Paris Guide
The Islands
There's nowhere better to start a tour of Paris than with the two river islands at the centre, the Ile de la Cité and the Ile St-Louis. The former is the core from which the rest of Paris grew and harbours the capital's most treasured monuments – the Gothic cathedral of Notre-Dame and the stunning Sainte-Chapelle – while the smaller Ile St-Louis, linked to the Ile de la Cité by a footbridge, has no heavyweight sights to speak of, but possesses a charm all of its own, with its handsome ensemble of seventeenth-century houses, villagey streets and tree-lined quais.