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  Paris Travel Diary Neighborhoods and the Metro
Paris is a compact city of 20 neighborhoods with a 21st on the way. They call them arrondissements with each neighborhood exercising independent governmental jurisdiction.
The city is split in half by the Seine River. North of the Seine is the Right Bank and South of the Seine is the Left Bank. The numbering of the neighborhoods begins at Notre Dame and moves in a clockwise spiral out to the edge of Paris. The last two digits of the Parisian postal code tell in which neighborhood an address is located. This sounds complex but we discovered it to be very easy to follow in locating addresses.
The Metro was our best friend. With a "Let's Go Paris" map guide, and a "Paris in 26 Maps", we moved around Paris with relative ease. The Metro is indispensable in navigating Paris quickly and inexpensively. We traveled on all 13 Metro lines and enjoyed visiting many of the Metro Stations. Each station in the Metro system is designed in some way to represent the part of the city it serves. The Palais Royal/Louvre and Louvre/Rivoli stations were magnificent with their statutes and paintings that advertised the Louvre. Others weren't quite as magnificent just unique. Gee, there is a lot of interesting "need to know" stuff about Paris. I have suggested some guidebooks on the virtualtravels website and leave the "need to know" stuff to move on to more interesting activities in my next report. Join us for the next few "Word Pictures" while I share a little of our trip to Paris. This is Mike Clay with "Word Pictures from Paris". A community service of Lifesongs. Checkout our website at www.virtualtravels.com. Suggested guidebooks: "Rick Steves France Belgium and the Netherlands", Rick Steves and Steve Smith, JohnMuir Publications, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1997. "Let's Go Map Guide-Paris", Julianna S. Tymoczko, St. Martin's Press, NY, 1996. "Frommer's Walking Tours-Paris-2nd Edition", Lisa Legarde, Macmillan Company, NY, 1995. These can be found at www.amazon.com.
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