Paris

Paris has made elegance part of civic identity. Fashion houses, museums, grand avenues, intimate neighbourhoods and a long tradition of intellectual life create a city where beauty is organised into daily rhythm.

Paris is divided by the Seine into the Right Bank and the Left Bank, and into twenty arrondissements spiralling outwards from the Île de la Cité, where Notre-Dame stands. Much of the city’s present form dates from the Second Empire, when Baron Haussmann cut broad boulevards through the medieval streets and lined them with uniform facades of cream stone. The banks of the Seine through the centre are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Each quarter keeps a distinct character: the Marais with its seventeenth-century hôtels particuliers, Saint-Germain-des-Prés with its cafés and publishers, the Golden Triangle of haute couture between the Champs-Élysées and the Avenue Montaigne, and Montmartre above the city. The Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay and the Orangerie anchor a museum culture that extends to dozens of smaller collections and private foundations.

Spring is the season most associated with Paris: from April to June the chestnut trees flower, the Tuileries and the Luxembourg gardens fill, and the café terraces come into their own. Roland-Garros brings the tennis world in late May and early June. September and October are equally rewarding, with the cultural season beginning again and the fashion shows and autumn art fairs filling the city.

July and August are warm and quieter than one might expect, as many Parisians leave for the coast and some restaurants close; on 14 July the national holiday brings the military parade on the Champs-Élysées and fireworks over the Eiffel Tower. Winter is grey and cool but has its own pleasures: the Christmas windows of the grands magasins, the opera and ballet season, and the haute couture shows in January.

Paris keeps the densest group of grand hotels in France, its Palaces foremost. Four Seasons Hotel George V stands just off the Champs-Élysées; Hôtel Plaza Athénée on the Avenue Montaigne; Le Bristol Paris on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré; the Ritz Paris and Mandarin Oriental, Paris around the Place Vendôme; and Hôtel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel, on the Place de la Concorde.

LVXVRY books Four Seasons Hotel George V through Four Seasons Preferred Partner and Mandarin Oriental, Paris through Mandarin Oriental Fan Club — at the official hotel rate, with the privileges each programme attaches to the stay. For the Ritz Paris, Le Bristol, the Plaza Athénée and the Crillon, LVXVRY advises on and arranges the stay directly, including tables, guides and private visits across the city.