Cathédrale Notre Dame
If Paris has a heart, then this is it. Notre Dame de Paris is not only a
masterpiece of French Gothic architecture, but has also been Catholic Paris'
ceremonial focus for seven centuries. The cathedral's immense interior, a
marvel of medieval engineering, holds over 6000 people and has spectacular
rose windows.
 Although Notre Dame is regarded as a sublime architectural achievement,
there are all sorts of minor anomalies, as the French love nothing better
than to mess with things. These include a trio of main entrances that are
each shaped differently, and which are accompanied by statues that were once
coloured to make them more effective as Bible lessons for the hoi polloi.
The interior is dominated by a 7800-pipe organ that was restored but has not
worked properly since.
It's well worth the effort of climbing the 387 steps of the north tower.
This will bring you to the top of the west facade and face to face with many
of the cathedral's most frightening gargoyles, which enjoy a spectacular
view of Paris.
Centre Pompidou
 The
Centre Pompidou is something of a victim of its own success. It was much
criticized for requiring temporary closure for a major renovation after only
twenty years' service, but this is at least mitigated by the volume of
people it has been required to host: over 25,000 per day, compared with the
5,000 anticipated. And if its massive, brightly colored, maverick form looks
less radical today, that's because of how much its revolutionary hi-tech
construction has been copied and extended.
The Centre Pompidou broke the mold with its 'inside out' construction:
the steel skeleton from which the floors are suspended dominantly visible
from the outside, together with the giant external escalators, with the
color-coded service ducts exposed on both the inside and out. Now that the
fact of these appearances is no longer shocking, attention focus on how they
are done. Twenty years, on the escalator remains a phenomenon, and the plaza
continues to thrive, but the exhibition spaces themselves, and the rather
dry, regular block shape of the overall building, are beginning to come
across as almost a little dull.
How to visit
Enter by the plaza, place Georges-Pompidou (but still known by its
previous name, place Beaubourg). To get there, take the Metro to Rambuteau
(line 11) or Hôtel de Ville (lines 1 and 11); or take the RER (suburban
train) to Châtelet/Les Halles.
There is paid parking in both rue Beaubourg and rue des Halles.
Comprehensive visitor information, including opening times, is available
in English at the web site of the Centre national d'art et de culture at
www.cnac-gp.fr.
Cimetière du Père Lachaise
 Founded in 1804, Père Lachaise's 70,000 ornate tombs form a verdant,
open-air sculpture garden. Among its resting residents are famous composers,
writers, artists, actors, singers, dancers and even the immortal
12th-century lovers Abélard and Héloïse.
One of the most popular graves is that of rock star Jim Morrison of The
Doors, who died in an apartment on Rue Beautreillis (4e) in the Marais in
1971.
The cemetery has four entrances, two of them on Blvd de Ménilmontant.
Newsstands and kiosks in the area sell a detailed map, 'Plan Illustré du
Père Lachaise'.
Two-hour, English-language tours are run on Saturday at 3pm Jun-Sep.
Eiffel Tower
 Built for the 1889 Exposition Universelle (World Fair), held to
commemorate the centennial of the Revolution, the Tour Eiffel was the
world's tallest structure at 320m (1050ft) until Manhattan's Chrysler
Building was completed.
Initially opposed by the city's artistic and literary elite - who were
only affirming their right to disagree with everything - the tower was
almost torn down in 1909. Salvation came when it proved an ideal platform
for the antennas needed for the new science of radiotelegraphy. Just
southeast of the tower is a grassy expanse that was once the site of the
world's first balloon flights and is now used by teens as a skateboarding
arena or by activists bad-mouthing Chirac.
When you're done peering upward through the girders, three levels are
open to the public. There are elevators to the top but they have long
queues. You can avoid the queues by walking up the stairs in the south
pillar to the 1st or 2nd platforms. Guided visits are also available.
Musée d'Orsay
 This former railway station houses a superb collection of French
Impressionist and post-Impressionist works making it a must-see for any art
lover. The museum displays France's national collection of paintings,
sculptures, objets d'art produced between 1848 and 1914, including the
fruits of the impressionist, postimpressionist and art nouveau movements.
It thus fills the chronological gap between the Louvre and the Musée
National d'Art Moderne at the Centre Pompidou. The museum is austerely
housed along the Seine in a former railway station built in 1900 and
reinaugurated in its present form in 1986.
Musée du Louvre
The Louvre may be the world's greatest art museum - but it's also the one
most avoided by visitors to Paris. Daunted by its size and overwhelming
richness, many people head to smaller galleries. But if you have even the
merest interest in the fruits of human civilisation from antiquity to the
19th century, then visit you must.
To make your journey through the collection more enjoyable, pick up one
of the useful map-guides and check out the works you really want to see,
concentrating on only a couple of sections of the museum.
The most famous works from antiquity include the Seated Scribe, the
Jewels of Rameses II and the armless duo - the Winged Victory of Samothrace
and the Venus de Milo. From the Renaissance, don't miss Michelangelo's
Slaves, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and works by Raphael, Botticelli and
Titian. French masterpieces of the 19th century include Ingres' La Grande
Odalisque, Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa and the work of David and
Delacroix.
The former fortress began its career as a public museum in 1793 with 2500
paintings; now some 30,000 are on display.
The Grand Louvre project has breathed new life into the museum with many
new and renovated galleries now open to the public. To avoid queues at the
pyramid, buy your ticket in advance and/or enter through the underground
shopping mall.
Place des Vosges
The Marais district spent a long time as a swamp and then as agricultural
land, until in 1605 King Henry IV decided to
 transform it into a residential
area for Parisian aristocrats. He did this by building Place des Vosges and
arraying 36 symmetrical houses around its square perimeter. The houses, each
with arcades on the ground floor, large dormer windows, and the requisite
creepers on the walls, were initially built of brick but were subsequently
constructed using timber with a plaster covering, which was then painted to
look like brick. Duels, fought with strictly observed formality, were once
staged in the elegant park in the middle. From 1832-48 Victor Hugo lived at
a house at No 6, which has now been turned into a municipal museum. Today,
the arcades around the place are occupied by expensive galleries and shops,
and cafés filled with people drinking little cups of coffee and air-kissing
immaculate passersby.
Sainte Chapelle
 The most exquisite of Paris' Gothic gems, Sainte Chapelle is tucked away
within the walls of the Palais de Justice. The chapel is illuminated by a
veritable curtain of luminous 13th-century stained glass (the oldest and
finest in Paris).
Consecrated in 1248, Sainte Chapelle was built to house what was believed
to be Jesus' crown of thorns and other relics purchased by King Louis IX.
The chapel's exterior can be viewed from across the street, from the law
courts' magnificently gilded 18th-century gate, which faces Rue de Lutèce.
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The
Arc de Triomphe is the world's largest traffic roundabout and the meeting
point of 12 avenues. It was commissioned in 1806 by Napoleon to commemorate
his imperial victories, but remained unfinished until 1836. 
on
the western edge of the city, is endowed with forested areas, meandering
paths, belle époque cafes and little wells of naughtiness. Each night,
pockets of the Bois de Boulogne are taken over by prostitutes and lurkers
with predacious sexual tastes. In recent years, the police have cracked down
on the area's sex trade, but locals still advise against walking through the
area alone at night. The Bois de Boulogne was renovated in 2004 after
suffering storm damage in December 1999. 
That
intersection of human history has made for an underworld visit like no
other. For a spooky date, today, you can take an eerie walk through the dark
passages of the Catacombs past the millions of carefully stacked skulls,
each one labelled with the original year of its burial. When you are down
there, remember, too, that these burial chambers are only a small part of
the tunnel network lying beneath the city. Safely hidden from view, the
French resistance had hideouts here during the Nazi occupation, and in the
past 20 years the catacombs have remained popular for illicit meetings,
concerts and parties, despite the best efforts of the local police. First
suggested by Charlotte.