Paris Hotels

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,…

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…

The origin of the Louvre goes back to the end of the 12th century, when Philippe Auguste, before leaving for the Third Crusade, had a fortress built near the river to defend Paris from the incursions of the Saxons ( in fact the name Louvre seems to derive from the Saxon word “leovar”, meaning “fortified…

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…

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…

This gate too, like the Porte St-Martin, has the form of a triumphal arch, with a single vault, measuring 79 feet both in height and in width. Designed by Blondel and erected in 1672, it has a sculpture by the Anguier brothers and was intended to celebrate the victories of Louis XIV in Germany, when…