Paris, the city of love! Where people come to have a romantic time!
Paris the city of fashion! Fashion week offers the most wanted catwalks of Europe right here where Chanel, Saint Laurent & Louis Vuitton are home.
Paris the city of art & culture with over 160 museums, around 200 art galleries and ca. 100 theaters.
There are a lot of events going on all year long including concerts, exhibitions, music and film festivals, fashion week and sport competitions in the capital of France. About 16 million tourists are visiting this city every year for different reasons. And I can see why. For me it is the 3rd time visiting this city and the vibe always catches me.
I love the people, the language, the special places, the food & wine and the culture here!
Smelling the fresh bread walking down the street in the morning when you pass by the bakeries, having a café au lait at the Café on the corner, listening to the great music of the street musicians or watching people paint in the middle of the city center is typical for the town.
It is one of my favorite capitals here in Europe.
So that´s why I present you a few places and things you should see or do while you are here:
In my last post I already told you about Nr. 1 - 5: Eiffel Tower, Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre, Louvre, Champs-Élysées & Arc de Triomphe click here to read and upvote it.
6. Notre Dame
The first time I heard of this church I was still a little kid. I listened to the story of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and then watched the movie of Walt Disney about it. For those of you that never heard about it: It´s about a love story between the disfigured Quasimodo, who lives at Notre Dame and the gypsy Esmeralda. A very romantic but sad story!!
The church was built from 1163–1345 to honor "Notre Dame" (english: our lady) = Maria. It was finished once at 1250 but got changed a lot afterwards until 1345. It is located at the city center on the river Island "Île de la Cité".
Both towers are 69m and the roof 96m high. It is 130m long and 48m wide which gives room for about 10.000 people.
You can enter the Church from below, to see the inside with all its beautiful altars and windows.
To get to the top you have to get to another entrance. You mostly have to wait in a big line, but it is definitely worth it!
On the top you can see all the statues, you already know from Hunchback of Notre Dame, which are there to protect the church from bad ghosts. You also see the big bell and have a beautiful view of the city!
A little extra: Saint Chapelle
Close to Notre Dame you can find the little chapel Saint Chapelle, which used to be an insider sight over the last years. This time it was more visited. It´s the former chapel of the Palast "Palais de la Cité " that is also located on the island.
The building has two floors which makes it very high. At the inside you first recognize the big colored windows - 12m high and covering 600m² of the walls. That gives a lot of light in the chapel and looks amazing! Super beautiful! And a very mystic atmosphere.
7. Boat Tour on the river Seine
For just 15EUR you can get aboard of a glass-topped Trimaran for a 1 hour tour at the river Seine.
These tours start right next to Eiffel Tower. There is audioguide commentary available in 13 languages and also a guide talking while you cruise on the river.
You will pass a lot of famous sights like the Louvre, Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, Musée d'Orsay etc. and get beautiful Panorama views of it.
Also you will see all the beautiful bridges like Pont d'Iéna, Pont de l'Alma, Pont des Invalides, Pont Alexandre III, Pont de la Concorde, Pont Royal, Pont du Carrousel, Pont des Arts, Pont Neuf & Pont Notre Dame.
Especially the tour at night with all the buildings illuminated is amazing! - For that you should get the tickets in advance as often it is sold out.
8. Galeries Lafayette
The Galeries Lafayette is the a store chain with his home base in Paris. Daily they count about 60.000 visitors. There are 6 restaurants where you can eat. 35 000 employees are helping you to find what suites you on a surface of 68.000 m².
It is the biggest store in the western hemisphere. Here you will find all the labels you ever dreamed of.
It is divided in VO (Fashion), Lafayette Homme (Mans cloth), Lafayette Gourmet (Food), Lafayette Maison (Living) and Lafayette Shoes, which also makes it the biggest shoe store of the word with a surface or 3.200 m².
Also the building is really beautiful constructed in a Jugenstil architecture. It has a big hall in the middle with a beautiful window dome on the top.
9. Parks in Paris
Paris is a wonderful city to walk around. You can do everything by foot if you want to. On your way you will find a few beautiful parks to rest, maybe have a little picnic and especially now in summer you will enjoy the sun ;)
Here a few parks for you to get an idea:
Parc des Buttes-Chaumont: This is one of the favorite parks of the locals. You can see waterfalls, cliffs and temples here.
Jardin des Tuileries: Was designed by the same person that designed the garden of castle Versailles. It is the oldest and most beautiful park of the city located between Place de la Concorde and Place du Carrousel, close to the Louvre.
Jardin du Luxembourg: Here you can find a lot of statues and artwork. It offers also a lot of activities like Tennis, pony rides, Sailing your sailboat in the central fountain and enjoying a famous Guignol puppet show.
Jardin des Plantes: It is the most important botanical garden in France and one of the most beautiful parks in Paris. Originally it was used to serve as a medical herb garden for French Royalty. There are thousands of different plant species to find in this garden... don´t get lost ;)
Parc Monceau: It´s one of the most diverse gardens I´ve seen with an Egyptian pyramid, a Venetian bridge, Corinthian pillars and a Chinese pagoda among other things.
10. Moulin Rouge
Welcome to the Moulin Rouge as Christina Aguilera says in her song Lady Marmelade :D ..you can imagine that this has to do with some kind of show! - It does -Today it is still a cabaret theater.
The Moulin Roughe (red mill) was built in the same year as the Eiffel Tower 1889 at Montmartre district. It is one of the highest parts of Paris. That´s because people used to built wind mills there. Some of the wind mills would be expanded for other uses like having a café or a space to do events. That´s how the name moulin (mill) got to be used for events like balls to dance mostly Cancan or Chahut.
It was the place to be at this time and all the famous people from Paris came to perform like La Goulue, Yvette Guilbert, Jane Avril, Mistinguett and „Le Pétomane“ Joseph Pujol.
Later on they also offered opera and cinema. At 1964 a aquarium was installed at the stage in which naked dancer where performing and swimming. In the 90s the business was bad but they recovered after the movie Moulin Rouge at 2000.
and you get a nice show to see, if you want even with dinner in advance: http://www.moulinrouge.fr/menu/show-21h?lang=en
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Cheers, Liz
