World's Best Places to Visit - PARIS

Paris is the capital and most populous city of France, with a estimated population of 2,148,271 residents as of 2020, in an area of 105 square kilometres (41 square miles). Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of Europe's major centres of finance, diplomacy, commerce, fashion, science and arts.

Paris is more than 2,000 years old. Gauls of the Parisii tribe settled there between 250 and 200 BC and founded a fishing village on an island in the river that is the present-day Ile de la Cité -- the center around which Paris developed.

Known as Lutetia (Lutece) in ancient times, Paris was conquered by Julius Caesar in 52 BC, and existed as a regional center under the Romans and in the early Middle Ages. In 987, HUGH CAPET, Count of Paris, became king of France, and under his successors, the CAPETIANS, the city's position as the nation's capital became established. Often characterized as spirited and rebellious, the people of Paris first declared themselves an independent commune under the leadership of Etienne Marcel in 1355-58. The storming of the Bastille in 1789 was the first of a series of key actions by the Parisian people during the FRENCH REVOLUTION. Paris also played a major role in the revolutions of 1830 and 1848. In 1871, during the FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR , the city was besieged for four months until France surrendered.

After German troops withdrew, French radicals briefly established the COMMUNE OF PARIS. During World War I the Germans were prevented from reaching Paris, but they occupied the city during World War II from 1940 to 1944. Paris was again the scene of violence during the student riots of 1968.

Planning for Paris and the Paris Basin region includes consideration of large land areas in the Seine River valley all the way to the mouth of the river. New towns, parks, industrial locations, and expanded functions of existing towns are contemplated for this corridor on both sides of the Seine.

The city is a major railway, highway and air-transport hub served by two international airports: Paris-Charles de Gaulle (the second busiest airport in Europe) and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the city's subway system, the Paris-Matro, serves 5.23 million passengers daily; it is the second busiest metro system in Europe after the Moscow Matro. Gare du Nord is the 24th busiest railway station in the world, but the first located outside Japan, with 262 million passengers in 2015. Paris is especially known for its museums and architectural landmarks: the Louvre was the most visited art museum in the world in 2019, with 9.6 million visitors.

Paris received 17.5 million visitors in 2018, measured by hotel stays, with the largest numbers of foreign visitors coming from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and China. It was ranked as the sixth most visited travel destination in the world in 2018, after Hong Kong, Bangkok, London, Macao and Singapore.

Top sights in Paris

Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. Constructed from 1887 to 1889 as the entrance to the 1889 World's Fair, it was initially criticised by some of France's leading artists and intellectuals for its design, but it has become a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognisable structures in the world. The Eiffel Tower is the most-visited paid monument in the world; 6.91 million people ascended it in 2015. The tower is 324 metres tall, about the same height as an 81-storey building, and the tallest structure in Paris. Its base is square, measuring 125 metres on each side. During its construction, the Eiffel Tower surpassed the Washington Monument to become the tallest man-made structure in the world, a title it held for 41 years until the Chrysler Building in New York City was finished in 1930. It was the first structure to reach a height of 300 metres.

Louvre Museum

The Louvre, or the Louvre Museum, is the world's largest art museum and a historic monument in Paris, France. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement. Approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square meters. In 2019, the Louvre received 9.6 million visitors, making it the most visited museum in the world. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as the Louvre castle in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace. In 1682, Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection, including, from 1692, a collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture.

Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris

Notre-Dame de Paris, also called Notre-Dame Cathedral. It is the most famous of the Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages and is distinguished for its size, antiquity, and architectural interest.

Notre-Dame lies at the eastern end of the Ile de la Cite and was built on the ruins of two earlier churches, which were themselves predated by a Gallo-Roman temple dedicated to Jupiter. The cathedral was initiated by Maurice de Sully, bishop of Paris, who about 1160 conceived the idea of converting into a single building, on a larger scale, the ruins of the two earlier basilicas. The foundation stone was laid by Pope Alexander III in 1163, and the high altar was Consecrated in 1189. The choir, the western facade, and the nava were completed by 1250, and porches, chapels, and other embellishments were added over the next 100 years.

Arc de Triomphe

Standing at the western end of the Champes Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe is the largest triumphal arch in the world, twice the size of the Arch of Constantine in Rome on which it’s modeled. Commissioned by Napoleon I and designed by Jean-François-Thérèse Chalgrin, the monument forms part of Paris’ Axe historique, which extends from the courtyard of the Louvre to the Grande Arche at La Défense.

After his victory at Austerlitz in 1805, the high point of the Grande Armée’s conquest of Europe, Napoleon told his soldiers: ‘You will return home through arches of triumph.’ True to his word, the Emperor tasked Chalgrin with finding the most suitable site for the monument in March 1806. The location of the Place de l’Étoile was agreed on May 9 and the first stone was laid to coincide with Napoleon’s 37th birthday on August 15 that year.

When Chalgrin died in January 1811, his former pupil Louis-Robert Goust took over as the lead architect. However, the whole project was put on hold after Napoleon’s abdication in April 1814.

It wasn’t until 1833 and the stewardship of Louis-Philippe I and his architect Guillaume-Abel Blouet that the completion of the arch came into view. The Arc de Triomphe, which is 49.5 meters (162 feet) high, 45 meters (147 feet) long, and 22 meters (72 feet) wide, was finished at a cost of 9.3 million Francs and inaugurated on July 29, 1836.

The names of 128 battles fought during the first French Republic and Napoleon’s Empire, as well as the names of 558 generals are inscribed on the white walls of the vaults. Those that are underlined indicate men who died on the battlefield.

The concept of the tomb of the unknown soldier first arose in 1916 while the Great War was still raging. A year and a day after it ended, it was given formal recognition and the Pantheon was chosen for its location. However, in 1920, thanks to a large-scale letter-writing campaign, the Arc de Triomphe was determined to be a more appropriate location. On January 28, 1921, the remains of the unnamed soldier were laid to rest at the base of the arch.

Sacré-Cœur

The Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris, commonly known as Sacré-Cœur Basilica and often simply Sacré-Cœur, is a Roman Catholic church and minor basilica, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in Paris, France. A popular landmark and the second most visited monument in Paris, the basilica stands at the summit of the butte Montmartre, the highest point in the city. Sacré-Cœur Basilica is above all a religious building, shown by its perpetual adoration of the Holy Eucharist since 1885, and is also seen as a double monument, political and cultural, both a national penance for the defeat of France in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War and for the socialist Paris Commune of 1871 crowning its most rebellious neighborhood, and an embodiment of conservative moral order, publicly dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which was an increasingly popular devotion since the visions of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque in Paray-le-Monial. The basilica was designed by Paul Abadie. Construction began in 1875 and was completed in 1914. The basilica was consecrated after the end of World War I in 1919.

Musée d'Orsay

The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It houses the largest collection of impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin, and Van Gogh. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986. It is one of the largest art museums in Europe. Musée d'Orsay had more than 3.6 million visitors in 2019.

Palace of Versailles

The Palace of Versailles was the principal royal residence of France from 1682, under Louis XIV, until the start of the French Revolution in 1789, under Louis XVI. It is located in the department of Yvelines, in the region of Île-de-France, about 20 kilometres southwest of the centre of Paris. A simple hunting lodging and later a small château with a moat occupied the site until 1661, when the first work expanding the château into a palace was carried out for Louis XIV. In 1682, when the palace had become large enough, the king moved the entire royal court and the French government to Versailles. Some of the palace furniture at this time was constructed of solid silver, but in 1689 much of it was melted down to pay for the cost of war. Subsequent rulers mostly carried out interior remodeling, to meet the demands of changing taste, although Louis XV did install an opera house at the north end of the north wing for the wedding of the Dauphin and Marie Antoinette in 1770. The palace has also been a site of historical importance.

Montmartre

Montmartre is a large hill in Paris's 18th arrondissement. It is 130 m high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Right Bank in the northern section of the city. The historic district established by the City of Paris in 1995 is bordered by rue Caulaincourt and rue Custine on the north, rue de Clignancourt on the east, and boulevard de Clichy and boulevard de Rochechouart to the south, containing 60 ha. Montmartre is primarily known for its artistic history, the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré-Cœur on its summit, and as a nightclub district. The other church on the hill, Saint Pierre de Montmartre, built in 1147, was the church of the prestigious Montmartre Abbey. On August 15, 1534, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Saint Francis Xavier and five other companions bound themselves by vows in the Martyrium of Saint Denis, 11 rue Yvonne Le Tac, the first step in the creation of the Jesuits.

Luxembourg Gardens

The Jardin du Luxembourg, also known in English as the Luxembourg Gardens, is located in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, France. It was created beginning in 1612 by Marie de' Medici, the widow of King Henry IV of France, for a new residence she constructed, the Luxembourg Palace. The garden today is owned by the French Senate, which meets in the Palace. It covers 23 hectares and is known for its lawns, tree-lined promenades, flowerbeds, model sailboats on its circular basin, and picturesque Medici Fountain, built in 1620. The name Luxembourg comes from the Latin Mons Lucotitius, the name of the hill where the garden is located.

Tuileries Garden

The Tuileries Garden is a public garden located between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France. Created by Catherine de' Medici as the garden of the Tuileries Palace in 1564, it was eventually opened to the public in 1667 and became a public park after the French Revolution. In the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, it was a place where Parisians celebrated, met, strolled and relaxed.

Place de la Concorde

The Place de la Concorde is one of the major public squares in Paris, France. Measuring 7.6 ha in area, it is the largest square in the French capital. It is located in the city's eighth arrondissement, at the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées. It was the site of many notable public executions, including the execution of King Louis XVI, during the French Revolution.

Sainte-Chapelle

The Sainte-Chapelle is a royal chapel in the Gothic style, within the medieval Palais de la Cité, the residence of the Kings of France until the 14th century, on the Île de la Cité in the River Seine in Paris, France. Construction began sometime after 1238 and the chapel was consecrated on 26 April 1248. The Sainte-Chapelle is considered among the highest achievements of the Rayonnant period of Gothic architecture. It was commissioned by King Louis IX of France to house his collection of Passion relics, including Christ's Crown of Thorns – one of the most important relics in medieval Christendom, later hosted in the nearby Notre-Dame Cathedral until the 2019 fire, which it survived. Along with the Conciergerie, the Sainte-Chapelle is one of the earliest surviving buildings of the Capetian royal palace on the Île de la Cité. Although damaged during the French Revolution and restored in the 19th century, it has one of the most extensive 13th-century stained glass collections anywhere in the world.

Champ de Mars

The Champ de Mars is a large public greenspace in Paris, France, located in the seventh arrondissement, between the Eiffel Tower to the northwest and the École Militaire to the southeast. The park is named after the Campus Martius in Rome, a tribute to the Latin name of the Roman God of war. The name alludes to the fact that the lawns here were formerly used as drilling and marching grounds by the French military. The nearest Métro stations are La Motte-Picquet–Grenelle, École Militaire, and Champ de Mars-Tour Eiffel, an RER suburban-commuter-railway station. A disused station, Champ de Mars, is also nearby.

Les Invalides

Les Invalides, formally the Hôtel national des Invalides, or also as Hôtel des Invalides, is a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans, the building's original purpose. The buildings house the Musée de l'Armée, the military museum of the Army of France, the Musée des Plans-Reliefs, and the Musée d'Histoire Contemporaine, as well as the Dôme des Invalides, a large church, the tallest in Paris at a height of 107 meters, with the tombs of some of France's war heroes, most notably Napoleon.

Rodin Museum

The Musée Rodin in Paris, France, is a museum that was opened in 1919, primarily dedicated to the works of the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. It has two sites: the Hôtel Biron and surrounding grounds in central Paris, as well as just outside Paris at Rodin's old home, the Villa des Brillants at Meudon, Hauts-de-Seine. The collection includes 6,600 sculptures, 8,000 drawings, 8,000 old photographs and 7,000 objets d’art. The museum receives 700,000 visitors annually. While living in the Villa des Brillants, Rodin used the Hôtel Biron as his workshop from 1908, and subsequently donated his entire collection of sculptures – along with paintings by Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir that he had acquired – to the French State on the condition that they turn the buildings into a museum dedicated to his works. The Musée Rodin contains most of Rodin's significant creations, including The Thinker, The Kiss and The Gates of Hell. Many of his sculptures are displayed in the museum's extensive garden. The museum includes a room dedicated to the works of Camille Claudel and one of the two castings of The Mature Age.

Grand Palais

The Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées, commonly known as the Grand Palais, is a large historic site, exhibition hall and museum complex located at the Champs-Élysées in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. Construction of the Grand Palais began in 1897 following the demolition of the Palais de l'Industrie as part of the preparation works for the Universal Exposition of 1900, which also included the creation of the adjacent Petit Palais and Pont Alexandre III. It has been listed since 2000 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture. The structure was built in the style of Beaux-Arts architecture as taught by the École des Beaux-Arts of Paris. The building reflects the movement's taste for ornate decoration through its stone facades, the formality of its floor planning and the use of techniques that were innovative at the time, such as its glass vault, its structure made of iron and light steel framing, and its use of reinforced concrete.

Domaine National du Palais-Royal

The Palais-Royal, originally called the Palais-Cardinal, is a former royal palace located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France. The screened entrance court faces the Place du Palais-Royal, opposite the Louvre. In 1830 the larger inner courtyard of the palace, the Cour d'Honneur, was enclosed to the north by what was probably the most famous of Paris's covered arcades, the Galerie d'Orléans. Demolished in the 1930s, its flanking rows of columns still stand between the Cour d'Honneur and the popular Palais-Royal Gardens. The Palais-Royal now serves as the seat of the Ministry of Culture, the Conseil d'État and the Constitutional Council.

Pont Neuf

The Pont Neuf is the oldest standing bridge across the river Seine in Paris, France. It stands by the western point of the Île de la Cité, the island in the middle of the river that was, between 250 and 225 BC, the birthplace of Paris, then known as Lutetia, and during the medieval period, the heart of the city. The bridge is composed of two separate spans, one of five arches joining the left bank to the Île de la Cité, another of seven joining the island to the right bank. Old engraved maps of Paris show how, when the bridge was built, it just grazed the downstream tip of the Île de la Cité; since then, the natural sandbar building of a mid-river island, aided by stone-faced embankments called quais, has extended the island. Today the tip of the island is the location of the Square du Vert-Galant, a small public park named in honour of Henry IV, nicknamed the "Green Gallant". The name Pont Neuf was given to distinguish it from older bridges that were lined on both sides with houses. It has remained after all of those were replaced. Despite its name, it is now the oldest bridge in Paris crossing the Seine.

Pont Alexandre III

The Pont Alexandre III is a deck arch bridge that spans the Seine in Paris. It connects the Champs-Élysées quarter with those of the Invalides and Eiffel Tower. The bridge is widely regarded as the most ornate, extravagant bridge in the city. It is classified as a French monument historique since 1975.

Panthéon

The Panthéon is a monument in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, France. It is located in the area known as the Latin Quarter, standing atop the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, at the center of the Place du Panthéon which was named after it. The edifice was built from 1758 to 1790 over the designs of Jacques-Germain Soufflot at the behest of King Louis XV of France, who meant it as a church dedicated to Saint Genevieve, the city's patron saint, whose relics were to be housed there. Neither Soufflot nor Louis XV however lived to see the church completed. By the time the construction was finished, the French Revolution had started, and the National Constituent Assembly voted in 1791 to transform the Church of Saint Genevieve into a mausoleum for the remains of distinguished French citizens, modelled on the Pantheon in Rome which had been used in this way since the 16th century. The first panthéonisé was Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, although his remains were removed from the place a few years later.

Musée de l'Orangerie

The Musée de l'Orangerie is an art gallery of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings located in the west corner of the Tuileries Gardens next to the Place de la Concorde in Paris. The museum is most famous as the permanent home of eight large Water Lilies murals by Claude Monet, and also contains works by Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri Rousseau, Alfred Sisley, Chaim Soutine, Maurice Utrillo, and others.

Place des Vosges

The Place des Vosges, originally Place Royale, is the oldest planned square in Paris, France. It is located in the Marais district, and it straddles the dividing-line between the 3rd and 4th arrondissements of Paris. It was a fashionable and expensive square to live in during the 17th and 18th centuries, and one of the central reasons of the fashionable nature of Le Marais for the Parisian nobility.

Trocadéro Gardens

Jardins du Trocadéro is an open space in Paris, located in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, bounded to the northwest by the wings of the Palais de Chaillot and to the southeast by the Seine and the Pont d'Iéna, with the Eiffel Tower on the opposite bank of the Seine. The main feature, called the Fountain of Warsaw, is a long basin, or water mirror, with twelve fountain creating columns of water 12 metres high; twenty four smaller fountains four metres high; and ten arches of water. At one end, facing the Seine, are twenty powerful water cannons, able to project a jet of water fifty metres. Above the long basin are two smaller basins, linked with the lower basin by cascades flanked by 32 sprays of water four meters high. These fountains are the only exposition fountains which still exist today, and still function as they once did. In 2011, the fountain's waterworks were completely renovated and a modern pumping system was installed.

Louvre Pyramid

The Louvre Pyramid is a large glass and metal pyramid designed by Chinese-American architect I. M. Pei, surrounded by three smaller pyramids, in the main courtyard of the Louvre Palace in Paris. The large pyramid serves as the main entrance to the Louvre Museum. Completed in 1989, it has become a landmark of the city of Paris.

Grévin Museum

Musee Grevin SA is a France-based company that operates Grevin, a museum exhibiting wax replicas of artists, singers, writers, politicians, top models, sport legends and other celebrities. The Company has a collection of wax figures, including such people as Pablo Picasso, Maria Callas, Albert Einstein, Salvador Dali, Jacques Chirac, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Julia Roberts, Bruce Willis and Barack Obama, among others. The Company also manages the dining facilities, restaurants and shops within its museum premises, and hosts corporate functions, such as dinners and cocktail parties. In 2013, it inaugurated a Grevin museum in Montreal.

Wood of Vincennes

The Bois de Vincennes, located on the eastern edge of Paris, is the largest public park in the city. It was created between 1855 and 1866 by Emperor Napoleon III. The park is next to the Château de Vincennes, a former residence of the Kings of France. It contains an English landscape garden with four lakes; a zoo; an arboretum; a botanical garden; a hippodrome or horse-racing track; a velodrome for bicycle races; and the campus of the French national institute of sports and physical education. The park is known for prostitution after dark.

Parc des Buttes-Chaumont

The Parc des Buttes Chaumont is a public park situated in northeastern Paris, France, in the 19th arrondissement. Occupying 24.7 hectares, it is the fifth-largest park in Paris, after the Bois de Vincennes, Bois de Boulogne, Parc de la Villette and Tuileries Garden. Opened in 1867, late in the regime of Napoleon III, it was built according to plans by Jean-Charles Alphand, who created all the major parks demanded by the Emperor. The park has 5.5 kilometres of roads and 2.2 kilometres of paths. The most famous feature of the park is the Temple de la Sibylle, inspired by the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli, Italy, and perched at the top of a cliff fifty metres above the waters of the artificial lake.

from

https://www.google.com

https://www.britannica.com

https://www.discoverfrance.net