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Paris

Paris

State

Métropole du Grand Paris

Country

France

Continent

Europe

Size

21,900 KM2

Population

2,160,000

Spending Budget

$918 - $3,174

Famous For

  • Eiffel Tower
  • The Seine
  • Panthéon
  • Jardin du Luxembourg
  • Notre-Dame de Paris
  • Ile Saint-Louis

Best Time to Visit

  • January
  • June
  • July
  • August
  • September

History

The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One area's major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité; this meeting place of land and water trade routes gradually became an important trading center. The Parisii traded with many river towns (some as far away as the Iberian Peninsula) and minted their own coins for that purpose. The Romans conquered the Paris Basin in 52 BC and began their settlement on Paris' Left Bank. The Roman town was originally called Lutetia (more fully, Lutetia Parisiorum, "Lutetia of the Parisii," modern French Lutèce). It became a prosperous city with a forum, baths, temples, theatres, and an amphitheater. By the end of the Western Roman Empire, the town was known as Parisius, a Latin name that would later become Paris in French. Christianity was introduced in the middle of the 3rd century AD by Saint-Denis, the first Bishop of Paris: according to legend, when he refused to renounce his faith before the Roman occupiers, he was beheaded on the hill which became known as Mons Martyrum (Latin "Hill of Martyrs"), later "Montmartre," from where he walked headless to the north of the city; the place where he fell and was buried became an important religious shrine, the Basilica of Saint-Denis, and many French kings are buried there.

Present Day

Paris (French pronunciation: [paʁi] ) is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,175,601 residents as of 2018, in an area of more than 105 square kilometers (41 square miles). Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of Europe's major finance, diplomacy, commerce, fashion, gastronomy, science, and arts. Paris is a major railway, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports: Paris–Charles de Gaulle (the second busiest airport in Europe) and Paris–Orly Paris is especially known for its museums and architectural landmarks: the Louvre was the most visited art museum in the world in 2019, with 9.6 million visitors. The number of visitors plunged by 72 percent to 2.7 million visitors in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the drop in the number of foreign visitors, but it remained the most-visited art museum in 2020. The Musée d'Orsay, Musée Marmottan Monet and Musée de l'Orangerie are noted for their collections of French Impressionist art. The Pompidou Centre Musée National d'Art Moderne has the largest collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe. The Musée Rodin and Musée Picasso exhibit the works of two noted Parisians. The historical district along the Seine in the city center is classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site; popular landmarks there included the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris on the Île de la Cité, now closed for renovation after the 15 April 2019 fire. Other popular tourist sites include the Gothic royal chapel of Sainte-Chapelle, also on the Île de la Cité; the Eiffel Tower, constructed for the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889; the Grand Palais and Petit Palais, built for the Paris Universal Exposition of 1900; the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Élysées, as well as the hill of Montmartre with its artistic history and its Basilica of Sacré-Coeur.

Future

Shortly, visitors to Paris will dip in the Seine and dine in an abandoned subway station. Landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and Montparnasse Tower will go under the proverbial knife and undergo major makeovers. At the same time, a Paris rooftop will earn the title of the world's largest urban farm. These are among some of the innovative revitalization projects poised to write a new chapter in one of the most popular and mythologized tourist destinations globally in advance of 2024 when Paris hosts the Summer Olympic Games. Over the next four years, abandoned, disused, and outdated spaces will be given a second life as new dining destinations, themed hotels, museums, and leisure hotspots. Some of the projects were hand-picked under the city's urban renewal campaign "Reinventing Paris," which first launched in 2014 under Anne Hidalgo, the city's socially progressive, eco-minded mayor, and her deputy mayor Jean-Louis Missika, who oversees the city's urban planning and economic development strategies. (Hidalgo is up for re-election this spring.) One of the overarching edicts of the campaign? Instead of selling off public assets to the highest bidder, the city took a decidedly different approach, says Missika: "less quantitative, more qualitative." "Instead of a competition that awarded assets to those who offered the biggest check, we decided to make the competition about the most innovative and interesting project proposals, projects that would be eco-minded and of use to the general public," he tells CNN Travel. Proposals that featured multi-disciplinary teams -- architects, economists, landscape artists, sociologists, researchers, and urban agriculturalists -- were given special preference, as projected in underserved areas that featured mixed-use spaces, co-working offices, hotels, residences, daycare centers, sports centers, or pools.
Must Visit Places ------------

Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower is a wrought iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. Locally nicknamed "La dame de fer" (French for "Iron Lady"), it was constructed from 1887 to 1889 as the entrance to the 1889 World's Fair and was initially criticized by some of France's leading artists and intellectuals for its design. Still, it has become a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world. The Eiffel Tower is the most-visited paid monument globally; 6.91 million people ascended it in 2015. The tower is 324 meters (1,063 ft) tall, about the same height as an 81-story building, and the tallest structure in Paris. Its base is square, measuring 125 meters (410 ft) on each side. During its construction, the Eiffel Tower surpassed the Washington Monument to become the tallest artificial structure globally, a title it held for 41 years until the Chrysler Building in New York City was finished in 1930. It was the first structure to surpass both the 200 meters and 300-meter mark in height. The addition of a broadcasting aerial at the top of the tower in 1957 is now taller than the Chrysler Building by 5.2 meters (17 ft). Excluding transmitters, the Eiffel Tower is the second tallest free-standing structure in France after the Millau Viaduct.

The Seine

The Seine is a 775-kilometer-long (482 mi) river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, 30 kilometers (19 mi) northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre (and Honfleur on the left bank). It is navigable by ocean-going vessels as far as Rouen, 120 kilometers (75 mi) from the sea. Over 60 percent of its length, as far as Burgundy, is negotiable by large barges and most tour boats, and nearly its whole length is available for recreational boating; excursion boats offer sightseeing tours of the river banks in the capital city, Paris.

Panthéon

The Panthéon is a monument in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, France. It stands in the Latin Quarter, atop the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, named after it in the center of the Place du Panthéon. The edifice was built between 1758 and 1790, from designs by Jacques-Germain Soufflot, at the behest of King Louis XV of France; the king intended it as a church dedicated to Saint Genevieve, Paris' patron saint, whose relics were to be housed in the church. Unfortunately, neither Soufflot nor Louis XV lived to see the church completed. By the time the construction was finished, the French Revolution had started; the National Constituent Assembly had voted in 1791 to transform the Church of Saint Genevieve into a mausoleum for the remains of distinguished French citizens, modeled on the Pantheon in Rome, which had been used in this way since the 16th century. The first panthéonisé was Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau, although his remains were removed from the building a few years later. The Panthéon was twice restored to church usage in the course of the 19th century—although Soufflot's remains were transferred inside it in 1829—until the French Third Republic finally decreed the building's exclusive use as a mausoleum in 1881. Victor Hugo's remains in the crypt in 1885 was its first entombment in over fifty years.

Jardin du Luxembourg

The Jardin du Luxembourg (French pronunciation: ​[ʒaʁdɛ̃ day lyksɑ̃buːʁ]), known in English as the Luxembourg Garden, colloquially referred to as the Jardin du Sénat (Senate Garden), is located in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, France. It was created in 1612 by Marie de Medici, the widow of King Henry IV, for a new residence she constructed, the Luxembourg Palace. The garden today is owned by the French Senate, which meets in the Palace. It covers 23 hectares (56.8 acres). It is known for its lawns, tree-lined promenades, tennis courts, flowerbeds, model sailboats on its octagonal Grand Bassin, as well as picturesque Medici Fountain, built-in 1620. Luxembourg's name comes from the Latin Mons Lucotitius, the name of the hill where the garden is located.

Notre-Dame de Paris

Notre-Dame de Paris referred to simply as Notre-Dame,[a] is a medieval Catholic cathedral on the Île de la Cité in the 4th arrondissement of Paris. The cathedral was consecrated to the Virgin Mary and considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture. Its pioneering use of the rib vault and flying buttress, its enormous and colorful rose windows, and the naturalism and abundance of its sculptural decoration set it apart from the earlier Romanesque style. Major components that make Notre Dame include its large historic organ and its immense church bells.

Ile Saint-Louis

Île Saint-Louis is one of two natural islands in the Seine river, in Paris, France (the other natural island is Île de la Cité; the Île aux Cygnes is artificial). The Île Saint-Louis is connected to the rest of Paris by four bridges to both banks of the river and to the Île de la Cité by the Pont Saint-Louis. This island was formerly used for the grazing of market cattle and stocking wood. The island is located within the 4th arrondissement of Paris and has a population of 4,453.