Paris Attractions, France

Champs-Elysées - Palais de l'Elysée
The Avenue des Champs-Elysées, the most famous and most splendid of Paris's broad avenues, just under 2km/1.5mi long, is divided into two parts by the Rond- Point des Champs-Elysées, its largest intersection. The upper part, extending to the Arc de Triomphe, is lined by luxury shops and hotels, innumerable restaurants and pavement cafes, cinemas and theaters, the offices of the big banks and international airlines - and now increasingly by fast food outlets and souvenir stalls. This is the meeting place of all the world, in a confusion of many tongues. The lower part of the Champs-Elysées, towards Place de la Concorde, is flanked by gardens in which are museums, theaters and a number of restaurants.

Musée du Louvre
The main entrance to the Louvre Museum is the glass pyramid in the Cour Napoléon; a second entrance from the Carrousel du Louvre; and there is a third entrance, the Passage Richelieu between Place du Palais-Royal and the Cour Carrée for Friends of the Louvre (Amis du Louvre), groups and visitors to the auditorium and restaurant only.
On the mezzanine level an exhibition in two parts recounts the history of the Louvre, and visitors can see the remains of the medieval crypt.
 

Notre-Dame
The monumental and finely balanced west front of Notre-Dame in Paris reveals on closer examination the sequence of building phases and hence the development of the High Gothic style. The doorway (c. 1200), the window level (c. 1220), the traceried balustrade above the rose window and the unfinished towers (1225-50) illustrate the progressive refinement of the formal language of Gothic. The tripartite vertical articulation reflects the tripartite division of the interior into nave and aisles. The five horizontal sections (the doorway level, the Gallery of Kings, the windows, the traceried gallery, the towers) also correspond to different levels in the interior (the doorway zone to the arcading, the gallery of kings to the internal galleries, the window zone to the high windows in the interior).

Eiffel Tower
Despite oft-repeated doubts as to its stability, the Eiffel Tower celebrated its centenary in 1989 after a general overhaul lasting eight years. In 1932 it lost its title as the world's highest man- made structure to the Empire State Building in New York (a title now held by the CN Tower in Toronto with a height of 553.35m/1,815ft), but is still visited by almost six million people a year. The Eiffel Tower has long been, and still is, the great landmark of Paris.
The designs and calculations for the tower, built for the Paris Exhibition of 1889 which marked the centenary of the French Revolution, were the work of Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923), an engineer from Dijon. He designed the tower in such a way that even under extreme wind pressure the structural weight is sufficient to prevent it from being blown over. Moreover the lattice construction reduced the pressure on the structure by about half, thus giving a double insurance against collapse. Standing 307m/1,007ft high (320.75m/1,052ft to the tip of the aerial), the tower consists of 15,000 steel sections held together by 2.5 million rivets. Originally the structure's total weight of 7,500 tons was distributed in such a way that at ground level the pressure exerted was only four kilograms per sq. centimeter (57 lb per sq. inch), roughly the pressure exerted by a normal-sized adult on the seat of a chair. As individual sections are not replaced by a similar section but by a heavier concrete section, however, the total weight has increased to 11,000 tons. In the course of the recent renovation 1,500 concrete sections were replaced by steel plates.

Montmartre
There are two common explanations for the name Montmartre. One is that is comes from Mons Mercurii (Mercury's Mount), after a temple of Mercury which is said to have stood here. The other is that the name is a corruption of Mont des Martyrs, since legend has it that St Dionysius (Denis), first bishop of Paris, was executed here along with his companions Rusticus and Eleutherius.
Nowadays there are three Montmartres: the Butte Montmartre, the hill (129m/423ft) on which are the Sacré-Coeur (photo - left), the Place du Tertre and various little theaters and revues like Michou's crazy drag show in Rue des Martyrs; the residential quarter of Montmartre; and the entertainment quarter on the Boulevard de Clichy with its numerous erotic establishments, which are also to be found round the legendary Moulin Rouge and in the adjoining side streets.

Triumphal Arch
The Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile is dedicated to the glory of the victorious French armies of the Revolution and the First Empire. Napoleon ordered the building of this mighty structure in 1806 but did not live to see its completion in 1836. It was designed by JF Chalgrin (1739-1811) and completely restored in 1988-89.

Place de la Concorde
The spacious Place de la Concorde in Paris, at the intersection of two main axes (Louvre-Arc de Triomphe and Madeleine-Palais-Bourbon), is recognized as one of the finest squares in the world. Originally called Place Louis-XV, with an equestrian statue of the king in the center, it was laid out by the architect Jacques-Ange Gabriel, who between 1755 and 1775 built two magniificent buildings on the north side of the square, flanking Rue Royale: to the right the Ministère de la Marine (since 1792; originally the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne, the royal furniture store), to the left the elegant Hôtel Crillon.
During the French Revolution the statue of the king was destroyed, the square was renamed Place de la Révolution and the guillotine was set up here. Among the many thousands executed in this square were Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, Madame Dubarry, Charlotte Corday, Danton and finally Robespierre and his supporters.
The square was given its present name in 1795, under the Directoire.
Between 1836 and 1854 Jacob Ignaz Hittorff, a native of Cologne, gave the square its final form by erecting two fountains (the one to the north decorated with allegories of agriculture and industry, the one to the south with allegorical figures representing seafaring and fishing) and eight female figures (restored 1988) personifying France's eight largest cities (clockwise: Marseilles, Bordeaux, Nantes, Brest, Rouen, Lille, Strasbourg, Lyons). The lodges in the bases of the statues were formerly occupied by municipal employees (gardiens).

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