Alexander P Germany
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Visiting monuments and places in Paris
The Île de la Cité
Paris made is début on the Île de la Cité, and this river islet is often regarded to this day not only as the center of the city, but the centre of all France. Baron von Haussmann, in the mid 19th century, rebuilt Paris, and like the City of London and Wall Street, the area is deserted at night. But two of the most luminous Gothic churches ever built are reason alone for visiting, and there are other delights – shady squares and embankments, panoramic bridges and the perfect symmetry of neighbouring Île St-Louis, an island-village of the high 'bourgeoisie'. On a Sunday morning you can hear an echo of the old din in Place Louis Lépine's bird market.
Notre-Dame de Paris
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This site has been holy ever since Paris was Lutecia, when a temple to Jupiter stood here. In the 6th century, a small church was erected; sacked by the Normans in 857, it was reconstructed but on the same scale, hardly large enough for the growing population. A proper cathedral had to wait for Maurice de Sully, bishop of Paris in 1160. Notre-Dame came along on the crest of the wave on cathedral construction; its architecture was destined to become the consummate work of the early Gothic, the measuring stick by which all other cathedrals are judged. because it was in Paris, the cosmopolitan centre of learning, Notre-Dame had a considerable influence in diffusing Gothic architecture throughout Europe. During the Revolution, the Parisians first trashed Notre-Dame, wrecking most of its sculptures; then they decided to demolish it. A few subtle voices stood up for its 'cultural and historical value' and the cathedral was saved to become the 'Temple of Reason'. |
To see the façade as it was intended, remember that, as with temples of ancient Greece, originally all the statues and reliefs of a Gothic church were painted in bright colours.The decorations of the altar and chapels were more colourful and artistic than anything there now. Today we must be content with the architecture and the remnants of the stained glass, but it's more than enough. And it's big enough: 430 ft long, with room for some 9,000 people. The plan set the pattern for the other cathedrals of the Île de France: a wide nave with four side aisles, which curve and meet around the back of altar. The side chapels were not original, but added in the 13th century to hold all the gifts pouring in from the confraternities and guilds. Today, sadly, there is not a single noteworthy painting or statue in any of them. Most of the chapels were remodelled to suit the tastes of the 17th and 18th centuries, or wrecked in the Revolution. But this is nothing compared with the vandalism committed in the age of the Big Louies. In the 18th century, nearly all of the stained glass was simply removed, to let in more light. To thank the Virgin for being born, the Sun King ordered the florid, carved-wood choir stalls, and a complete rebuilding of the choir, including a new altar, flanked by statues of His Majesty himself and his father. Thank God he spared the original choir stalls. We can be even more thankful he didn't take out the three great rose windows.
The Conciergerie
It was known as the 'Antechamber of Death'. But it wasn't always so grim. In its first, 4th-century incarnation it was the palace of Lutetia's Roman governors. Clovis requisitioned the palace and established the Frankish monarchy within its walls; in 987, Capet moved in, and it stayed in the family for the next 800 years. As the kings grew wealthy, their palace grew ever more splendid. In 1358 Etienne Marcel's partisans stormed the palace and assassinated the king's ministers as the Dauphin Charles V stood helplessly by. It was a lesson in the vulnarability of the royal person in Paris, and the result was the construction of the better fortified Louvre. Abondoned by the kings, the palace evolved in to Paris' seat of justice and its prison. Architecturally, the highlight of the Conciergerie is Philippe le Bel's Salle des Gens d'Armes, or the Galerie des Prisionniers where most of the most famous decapitated figures passed trhough : Marie Antoinette, Danton, Desmoulins, Charlotte Corday and St-Just. We propose you different hotels in the Ile de la Cité.
The Marais district
One of the less frantic corners of old Paris, the Marais is the aristocratic quarter par excellence. The main attractions are the grand 'hôtels particuliers' of the 16th to 18th centuries and the museums they contain. In the area that has perhaps changed the least over the last 300 years, take time to look at details, like the 17th-century street signs carved into many old buildings or the subtle sculptural decoration.
The Place des Vosges
What really made the Marais' fortune was Henri IV's construction of the striking Place des Vosges in 1605, today a favourite with tourists, Parisians and schoolchildren alike. During the Revolution most of the great 'hôtels particuliers' were confiscated and divided up as homes for warehouses and clothing-makers. In the 1950s and '60s, Parisians finally rediscovered what had become a lost world. The old working population is long gone and the Marais has settled into a mixture of gay, bars, hip boutiques, Hasidic Jews around Rue des Rosiers, and new immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East.The place is utterly pleasant under the clipped linden trees, and the statue of Louis XIII looks fondly foolish with his pencil moustache and Roman toga. The architecture, refreshingly free of any Renaissance imitation, invites contemplation.
If you want to stay in this area, we have several hotels in the 4th district.
The Place de la Bastille
There's nothing to see of the famous fortress, of course-unless you arrive on the no.5 Métro, coming from the Gare d'Austerlitz, where some of the foundations survive around the platform. The square has been redesigned, with the outline of the fortress set into pavement. It is the only square in town created not by king or planners but by the people of Paris. Since they cleared the space back in 1789, the Place has been the symbolic centre of leftist politics, the setting for monster celebrations. Today the centrepiece of the Place de la Bastille is the 153 ft Colonne de Juillet. The 'July Column', restored for the bicentennial of the Revolution, was erected over the elephant's pedestal in honour of those who died in the 1830 revolt. Have a look to our hotels in La Bastille.
The Halles and Beaubourg
This is the site of the old Paris of merchants and markets, the only quarter on the Right Bank without either a royal palace or a royal square. It was-at least until recently- the Paris of the Parisians, the place you would go to buy your turnips, pick up a strumpet or start a revolution. The streets are medieval, or older, and their names betray the gritty workaday spirit of the place: Street of the Knifesmiths, of the Goldsmiths, Goose Street. Only 30 years ago, these streets were crowded with hand-carts and barrels night not for the better. Once Les Halles was a cast colourful wholesale distribution market for all Paris, an 800-year-old institution, the 'Belly of Paris' as Emile Zola called it, surrounded by slums. Bars and bistrots thrived on its fringes; they stayed up all night too, giving poets and prostitutes a place to refresh themselves. In the 1920s and through to the 1950s, Parisian toffs and English and American swells liked to end up here after a night of carousing. But markets make politicians nervous; it was sacrified in 1969 and by 1977 the last of Baltard's pavilions had disappeared-the same year London demolished Covent Garden. Today its replacement, the Forum des Halles, is a subterranean labyrinthine 'new town' of failing shops, the park is as full of life as a cinder cemetery, and the streets are bleak un-spaces of plannerized compromised dominated by skateborders and fast food outlets.
The Centre Pompidou
| The 'Beau Bourg' was a village, swallowed up by Paris in the Middle-Ages, that has lent its name to the neighbourhood ever since. By the 1920s it had become a grey, unloved place; the government cleared a large section, meaning to relocate the flower market from the Halles. Nothing happened, leaving the void as a challenge to Paris planners until the end of the 1960s. It was Georges Pompidou who came up with the idea of a 'department store for culture' accessible to the widest possible public. The design finally chosen was the most radical of all those submitted. The architects, Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano, turned traditional ideas of building upside down-or rather, inside out; technological guts of the buildings are on the outside, celebrating the essentials instead of hiding them, and painting them in colours keyed to help the observers understand how it all works: electrics in yellow, air-conditioning in blue, white for ventilation ducts, etc...After the Centre opened in 1977, Parisians and tourists voiced their opinion by making it overnight the most visited sight in the city. Inside you won't need a ticket for the escalator, by far the Centre's most popular attraction. Like everything else mechanical, it runs along the outside, providing a spectacular view over Paris that changes dramatically as you ascend; for a special treat, come back and do it at twilight, when the city is illuminated. |
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Here you can find a list of hotels in Les Halles and Beaubourg.
The Palais Royal
Welcome to the most unabashedly retro area of Paris. Dusty, dignified, and thoroughly obsolete in a number of unimportant ways, it hasn't been popular with Parisians or anybody else since the 1830s. But you may find it one of the most unexpected delights Paris has to offer. This district is about old books, pretty things and good architecture; in other words, the elements of civilization. Though not a well-defined quarter like the Marais, it has assumed and thrown off various identities over the centuries: it was an area of court servants, artists and hangers-on when kings lived at the Louvre or Tuileries, and briefly Paris' tenderloin when the Palais Royal was full of bordellos.
Originally, Cardinal Richelieu built the Palais Royal for himself, beginning in 1629. Naturally he willed it to the king, whose money he was playing with, long before his death in 1642. Anne of Austria and four-year-old Louis XIV moved in soon after but gave it after to the Duc d'Orléans. Much rebuilt, the Palais Royal currently houses the 'Conseil d'Etat', which advises on proposed laws and serves as an appeal court.
We propose several hotels near the Palais Royal.
The Opéra and Faubourg-Saint-Honoré
This area was to Paris of the early 1800s what the Champs-Elysées would be later in the century: the city's showcase and playground of the élite. It's still the home of all luxury, the main source of what French call 'articles de Paris': here you'll find the gildest fashion houses and the jewellers whoses names are known around the galaxy and beyond. Close to the Louvre and the 'Grand Axe', this corner of town attracted monumental projects, from the three of France's most unpleasant despots: Louis XIV's Place Vendôme, Napoléon's self-memorial that became the Madeleine, and Little Napoléon's incomparable Opéra.
The Madeleine
Its construction was begun in 1764, but this church was fated to see many changes before its completion. The death of the architect in 1777 occasioned a complete rethink; the new man opted for a neoclassical Greek cross plan. Only a quarter finished by 1792, the revolutionary government pondered over a new use for the project. But Napoleon knew what was best: a Temple of Glory, dedicated to himself. The previous plans were scrapped, and in 1806 architect Barthélemy Vignon came up with an imitation Greek temple. Napoleonic efficiency got the colonnades up in nine years, but once more, political change intervened; after 1815 the restored Bourbons decided to make it a church after all. After the chilly perfection of the Madeleine's exterior, the inside comes as a surprise: windowless and overdecorated, creamy and gloomy, more like a late-Baroque Italian church-or ballroom.
The Place Vendôme
It's the second of Louis XIV's 'royal squares', after Place des Victoires, and was laid out in 1699. The most satisfactory of all 17th -century French attemps at urban design, the square seems the utter antithesis of a building like the Opéra-but both were built to impress. Here however, Hardouin-Mansart does it with absolute decorum. Balls were sometimes held in the square, but cafés or anything else that would encourage street life or spontaneity were strictly forbidden. Originally, the square was to house embassies and academies, but the final plan proposed the present octagon of eight mansions, with uniform façades and an equestrian statue of -guess who-in the centre. Today the square still has a not-too-discreet aroma of money about it, home to the Ritz Hotel, Cartier, Van Cleef Arpels and a fleet of other jewellers.
The Opéra
It is the suprem monument of the Second Empire, conceived in 1858. A competition was organized for a new Opéra, and the plan chosen was the largest, submitted by a fashionable young architect named Charles Garnier. After winning the competition, Garnier still had to convince a sceptical Napoléon and Eugénie. Asked what style his work was supposed to be, the architect replied: 'It is no style. Not Greek or Roman: it is the style Napoléon III.' That won the Emperor immediately. Finally open in 1875, the biggest and most sumptuous theatre in the world soon passed into legend, much of it due to Gaston Leroux's novel 'Fantôme de l'Opéra'. Envied and copied throughout the world, this building contributed much to the transformation of opera into the grand spectacle and social ritual it became in the Belle Epoque.
The inside is impressive, awash with gold leaf, frescoes, mosaics and scores of different varieties of precious stone, from Swedish marble to Algerian onyx. The highlight of the tour may be the hall itself, with its ceiling painted by Chagall; the nine scenes, lovely if perhaps incongruous in this setting, are inspired by some of the artist's favourite operas and ballets.
Stay in one of our hotels in Paris, near these sightseeing point.
The 'Grand Axe'
This is a part of Paris that every first-time visitor feels obliged to see. From the Louvre to La Défense, the monuments line up like pearls on a string-some natural, some cultured, some fake.
The Place de la Concorde
Without the cars, the Place de la Concorde would be a treat, the most spacious square and the finest architectural ensemble in Paris. Jacques-Ange Gabriel won the competition for its design by coming up with something utterly, unaccountably original. Breaking completely with the enclosed, aristocratic ethos of the other royal squares, Gabriel laid out an enormous rectangle, built up on one side only (the north), with the Seine facing opposite and the two ends entirely open. Later generations perfected the Place. The Pont de la Concorde over the Seine opened in 1790; under Napoleon, the Madeleine and Palais Bourbon were added to close the views and complete the brilliant architectural ensemble. A new exclamation mark along the Grand Axe, the Egyptian obelisk, appeared in 1836. But in the meantime, the Place had changed its name six times, and seen more trouble than any square deserves. In 1782, the spot where the obelisk stands today held a guillotine, the venue for all the most important executions under the Terror. On the western edge of the Place stands a pair of winged horses to complement those on the Tuileries side.
The Champs-Elysées
The Avenue des Champs-Elysées was the second step in the creation of the Grand Axe, the long radian that stretches, perfectly stright, from central Paris west to La Défense. Catherine de Médicis has fixed its eastern point with her Louvre extensions and the Tuileries gardens in the 1560s. In 1616 everything west of the Louvre was royal meadows and hunting preserves; in that year Marie de Médicis ordered the first improvement, a tree-lined frive along the Seine called the 'Cours de la Reine'. In 1667 Louis XIV had Le Nôtre lay out a long straigh promenade through the area, continuing the perspective of the Tuileries' Grande Allée. For the next few decades, the Champs-Elysées was a less aristocratic promenade; all Paris came on Sundays for a bit of fresh air, and in 1709, the pleasure promenade took its present name, the 'Elysian Fields'. The upper part of the avenue, already partly built-up, saw a speculative boom in the reign of Napoléon III. The lower part, below the Rond-Point, was saved only because it served as a pleasure ground for all the late 19th-century exhibitions, a delightful bower of groves and avenues, Chinese lanterns, brightly painted pavilions, ice-cream and lemonade. There was a glassed-in Winter Garden with banana trees; dances were held there at night. Outside there were café-concerts under the trees. Parisians and visitors agreed that it was the pleasantest place in the world.The upper Champs-Elysées, after decades of decline, has been the subject of a major renovation which included everything from the pavement surfaces to a second row of plane trees on each side. Even the car dealers, hamburger stands, banks and obscure airline offices that took over the once-fashionable street in the 1970s have cleaned themselves up, and the scheme is working well.
The Arc de Triomphe
| The Arc de Triomphe is not a tribute to Napoleon, although it certainly would have been if the Emperor had been around to finish it. The arch commemorates the armies of the Revolution: the heroic, improvized citizen levy that protected their new freedoms against the 'anciens régimes' of the rest of Europe, and liberated other peoples. In the 18th century, the Etoile was a rustic rond-point on the boundaries of the city. Napoleon did have the idea for the arch after his victories of 1805-6 and erected the monument to his own 'triumph'. It is not just the location and the historical connotations that make this such an important landmark. It's also a rather splendid arch. Any Frenchman would recognize the group on the right side, facing the Champs-Elysées: the dramatic 'Departure of the Volunteers in 1792' also known as the 'Marseillaise'. You can climb up inside the arch to the roof for a remarkable view of the Grand Axe and the pie-slice blocks around the Etoile (especially recommended after dark). |
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The Défense
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Forty years ago this was a dismal suburban industrial area and its only feature was a rond-point. After the siege of 1870, a statue commemorating the defence of Paris was set up here: 'La Défense' gradually gave its name to the whole area. In 1955, the national government (not the Ville de Paris) decided to make a modern, American-style business district out of the vacant land, and by 1960 glass towers were not slow to seize on on la Défense's cinematic potential. Today, about 150,000 people work there and there are about 55,000 residents. Among the famous sights you can see the Parvis, the Takis Fountain and the Grande Arche |
Check here the list of hotels in the 1st district, hotels in the 8th district and hotels in the 17th district.
Montmartre
From the Eiffel Tower or the Center Pompidou, gleaming white Montmartre resembles an Italian hill town from Mars. A closer inspection reveals honky-tonky tourist Paris at its ripest, churning euros from the fantasy-nostalgia mill for the good old days of Toulouse-Lautrec, can-can girls, Renoir and Picasso. On the other hand, the area has some of Paris' last secret alleys and picturesque streets.
The Romans called this 423 ft mountains Mons mercurii, after its hilltop shrine to the god of commerce, but he lost his billing in the 9th century when the abbot of St-Denis renamed it the Hill of Martyrs, Montmartre, the 'Butte Sacrée'. Montmartre became a 'commune' during the Revolution, renamed Mont Marat. The first artists, poets and composers had already moved into Montmartre with the workers, drawn by cheap rents and the quality of its air and light. There police knew the village rather as the resort of dangerous apaches. After the First World War the bohemians moved off to the lower rents of Montparnasse.
Sacré-Coeur
The story goes that between 1673 and 1689, Jesus Christ appeared to a nun from the Royal Abbey of Montmartre, demanding a church to the glory of his Divine Heart to serve France and repair the bitterness and outrages that have wasted her. The project was put to every regime to followed, but nothing happened until the Commune and the fall of Rome. Many Parisians regard the result with some embarrassment, with its preposterous Romano-Byzantine architecture. For a real descent into the abyss, visit the clammy crypt, with its neglected chapels, broken chairs, dingy cases of cardinals, and a slide show on the building of Sacré-Coeur. You will have a good view either from the dome than from the parvis. |
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Montmartre is a nice place to stay. Check out our hotels in Montmartre.
The Latin Quarter
The Latin Quarter is one of Paris' great clichés. Its name was bestowed by a student named Rabelais, for Latin (with an excruciating nasal twang) was the only language permitted in the university precincts until Napoleon said no. Napoleon's 19-century successors tended to regard the Latin Quarter itself as an anachronism, and rubbed most of its medieval abbeys, colleges and slums off the map. But once you too have dispersed any lingering romantic or operatic notions that the Latin Quarter evokes, it can be good fun, especially at night when it becomes the headquarters for an informal United Nations of goodwill.
The Sorbonne
This area includes the ancient confines of Paris university, founded in spirit by Peter Abelard, one of the greatest thinkers of the Middle Ages. The high standard of inquiry and scholarship set by Abelard made the Left Bank a 'paradise of pleasure' for intellectuals and students from across Europe. Private citizens and religious orders built college-hostels to house the scholars and in 1180, Philippe Auguste enclosed the whole area in walls. Paris's first college, supplying room and board to poor students, was founded at the same time, and among those that followed was the Sorbonne, founded in 1257 by Robert de Sorbon, chaplain to St-Louis. The heady freedom of thought that made Paris University great in the 13th century drew the greatest thinkers of the day. But the university was often involved in political roles that compromised its independence (students played roles in the upheavals of the 19th century, battled the Nazis in Place St-Michel, protested against the war in Algeria and in 1968 shocked the government with their uprising).
The Panthéon
The Panthéon stands on the summit of the Gallo-Roman Mont Leucotitius (Mont Lutèce) which has been known since the Middle Ages as Montagne Ste-Geneviève. It was first demolished by Louis XV and a new basilica was constructed to hold the relics of Paris' patroness Ste-Geneviève. It was converted and reconverted to a church several times and finally the funeral of Victor Hugo inaugurated the buildin'gs current status as the Pantheon of Frances's Great Men. We propose a wide list of hotels in The Latin DIstrict.
Eiffel Tower and Trocadéro
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The incomparable souvenir of the 1889 Fair, the Eiffel Tower was built to celebrate the Revolution's centenary and the resurrection of France after her defeat by Prussia in 1870. It is 300m (1,000 ft) of graceful iron filigree; belly-up between its four spidery paws, its 9,700 tons sit with extraordinary lightness on the soft clay, exerting as much pressure as that of a man sitting in a chair. It was erected in two years, for less than the estimated 8 million francs, welded together with 2,500,000 rivets. Gustave Eiffel was already famous for his daring bridges and viaducts; in 1886 he had designed the structural frame of the Statue of Liberty. Originally the tower was painted several tints, lightening to yellow-gold at the top, so its appearance dissolved and changed according to the time of day and weather; now, every five or six years, forty painters cover it with 7,700 lb of a sombre maroon colour called 'ferrubrou'. In 19336 sodium lamps were installed in the structure; it's usually lit up until midnight. |
To reach the Jardins du Trocadéro, cross the Pont d'Iéna, commissioned after Napoléon Ier's victory at Jena in Prussia and decked out with proud imperial eagles. The gardens stretching to the Seine were laid out for the 1878 fair and restored in 1937; today they are home to a 1900s carrousel.
The main feature of the Place du Trocadéro is the superb view from the courtyard of one of the very last World Fairs, the 1937 Paris Exposition Universelle. Today the palace, facing Place du Trocadéro, provides a home for four museums.
You can stay in the Eiffel Tower area tanks to hotels in the 7th district that we offer.
You'll never end to visit Paris. There are simply too many things to see! But even if you come for a few days, you should be able to have a good overview of this great city, thanks to our selection of the most important places.
Come and visit Paris, one of the most beautiful city in the world!