Paris Hotels

The Eiffel Tower, which has become the symbol of Paris, was erected for the World Fair in 1889. A masterpiece designed by the engineer Gustave Eiffel, it is altogether 1050 feet high, an extremely light, interlaced structure made of 15000 pieces of metal welded together. Its weight of 7000 tons rests on four huge piers…

Formerly Place de I’Etoile, this square is at the end of the Champs-Elysees. It is a vast circular area 130 yards in diameter, from which a total of twelve important streets radiate out: Avenue des Champs-Elysees, Avenue de Friedland, Avenue Hoche, Avenue de Wagram, Avenue MacMahon, Avenue Carnot, Avenue de la Grande Armee, Avenue Foch,…

What the press defined as “the most beautiful museum in Europe” is to be found on the left bank of the Seine, where the State Audit Court originally stood in 1870; it was then destroyed during the Commune. In 1898 the Paris-Orleans railway company assigned the building of the new station to Victor Laloux. The…

This was initially a vast swampy region; after its reclamation, Le Notre in 1667 designed the broad avenue which was first called the Grand Cours ( its current name dates from 1709 ): it goes from the Tuileries to Place de I’Etoile, now today called Place de Gaulle. At the start of the avenue are…

This is the oldest part of the university’s buildings; erected between 1635 and 1642 by Lemercier, it has a typically Baroque facade with two orders, surmounted and dominated by its elegant cupola. Volutes link the lower order to the upper. The columns at ground level become flatter pilaster strips higher up, thus creating a gradual…

The huge arch stands in regal isolation in the middle of the square. Ordered by Napoleon to the Grand Army as a memorial, Chalgrin began it in 1806. Finished in 1836, it truly surpasses in Rome the Arch of Constantine in size and has one archway: it’s 147 feet broad and 164 feet high. On…