The 2nd Arrondissement, from the Galerie Vivienne to the Opéra

You could cross the 2nd without noticing it. It is the smallest arrondissement in Paris, held between the Louvre, the Opéra and the Grands Boulevards, and many travellers only pass through. A pity: few neighbourhoods say so much about the city in so few streets. Our apartments are on rue Vivienne and rue Sainte-Anne, and this is where we write from.

A neighbourhood under glass

The 2nd grew up around its covered passages. In the early nineteenth century, before Haussmann's great boulevards, this is where Paris came to stroll under shelter, between shops and cafés, beneath roofs of glass.

The Galerie Vivienne, opened in 1823, remains the most elegant. Mosaic floors, a rotunda, a glass roof, an antiquarian bookshop, a wine merchant, a tea room: you enter from rue Vivienne or rue des Petits-Champs, and the noise of the city stops. Further east, the Passage des Panoramas, the oldest of them all, has kept its stamp dealers and its small tables. Several passages follow one another: a rainy afternoon becomes a walk.

Morning on rue Vivienne

Rue Vivienne sets out from the edges of the Palais-Royal and climbs towards the Bourse, then the Grands Boulevards. In the morning it belongs to the people who work in the neighbourhood: cafés open, deliveries arrive, the stone façades catch the light.

Halfway along stands the Palais Brongniart. Its columns recall that the Paris stock exchange once beat here; today the building hosts events and fairs. Right next door, the Bibliothèque nationale, Richelieu site, has reopened after a long restoration: the Salle Ovale, under its glass roof, is one of the calmest places in central Paris.

Between the Bourse and the Opéra

Rue Sainte-Anne links the gardens of the Palais-Royal to the Opéra quarter. To the south, the arcades, the lime-tree alleys and Buren's columns; to the north, the Palais Garnier and, behind it, the department stores of boulevard Haussmann. In between, a narrow street, busy at lunchtime: this is the Japanese quarter of Paris, with its canteens and grocers.

That is what makes the 2nd singular: you live in a neighbourhood on a human scale, and the city's great stages are at the end of the street. You go out in the evening for the Opéra, and walk home.

At the table, then a last drink

The 2nd lends itself to every register, from the counter to the dinner that matters.

• · Daroco, on rue Vivienne, occupies Jean-Paul Gaultier's former boutique: Italian cooking, a wood-fired oven, a generous volume that comes alive at night.
• · Frenchie, in a cobbled lane of the Sentier, is Grégory Marchand's table; best booked ahead.
• · Rue Montorgueil, pedestrian, remains the neighbourhood market: cheesemongers, fishmongers, pastry shops, terraces. This is where you shop when the apartment has a real kitchen.
• · Experimental Cocktail Club, behind a discreet front, is one of the addresses that started the cocktail scene in Paris.

For a particular table on a particular evening, our concierge takes care of it: that is exactly the kind of request it exists for.

Living in the 2nd

Staying here means accepting a Paris without staging: working streets by day, full tables at night, empty passages on Sunday morning. Everyday becomes theatre.

Our apartments on rue Vivienne and rue Sainte-Anne have two or three bedrooms; they are air-conditioned, have an equipped kitchen, and are designed so that you feel at home from the first evening. You will find them on the 2nd arrondissement page, with the rest of the collection. And if you are torn between neighbourhoods, our Paris neighbourhood guide compares them.

The ACT 3 Team