The arrondissement also has the best vantage point to view the Eiffel Tower: place du Trocadero. 17th Arrondissement (Parc Monceau/Place Clichy)-- Flanking the northern periphery of Paris, the 17th incorporates neighborhoods of bourgeois respectability (in its west end) and less affluent neighborhoods in its east end.

It boasts two of the great restaurants of Paris, Guy Savoy and Michel Rostang. 18th Arrondissement (Montmartre)-- The 18th is the most famous outer quarter of Paris, containing Montmartre, the Moulin Rouge, Sacre-Coeur, and ultratouristy place du Tertre. Utrillo was its native son, Renoir lived here, and Toulouse-Lautrec adopted the area as his own.

The most famous enclave of artists in Paris's history, the Bateau-Lavoir of Picasso fame, gathered here. Max Jacob, Matisse, and Braque were all frequent visitors. Today, place Blanche is known for its prostitutes, and Montmartre is filled with honky-tonks, souvenir shops, and terrible restaurants. You can still find pockets of quiet beauty, though.

The city's most famous flea market, the Marche aux Puces de Clignancourt, is another landmark. 19th Arrondissement (La Villette)-- Today, visitors come to what was once the village of La Villette to see the angular Cite des Sciences et de l'Industrie, a spectacular science museum and park built on a site that for years was devoted to the city's slaughterhouses.

Mostly residential, and not at all upscale, the district is one of the most ethnically diverse in Paris, the home of people from all parts of the former Empire.

A highlight is Les Buttes Chaumont, a park where kids can enjoy puppet shows and donkey rides. 20th Arrondissement (Pere-Lachaise Cemetary-- The 20th's greatest landmark is Pere-Lachaise Cemetery, the resting place of Edith Piaf, Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde, Isadora Duncan, Sarah Bernhardt, Gertrude Stein and Alice B.

Toklas, Colette, Jim Morrison, and many others. Otherwise, the 20th arrondissement is a dreary and sometimes volatile melting pot comprising residents from France's former colonies.

Though nostalgia buffs sometimes head here to visit Piaf's former neighborhood, Menilmontant-Belleville, it has been almost totally bulldozed and rebuilt since the bad old days when she grew up here.