Destination Guides

Arc de Triomphe

• Sightseeing | Landmarks and Historic Sites

Take a trip to the top of this magnificent example of Napoleonic self-celebration. At 164 ft/50 m high, it is the world's second-tallest triumphal arch (North Korea built one a smidgen taller). Climbing to the top offers a view of the entire city, from th

Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art

• Sightseeing | Museums

Funded by the famous Cartier jewelry empire, this collection of works by more than 800 contemporary artists is housed in a striking glass structure. The permanent exhibit includes works by such artists as Gilbert and George, Claude Viallat and Shirley Jaf

Catacombes

• Sightseeing | Landmarks and Historic Sites

At the end of the 1700s, millions of bones were transferred to these underground quarries when their previous resting place, the Cimetiere des Innocents, became overcrowded. The Catacombs also served as French resistance headquarters during World War II;

Centre Pompidou (Beaubourg)

• Sightseeing | Museums

The Pompidou Center, which many locals call "Beaubourg" after its neighborhood, opened in 1977 amid a whirlwind of controversy. The building designed by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano appears to be turned inside out, with pipes, wires and girders visible.

Cite des Sciences et de l'Industrie (Science and Industry Museum)

• Sightseeing | Museums

Set amid gardens and playgrounds in Parc de la Villette, this sprawling museum complex features interactive exhibits on space technology, computers, astronomy and marine biology. One of the main attractions is the excellent planetarium. The museum also in

Comedie Francaise

• Performing Arts | Theater

This French institution, founded by Louis XIV, stages plays by classic French playwrights such as Moliere and Jean Racine, as well as plays by Albert Camus, Henrik Ibsen and Shakespeare. All performances are in French.

Conciergerie

• Sightseeing | Landmarks and Historic Sites

During the Reign of Terror, this palace and seat of power was a stopping point for prisoners on their way to the guillotine. It is especially beautiful at night, as it is lit up against the Seine. You can see the cells of Maximilien Robespierre, Georges-J

Eiffel Tower

• Sightseeing | Landmarks and Historic Sites

This 1,063-ft/324-m, 10,100-ton marvel of metal latticework was completed in 1889. Derided as a "hideous lamppost," it offended many prominent Parisians who wanted to preserve the city's aesthetics and was almost disassembled in 1909. But after its radio-

Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson

• Sightseeing | Museums

This space, dedicated to photography, alternates changing exhibits of up-and-coming young photographers with exhibits of Cartier-Bresson's legendary work.

Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume

• Sightseeing | Museums

This museum was named after the game of tennis, because its building functioned as a tennis court under Napoleon III. When tennis became less fashionable, the structure was used to exhibit art. Its stunning collection of impressionist art was moved to the

Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais

• Sightseeing | Museums

Built for the Universal Exposition of 1900, this beautiful art-nouveau palace is now used as a permanent gallery for hosting art exhibitions; it's considered one of the most prestigious venues for international arts in the world. Recent shows have include

Golf du Bois de Boulogne

• Recreation | Golf

This is a public course and driving range.

Hotel des Invalides

• Sightseeing | Landmarks and Historic Sites

Louis XIV commissioned this building, the first national hospital for soldiers, to help out war veterans. The resulting structure, with its gilded dome-meant to be France's answer to St. Peter's in Rome-is a masterpiece of 17th-century classical French ar

Institut du Monde Arabe

• Sightseeing | Museums

The institute offers a fascinating look at Arabic culture old and new, with collections of ancient art and objects from the Arab world, as well as modern-art exhibits. It is housed in a modern aluminum and glass building, designed by Parisian star archit

Montmartre Cemetery

• Sightseeing | Landmarks and Historic Sites

Walled and shaded by trees, this cemetery off Rue Caulaincourt is famous for its hillside graves of composers, artists and authors, including Edgar Degas, Jacques Offenbach, Stendhal (the pen name of Marie-Henri Beyle), Alexandre Dumas, Vaslav Nijinsky an

Montparnasse Cemetery

• Sightseeing | Landmarks and Historic Sites

This spacious and sedate enclosed cemetery is located in the southern part of the city. A bit less touristy than other scenic burial grounds in Paris, Montparnasse Cemetery nonetheless fills the celebrity quotient as the final resting place of philosopher

Musee Baccarat

• Sightseeing | Museums

This elegant, Philippe Starck-designed museum and gallery, housed in a mansion in west Paris, exhibits the fragile crystal masterpieces that have won Baccarat so many awards since its inception in the early 19th century.

Musee Carnavalet - Histoire de Paris

• Sightseeing | Museums

The vast collections of the History of Paris museum are housed in two neighboring 17th-century <I>hotels particuliers</I>; one was once home to the prolific society scribe Madame de Sevigne, whose letters shed a lot of light on the society at the court of

Musee d'Art et Histoire du Judaisme

• Sightseeing | Museums

This museum is housed in a 17th-century mansion in the Marais. Exhibits trace the history of Jews in France, Europe and North Africa from the Middle Ages to the present day. Documents from the 1894 Dreyfus case, as well as paintings by Chaim Soutine, Amed

Musee d'Art Moderne

• Sightseeing | Museums

This is a fabulous collection of the important art movements of the 20th century. Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Maurice Utrillo, Amedeo Modigliani and Fernand Leger are represented in the collection, as is an impre

Musee d'Orsay

• Sightseeing | Museums

Paris' most popular museum after the Louvre, this beautifully renovated, belle-epoque train station houses paintings and sculpture created from 1848 to 1914. Highlights include Manet's <i>Dejeuner sur l'Herbe</i>, Whistler's portrait of his mother, iconic

Musee Dapper

• Sightseeing | Museums

Home to one of the most important collections of African art worldwide, this museum was named after the Dutch geographer Olfert Dapper who wrote the fundamental "Description de l'Afrique" (1668), but never actually left the Netherlands. It is particularly

Musee de l'Erotisme

• Sightseeing | Museums

It's only fitting that the City of Love should have a first-class collection of erotica, and even more fitting that it be located among the peep shows and sex shops of the wondrous Pigalle district. Four floors of paintings, illustrations, sculptures and

Musee de l'Orangerie

• Sightseeing | Museums

The star attraction of the Orangerie is the collection of huge <I>Water Lilies</I> canvases by Monet, displayed in their own space. Also there are the Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume collections of modern art featuring Cezanne, Renoir, Picasso, Rousseau, M

Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Mode et Textile, Publicite

• Sightseeing | Museums

It's a pleasure to walk through this decorative-arts museum and admire the collections of furniture and the decorative arts, from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. If you are interested in fashion or advertising campaigns and posters, don't miss the Fa

Musee du Louvre

• Sightseeing | Museums

The Louvre was the seat of French royalty from the 12th century; the current museum building was constructed in the late 16th century and was opened as a museum-the first in Europe-in 1793, in the wake of the French Revolution. The Louvre underwent a majo

Musee du Quai Branly

• Sightseeing | Museums

The Quai Branly Museum opened to great fanfare in 2006 as a museum dedicated to the culture and arts of "primitive" civilizations. Its controversial design, by French architect Jean Nouvel, evokes the rounded contours of a cocoon morphing into the angular

Musee Galliera

• Sightseeing | Museums

This is a marvelous chronicle of fashion from the 18th century to the modern day. More than 100,000 garments are housed in the Renaissance-style palace of Duchesse Maria de Farrari Galliera. To preserve the collection, which is sensitive to light and poll

Musee Guimet

• Sightseeing | Museums

This is a fine-arts museum, Japanese garden and Buddhist sanctuary all in one. The museum's annex is the magnificently refurbished, neoclassical Hotel Heidelbach. The museum's permanent collections of Japanese, Chinese, Tibetan and Indochinese art are wor

Musee Jacquemart-Andre

• Sightseeing | Museums

This wonderful 19th-century mansion is decorated with masterpieces from the Renaissance to the 19th century. The former home of a prosperous banker and a painter, it showcases the couple's fabulous collection of art, including works by such masters as Jea

Musee Maillol-Fondation Dina Vierny

• Sightseeing | Museums

The museum houses the private collection of Dina Vierny, a model for Aristide Maillol as a young woman and later an avid art collector. It has works by Maillol and his contemporaries, including Paul Gauguin, Pierre Bonnard, Wassily Kandinsky, Henri Rousse

Musee Marmottan

• Sightseeing | Museums

Located in a lovely 19th-century town house on Ranelagh Park, this museum houses the world's largest and most important collection of Monet canvases, as well as works from Monet's own collection, including paintings by Paul Gauguin, Alfred Sisley, Pierre-

Musee Picasso

• Sightseeing | Museums

This remarkable collection, housed in an elegant 17th-century mansion, covers several periods of Picasso's career but focuses particularly on the later years and the artist's ceramic work. All the art was given to France rather reluctantly by the heirs of

Musee Rodin

• Sightseeing | Museums

Once home to the artist himself, this stately mansion is the perfect setting for Auguste Rodin's glowing white marble sculptures, and the beautiful garden is full of surprises. Some of the highlights include <i>The Thinker</i>, <i>The Kiss</i>, <i>The Gat

Notre-Dame de Paris

• Sightseeing | Landmarks and Historic Sites

This remarkable 12th-century cathedral stands majestically on the Ile de la Cite. It has the features you'd expect from a great Gothic church: towers, flying buttresses, even gargoyles to repel evil and keep rain in its proper place. The inside glows with

Opera Garnier

• Sightseeing | Landmarks and Historic Sites

Considered the masterpiece of the Second Empire, Paris' opera house (also called the Palais Garnier after the architect who designed it) is an opulent example of 19th-century theatrical architecture and a source of tremendous pride for Parisians. It has b

Palais de la Decouverte

• Sightseeing | Museums

Discovery Palace is part of the Grand Palais, an art-nouveau glass-and-steel structure built for the 1900 World's Fair. It offers exhibits and films about dinosaurs, mineralogy, nuclear physics, earth sciences, math and chemistry, as well as an excellent

Palais de Tokyo

• Sightseeing | Museums

Located next to the Musee d'Art Moderne, this hangar-sized space near the Trocadero, constructed for the World Exposition in 1937, is dedicated to contemporary artists working in a variety of media, from photography and painting to contemporary installati

Pantheon

• Sightseeing | Landmarks and Historic Sites

The Pantheon dominates much of the city's left bank. This enormous neoclassical structure was planned as the church of Ste. Genevieve, but it was completed after the onset of the French Revolution and converted to a secular mausoleum. Voltaire (the pen na

Pere Lachaise Cemetery

• Sightseeing | Landmarks and Historic Sites

Named after Louis XIV's confessor, Father Lachaise, this is the largest cemetery in Paris (108 acres/44 hectares) and a favorite spot for Parisians and tourists alike. Shops on the streets leading to the entrances sell maps of the cemetery, which will hel

Petit Palais

• Sightseeing | Museums

Built at the same time as the Grand Palais for the Universal Exposition of 1900, the Petit Palais became the Municipal Museum of Fine Arts in 1902. After years of restoration and renovation, it now has a section dedicated to the permanent collection and a

Sacre Coeur

• Sightseeing | Landmarks and Historic Sites

This basilica, built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, is the most recent in a series of worship sites built atop Butte Montmartre, the highest hill in Paris, from the earliest days of the town's settlement. Its strong Romano-Byzantine influence,

Sainte-Chapelle

• Sightseeing | Landmarks and Historic Sites

Hidden away in a courtyard of the Palais de Justice on Ile de la Cite, this medieval church, constructed by Louis IX (St. Louis) in 1248, stands like a jewel, with its Gothic architecture and stunning stained-glass windows that are best appreciated in the

Theatre de Nesle

• Performing Arts | Theater

This group presents contemporary or original adaptations of classical works, including some in English, and some children's plays.

Thermes de Cluny/Musee National du Moyen Age

• Sightseeing | Museums

The abbots of Cluny lived in this 15th-century Gothic cloister, which now houses a magnificent collection of tapestries (notably <i>The Lady and the Unicorn</i> series), medieval sculpture, illuminated manuscripts and stained glass. While there, see the r