Luxembourg Palace

Opened in 2006, this is the newest and the most modern of Paris' great museums, housing an outstanding collection of tribal art, with a particular emphasis on France's former (and present) territories in Oceania and Africa. The museum is large and you can easily spend half a day browsing, especially if you pause to explore the multimedia presentations.

A Gothic church tower in a square 150m to the west of the Hôtel de Ville was restored by Ballu, is all that remains of Eglise Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, which was the meeting place in Paris for pilgrims heading to Santiago de Compestela. As such it is included on the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France.

If you were a city planner in one of the great cities of our Earth and you discovered that a railroad right-of-way had been abandoned and would never be used again what might you do? Perhaps if you knew your stuff you'd convert it into a 4 mile long park, about half of which is elevated above street level on the old rail viaduct. This long narrow park pretty much allows the visitor to walk in carfree bliss from Place de Bastille to the Bois de Vincennes.

One of the largest collections outside Asia of Southeast Asian, Indian, Afghan, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean art.

A sculpture by Auguste Rodin in memory of the French novelist Honoré Balzac. The artwork is sometimes considered the first truly modern sculpture.

A former fortress and royal residence at the edge of the city, alongside the Bois de Vincennes. Most of the building is open to public.

This street is named in honor for Nicolas Appert, a French businessman who invented airtight food preservation. On January 7th, 2015, it was the site of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack, which resulted in the deaths of 12 people. A plaque in front of a former office building memorializes the victims of the satirical magazine's staff.

The massive parish church of the Les Halles area is a notable example of late Gothic interspersed with Renaissance details (including the entire front façade), as it was only completed in the 17th century. Its unique form results from a combination of relatively short length and impressive height of over 30 metres inside. The latter allows room not only for an array of stained glass windows and paintings, but also France's largest church organ of 8,000 pipes. The sculpture Écoute, depicting an oversized human head, was placed in front of the church's southern facade and has become a favourite photo spot.

Most of the works by Picasso and others which were in the master's possession at the time of his death are now on display here.

The east wing of the Palais de Tokyo holds the modern art collection of the city of Paris, dating roughly from World War I to date (the older part of the collection is at the Petit Palais in the 8th), including around 10,000 works.

One of Paris's best kept secrets, painted by Monet numerous times. It is a very elegant centre of green in the middle of cosmopolitan Paris. Make sure you check out the statues, entrance rotunda and the surrounding mansions. Thanks to Haussmann himself this precious slice of parkland was reserved for the enjoyment and leisure of the people of Paris. It is unusual in France due to its casual, informal "English" style planning, and is a contrast to other Parisian parks such as the classically laid out and formal Luxembourg Gardens and the Tuileries. Randomly placed throughout the park are scaled-down architectural replicas including an Egyptian pyramid, Dutch windmill, and a Chinese fort. Free Wi-Fi in the park.

Two-level bridge.

The largest square in Paris with fantastic vistas in every direction. It was in this square (then called la Place de la Revolution) that the French King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and many others were guillotined during the Terror. The large Egyptian obelisk in the centre of the Place de la Concorde was brought from the Temple of Luxor.

Contained within two historic houses (hotels), the museum explores the history of Paris through objects in over 140 separate rooms.

The burial place of existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, feminist Simone de Beauvoir (both of whom lived nearby); musician Serge Gainsbourg; artist Man Ray; the poets Charles Baudelaire, Guy de Maupassant, Charles Sainte-Beuve, and Marguerite Duras; the founders of the Theatre of the Absurd Samuel Becket and Eugene Ionesco; the sculptors Constantin Brancusi and Ossip Zadkine; the composers Camille de Saint-Saens and César Franck; the actors Maria Montez and Jean Seberg; the French officer Alfred Dreyfus; the founder of the Larousse encyclopedia, Pierre Larousse; the industrialist André Citroen, and many others.

Many feel that this, Paris' town hall, is one of the loveliest buildings in the city. You might not get that from the front view, but try watching the light change on its roofs and towers during sunset from one of the cafés on the Ile de St. Louis, the Lutece for instance. Alternatively, go to the top floor of the Bazar de l'Hôtel de Ville (BHV) department store opposite, on rue de Rivoli and walk up a flight of stairs to the roof terrace (terrasse), from which there is a dramatic view of both the roof of the Hôtel de Ville and the immediate surroundings and river. The present Hôtel de Ville replaced the 16th century original which was burned down during the Commune in 1871. A pastiche of its predecessor, but on a far larger scale, it was designed by the architects Ballu and Deperthes, chosen after a competition, and was mostly completed by 1882. The building is lavishly, and some would say heavy-handedly, decorated both inside and out, and finished in an arrestingly white stone, similar to that used for the even more eye-catching Sacre-Coeur basilica. The statue on the garden wall on the south side is of Etienne Marcel, the most famous holder of the post of "prevôt des marchands" (provost of merchants) which pre-dated the office of mayor. Marcel came to a sticky end, lynched in 1358 by an angry mob after trying to assert the city's powers a little too energetically. The Hôtel de Ville was for many years the private fiefdom of Jacques Chirac, France's president before Sarkozy, and was the site of a scandal centring on both illegal jobs given to Chirac's party members and an immense entertainment budget. General de Gaulle greeted the crowds from a front window in 1944 when Paris was liberated from the Germans and Robespierre was shot in the jaw and arrested in the original building in 1794. Admirers of Hôtel de Ville's architecture will want to know that Ballu also built the Church of La Trinité in the 9th arrondissement and the belfry of the town hall of the 1st arrondissement, opposite the Louvre's east façade. Ballu also restored the Tour St Jacques (see below), which was uncovered after restoration work lasting over a decade.

This wedding cake-white church rises visibly above the north part of Paris. The striking building, with its towers and white onion dome (83 m high), was built between 1875-1914 on the birthplace of La Commune, officially as an act of penitence for the sins committed during the civil war in which thousands of Communards were executed, as well as for the previous bloodshed of the 1870 Franco-Prussian war. A number of prominent businessmen put up the money, and a dizzying combination of architects worked to put together the mock Romano-Byzantine extravaganza. Consecration followed in 1919. The view over Paris from the dome and from the square before it (200 m above sea level) is unsurpassed, apart from that enjoyed at the Eiffel Tower (50 km on a clear day). For the athletic traveller there are stairs from several directions to the top of the hill; otherwise there is also a funicular which runs every few minutes during the daytime from Place St. Pierre. Follow the signs that say "Funiculaire De Montmartre". Beware that the guards don't like it if they catch you taking pictures inside and will even yell "No photo!" and chase you down if they see you with a camera. Be warned: along the lower steps leading up to church, groups of mostly young African men gather and reach toward you with a small string, offering to loop it round your finger. In case it happens, pull back your hand, brush them off and move on. They might claim that "This is for the church." In case your feel that things go sideways, raise your voice to get people's attention and ask them call the police.

Since 2021 the 18th-century former Bourse de Commerce building has been the Paris home of the art collection of the French business magnate François Pinault, showing a rotating selection of contemporary artworks either newly commissioned or taken from his collection.