Tag: France

The Tour Eiffel is the highest building at Paris, the second highest one – clearly visible on the skyline of the city – is the Tour Montparnasse next to the Gare Montparnasse at the 15eme arrondissement. It was inaugurated in 1973 and is 210 meters high, 120 meters smaller than Eiffels iconic building. But nevertheless it is still today controversial, as only these two buildings stand out in this part of the city. The Tour Montparnasse was designed in the International Style and has 59 floors.

Northwest of Paris you can find a famous river island within the Seine, the Île de la Grande Jatte. It partially belongs to Levallois-Perret and to Neuilly-sur-Seine and is today a nice residential area reachable via different bridges – but in earlier days it looked completely different. In 1818 the Duke of Orléans bought the island as a new home, created a park and his family was also the sponsor of the Temple de l’amour which you can find today at the southern end of the island. By that time the island was only accessible by boat and different painters went there to create artworks well-known today.

At the end of the over-crowded, commercialized and steadily inclining Champs-Élysées you’ll find the Arc de Triomphe at Place Charles de Gaulle. It has been built by order of Napoleon to commemorate the victory of the battle of Austerlitz in 1806. You can walk trough a subterranean passage to the Arc and get on top – seeing 14 main streets crossing.

Not as vast as Père Lachaise but also bigger than big. The Cimetière de Montmartre is a more quite graveyard close to the center of the neighborhood of Montmartre. You can stroll around and look out for history.

To me the most beautiful church in the world and the place to be on a Sunday morning if you are in Paris. The Basilique du Sacré Cœur is situated on the hill of Montmartre and is visible from most places in Paris, France. It has been built as a memorial to the lost war against Germany in 1870/71.