Paris is one of the few cities that lives up to its own mythology — not the entire mythology, which was written by people who arrived fifty years ago and found something they cannot quite describe to anyone who wasn’t there, but enough of it to understand why the mythology persists. The light on the Seine at seven in the morning. The Musée d’Orsay when you have timed entry and no one else is in the Impressionist rooms yet. The dinner that begins at nine and ends whenever it ends. The quality of the available inattention — the way Paris leaves you alone in a way that London, which also claims to be a walking city, somehow does not. These are real, and a week spent there without a single plan that couldn’t be cancelled is among the most available luxuries in international travel.
The neighbourhood question is the one that most determines the Paris a person gets, and it is the question that most often goes unanswered when someone books based on hotel name alone. The 8th arrondissement holds the grandest palace hotels in the city — the Four Seasons George V, Le Bristol, the Plaza Athénée — and the Champs-Élysées, which is wide, commercial, and not where Parisians spend their time. You stay in the 8th for the hotel; the neighbourhood does not reward walking out of it. The 6th, Saint-Germain, is where most people picture Paris: the Luxembourg gardens, the café terraces, the bouquinistes along the Seine. The Marais, in the 3rd and 4th, is the insider’s choice — medieval lanes, the strongest neighbourhood character in the central city, the most interesting restaurants. The Shangri-La in the 7th has the Eiffel Tower directly opposite from the breakfast room, which is a specific thing to want and a very good reason to stay there.
For a France trip beyond Paris, Provence in late May or June is the answer when the lavender is approaching peak and the temperatures are still sane. The Côte d’Azur pairs naturally with Paris on a longer trip — the TGV from Paris to Nice is under six hours, the trains are excellent, and the combination of city and coast earns the two weeks.
