Explore Saint-Denis

The Basilica of Saint-Denis, a former abbey church north of Paris and a cathedral since 1966, has a choir completed in 1144 under Abbot Suger that marks the beginning of Gothic architecture. Its royal necropolis holds more than 70 tomb effigies and monuments of French kings and queens, from Dagobert to Louis XVIII, and its north tower and spire are being rebuilt.

The Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie is a science museum in the Parc de la Villette in northeastern Paris, opened in 1986 in a converted former cattle-market building. Its permanent exhibits cover space, the human body, technology and the environment, and the complex includes a planetarium, a submarine and the nearby geodesic Géode cinema.

A museum in a group of 17th-century houses on Montmartre, including the Maison du Bel Air, where the actor Rosimond lived from 1680. Renoir painted here in 1876, and Suzanne Valadon and her son Maurice Utrillo later lived and worked on the site. Opened in 1960, it shows paintings, photographs and posters on the district's history, in a garden replanted after Renoir's paintings.

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.

Dalí Paris, formerly Espace Dalí, is a museum near Place du Tertre in Montmartre devoted to Salvador Dalí. Opened in 1991, it displays around 300 sculptures, engravings and lithographs based on Dalí's surrealist work, curated from the Dalí Universe collection.

The Moulin Rouge is a cabaret in the Pigalle district, opened in 1889 and marked by the red windmill on its facade. It is linked to the origins of the modern can-can dance and stages a nightly revue; the original building burned down in 1915 and reopened after reconstruction in 1925.

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.

The Cité de l'Économie, known as Citéco, is a museum about economics housed in the Hôtel Gaillard, a neo-Gothic mansion built for banker Émile Gaillard, designed by architect Jules Février. It opened to the public in June 2019, with interactive exhibits on economic concepts and history.

Musée Cernuschi is an Asian art museum on Avenue Vélasquez, near Parc Monceau, founded in 1898 by banker and collector Henri Cernuschi in his former mansion. Its roughly 15,000-object collection, mostly Chinese and Japanese, includes an 18th-century bronze Buddha from Meguro and archaic Chinese bronzes.

A wax museum on the Grands Boulevards, founded in 1882 by journalist Arthur Meyer and named after caricaturist Alfred Grévin, its first artistic director. It displays around 450 wax figures of historical and contemporary personalities, and includes the Palais des Mirages, a mirrored hall built for the 1900 World's Fair.

The Chapelle expiatoire is a Neoclassical chapel in the 8th arrondissement, built in 1816-1826 on the site of the former Madeleine Cemetery, where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were buried after their executions. Designed by Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine, it stands in a walled garden, Square Louis XVI.

An Art Deco cinema on the Grands Boulevards, opened in December 1932 by architects Auguste Bluysen and John Eberson in a style inspired by New York's Radio City Music Hall. Its facade and main hall, seating over 2,700, were listed as a historic monument in 1981. A guided tour, Rex Studios, leads visitors behind the screen and through the technical spaces.

The Palais Garnier is an opera house on Place de l'Opéra in central Paris, built between 1861 and 1875 to a design by Charles Garnier for Napoleon III. Its auditorium seats about 1,979 people beneath a painted ceiling by Marc Chagall. It was the Paris Opera's main stage until 1989 and is now used mainly for ballet.

The Musée Jacquemart-André occupies a mansion built in 1869-1875 for banker Édouard André, on Boulevard Haussmann. He and his wife, painter Nélie Jacquemart, filled it with Italian Renaissance and 18th-century French art, which she bequeathed to the Institut de France. It opened as a museum in 1913 and keeps its original furnished rooms.

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 des Arts et Métiers is a science and technology museum in the 3rd arrondissement, founded in 1794 and partly housed in the former priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs. Its collection includes Foucault's pendulum, early aircraft by Louis Blériot and Clément Ader, and Blaise Pascal's calculating machine.

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.

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.

A neoclassical building on Place de la Concorde designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel and built between 1757 and 1774, first as the royal furniture repository and, from 1789, as the French Navy's headquarters until 2015. Restored and reopened in 2021, it shows the furnished 18th-century apartments of its royal keeper, gilded naval salons and works from the Al Thani collection.

An exhibition space at Place de la Concorde built in 1861 as a court for jeu de paume, a precursor of tennis, and converted into a gallery in 1909. Renovated in 1991, it is now France's national centre for photography and media arts, mounting changing exhibitions of contemporary photographers and video artists.