Paris attractions
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Eiffel Tower
What's the Best Way to Climb It?
The Eiffel Tower in Paris doubtless offers splendid views of the City of Lights when you get to the top of it. But after spending a morning on the tourist trail, is climbing the Eiffel Tower a challenge or a chance to take a breather?
Fitness fanatics will be pleased to hear that to get to the first and second levels, which both have restaurants, stairs can be climbed, in addition to a lift. The walks to each of the first and second levels consist of about 300 steps. Officially, the third and highest level can only be got to by lift, though there is an original spiral staircase to the third level which has stairs that are only 80 centimetres wide.
More relaxed visitors may wish to take a lift all the way to the top as the tower is 324 metres in height,
Musee Picasso
A Prolific Artist Requires Lots of Space
It can't be often that a single artist has a museum dedicated to his works. Yet such was the quantity of output that the legendary Spanish artist Pablo Picasso created during his long life that even the Musee Picasso only contains a fraction of his "oeuvre".
The number of works in the Musee Picasso by Picasso amounts to more than 3000 and spans paintings, drawings and ceramics. It is also backed up by works of art from his personal collection by other artists, such as Matisse, Cezanne and Degas.
The Hotel Sale, built in the seventeenth century in the fashionable Marais district of Paris, where the Musee Picasso is housed, is already a three-storey building.
Moulin Rouge
Toulouse-Lautrec Gets His Career Break
When the Moulin Rouge opened in 1889, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was commissioned to create a series of posters to celebrate the event. The artist was already ensconced in the bohemian community of artists in the Montmartre area of Paris. But the commission, which saw Toulouse-Lautrec attending the party on the club's opening night, meant that he could earn some money of his own to support his decadent lifestyle. The obvious fringe benefit was being able to attend the cabaret - the artist was at the same table every night - and being able to drink and draw to his heart's content.
The Red Windmill that was to symbolise this world-famous landmark looks to have propelled Toulouse-Lautrec's career. The cabaret displayed his work and to this period of his life belong paintings of the singer Yvette Guilbert and the dancer known as "La Goulue" ("The Glutton") who created the infamous Can-Can. He also rubbed shoulders with Emile Bernard and
Sacre Coeur, Montmartre
Why Does This Church in Paris Look So White?
How many visitors to Paris could fail to notice the Sacre Coeur, a whitewashed skeleton on the Montmartre hill in northern Paris? At the highest point in the city, this bleached basilica punctuates the skyline on the horizon.
Musee Du Louvre
Why is the Mona Lisa Hanging There?
Why does the Musee Du Louvre, Paris, house the most famous painting in the world when it was painted in Italy by an Italian artist?
There is nothing unusual about works of art being shifted around the world and the Louvre contains a goodly selection of other Italian paintings - by Mantegna, Bellini, Caravaggio and Titian.
Tour Montparnasse
An Attempt to Modernise Paris Was Capped
What merit can there be in building a 210-metre tall office block in one of the most beautiful cities in the world?
The Tour Montparnasse in the south-west of the city, not far from the famous Montparnasse cemetery, offers great views of Paris from the restaurant on the 56th floor. From this skyscraper, the tallest in France, visitors can see to a distance of 25 miles, or take off by helicopter, perhaps to an airport in one of the suburbs of the city.
Breathtaking aerial views are at a premium in Paris. Today, restrictions limit the height of Paris buildings to seven floors. Yet in times gone by, an urge to reach for the sky had been satisfied in the thirteenth century at Notre Dame, and in the nineteenth century at the Eiffel Tower and Sacre Coeur on Montmartre hill.
Tour Montparnasse was built four decades ago, between 1969 and 1972. Building upwards means in simple terms that offices and workers can be housed. But it is clear that Paris has not built
Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris
The Bells Won't Make You Deaf
Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris no doubt conjures up to movie lovers images of Charles Laughton at home amongst the gargoyles in the 1939 adaptation of Victor Hugo's classic novel "The Hunchback of Notre Dame".
Arc De Triomphe
All Roads Lead to the Roman Arch
The Arc de Triomphe in Paris occupies a location in the Place de l'Etoile at the western end of the Champs-Elysees and at the centre of a star of twelve major avenues. No wonder, then, that the roundabout immediately circling this triumphal arch is particularly busy with traffic. Anyone studying an aerial view of the avenues radiating from the Place de l'Etoile would conclude that all roads must lead to this stunning Roman arch.
After all, the Arc de Triomphe was modelled by its architect, Jean Chalgrin, on the first-century Arch of Titus located on the Via Sacra, Rome. The Parisian version, dating from 1806, was commissioned after Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz, his greatest triumph, and dominates the landscape at 50m in height.
Opera Garnier
The Phantom of the Opera is Born
Where better for the plot of a musical to be conceived than in an opera house?
Andrew Lloyd Webber's long-running show "The Phantom of the Opera" has dominated Broadway for almost 25 years. Aficionados of this musical will know that the Paris Opera House is the setting for a story about a disfigured genius called Erik who lurks in the bowels of the building and who falls in love with Christine, a member of the chorus. Erik tries to force Christine into marrying him and threatens to destroy the entire opera house with explosives planted in the cellars if this demand
Place De La Concorde, Paris
A City Square Rich With History
The Place de la Concorde, as it is now known, has been variously named since it was conceived as a public square in 1755. It is called "Concorde" today to indicate harmony and reconciliation. As the largest square in Paris, located at the eastern end of the Champs-Elysees, the modern visitor sees statues and fountains, not to mention a giant obelisk, surrounded by magnificent
Montparnasse Cemetery
Famous Immigrants Laid to Rest in Paris
What surprises does Montparnasse Cemetery throw up to the tourist? As one of three major cemeteries built in the early nineteenth century in the outer zones of Paris, interred here are many French names from that time onwards - Bernard Lacoste, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre and many others.
Yet foreign names and sometimes foreign lettering decorate the tombstones that we stumble across when we visit Montparnasse cemetery.
What is Alexander Alekhine, Russian-born world chess champion doing here? Born into a wealthy family in Moscow in 1892, Alekhine represented France in chess and eventually settled in Paris. Here he was able to take a stand against Bolshevism as might befit someone from an old Russian family. Becoming a French citizen in 1925, he also studied at the Sorbonne, writing a thesis on the Chinese prison system. He was world chess champion from 1927-1935 and again from 1937-1946. Dying in Portugal in 1946, his body was eventually transferred to Montparnasse Cemetery ten years later.
Rubbing shoulders with Alekhine is Irish-born writer Samuel Beckett whose connections with France started early. Born in 1906, he studied French, Italian and English at Trinity College, Dublin,
Les Invalides
Napoleon Finally Laid To Rest
Immediately under the dome at Les Invalides in Paris lies the body of Napoleon Bonaparte. It has lain here since 1861 in an imposing marble tomb, decorated with volutes atop a rectangular slab.
The ambitious French emperor, who won and lost a series of military campaigns, had wanted to be buried in Paris. In his will, he stated that he wished to be interred on the banks of the River Seine. Napoleon's mortal remains may not be immediately adjacent
Musee D'Orsay
Old Buildings Find a New Purpose
Why demolish an old building when you can find a new use for it? That was the reasoning of protesters in 1977 when the old Gare d'Orsay was destined to be scrapped.
This railway station, a splendid Beaux Arts edifice built between 1898 and 1900 on the left bank of the Seine,
