Explorer Paris

Notre-Dame de Paris is a Gothic Catholic cathedral on the Île de la Cité, built between 1163 and 1345. A 2019 fire destroyed its roof and spire; the cathedral reopened in December 2024 after restoration. Visitors can see its flying buttresses, rose windows, sculpted portals and the Great Organ.

A museum of the history of Paris, opened in 1880 in the 16th-century Hôtel Carnavalet and extended in 1989 into the neighbouring Hôtel Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau. Its roughly 625,000 objects trace the city from prehistory through the Enlightenment and the Revolution to the 20th century, displayed across forty rooms after a 2021 renovation.

The oldest standing bridge across the Seine in Paris, built between 1578 and 1607 in two separate spans linking the Île de la Cité to both riverbanks. Despite its name, meaning 'New Bridge', it was the first bridge in the city built without houses lining its sides.

A former royal palace on Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris's 1st arrondissement, built for Cardinal Richelieu between 1633 and 1639 and later home to the Dukes of Orléans. The building now houses the Ministry of Culture, the Conseil d'État and the Constitutional Council; its arcaded garden and courtyards are open to the public, the interior is not.

A 23-hectare public garden in Paris's 6th arrondissement, laid out from 1612 for Marie de' Medici around the Luxembourg Palace, now the seat of the French Senate. Lawns, tree-lined walks, an octagonal pond with model sailboats and the 1620 Medici Fountain fill the grounds.

Saint-Roch is a Baroque and classical parish church on Rue Saint-Honoré in central Paris, built between 1653 and 1740 and dedicated to Saint Roch. Its long nave passes several side chapels before reaching an oval sanctuary behind the high altar. The church also hosts evening concerts under the name Les Nuits de Saint-Roch.

The Musée Zadkine occupies the house and garden studio of sculptor Ossip Zadkine in the 6th arrondissement, near the Luxembourg Gardens. It became a public museum in 1982 and shows around 300 of his sculptures together with drawings, photographs and tapestries, with more works displayed in the garden.

A rectangular square in Paris's 1st arrondissement, laid out from 1698 under Louis XIV with uniform arcaded facades designed by Jules Hardouin-Mansart. At its centre stands the Vendôme Column, cast from captured cannon and erected on Napoleon I's orders to commemorate the Battle of Austerlitz.

A public garden between the Louvre and Place de la Concorde in Paris's 1st arrondissement, laid out by Catherine de' Medici in 1564 as the grounds of the Tuileries Palace and opened to the public in 1667. Statues, fountains and two octagonal ponds line its formal, tree-bordered paths.

Place de la Concorde is a public square between the Tuileries Garden and the Champs-Élysées, laid out by architect Ange-Jacques Gabriel in the 1770s. At its centre stands a 3,300-year-old Egyptian obelisk from Luxor, a gift from Egypt's ruler erected in 1836, flanked by two 19th-century fountains.

A Catholic parish church on Place de la Madeleine in Paris's 8th arrondissement, built in the form of a Greek temple and ringed by Corinthian columns. Planned under Louis XV, redesigned by Napoleon as a monument to his armies, and finished as a church only in 1842, it holds frescoes and sculptures by 19th-century French artists.

The Musée de la Libération de Paris – Musée du Général Leclerc – Musée Jean Moulin occupies former toll pavilions at Place Denfert-Rochereau, above the bunker that served as Colonel Rol-Tanguy's command post in August 1944. It moved to this address in 2019 and covers the liberation of Paris and the wartime Resistance.

A single-span steel arch bridge over the Seine in Paris, built between 1896 and 1900 and named for Tsar Alexander III of Russia, who had signed the Franco-Russian Alliance in 1892. Its Beaux-Arts design by Joseph Cassien-Bernard and Gaston Cousin carries Art Nouveau lamps and four gilt-bronze statues of Fames at the approaches.

A Beaux-Arts palace built for the 1900 World's Fair by architect Charles Girault, facing the Grand Palais across Avenue Winston-Churchill. It houses the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts, with collections spanning antiquity to the 20th century, including the Dutuit collection of medieval and Renaissance works and the Tuck collection of 18th-century furniture.

The Musée de la Vie Romantique occupies an 1830s townhouse in the 9th arrondissement that was once the Paris home of painter Ary Scheffer. It opened as a museum in 1982, with rooms on the first floor devoted to writer George Sand and, on the second, Romantic-era paintings, sculpture and furniture.

A cemetery opened in 1804 on the order of Napoleon Bonaparte, laid out by architect Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart across 44 hectares of landscaped, tree-lined paths in eastern Paris. More than a million people are buried here, including Frédéric Chopin, Honoré de Balzac, Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison, alongside a columbarium and crematorium added in 1894.

The Sacré-Cœur is a Roman Catholic basilica on the hill of Montmartre, built between 1875 and 1914 in a Romano-Byzantine style from travertine stone that whitens with rain. Its dome can be climbed for views over Paris, and the interior holds a large mosaic of Christ above the choir.

The Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris occupies the east wing of the Palais de Tokyo, built for the 1937 International Exhibition. Opened in 1961 and reopened in 2019 after renovation, it holds around 15,000 works of 20th- and 21st-century art, including paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Braque and Léger.