Paris and its 20 arrondissements

An important point to know before discovering Paris arrondissement by arrondissement is that sometimes you might be contemplating some building at the crossroads and find out that in fact it is situated in another arrondissement than you are. Or you can start walking down a street in one arrondissement and in the end of the street find out that you are actually already in another one. This has already happened to me at least twice:

·         at the Opera metro station – the Place de l’Opéra – when you stand in the middle of the square, the first thing you see is the Opera building. But be aware, in this case, that you are in the 2nd arrondissement and the Opera is in the 9th ;

·         at the rue Sainte-Anne near the Pyramides metro station – this street links the 1st and the 2nd arrondissements and belongs to both.

And there are many other places like this in Paris (at the crossroads, in the middle of the bridges over the river Seine, at the squares, and so on). The most fascinating point is that often, when being in some certain district, you can still easily identify it by its specific characteristics. And exactly this makes every arrondissement a city within a bigger city.