weekends it is one of the nightlife and party hotspots for locals and tourists alike. Especially worth mentioning is the Rue de Lappe. The string of pubs makes the street probably the longest bar counter in France.

In summer, it is recommended to end the day with a drink on the banks of the Seine. This is best done in one of the numerous beach clubs or seasonal beach bars. Those who like to continue partying on the water can do so in one of the “boat discos” on the Seine. Another popular summer location is the banks of the Canal Saint-Martin, where locals gather on warm summer evenings to picnic or enjoy a drink in one of the many waterfront bars and bistros.

And those who prefer a more dignified evening program and prefer to go to the opera and theater are spoiled for choice in Paris between a variety of excellent stages. The French capital offers more than 140 small and larger theaters, cabarets and operas.