Paris

Eiffel Tower

It's hard to imagine just how avant-garde this tower of cast-iron girders was when it was built in 1889 to celebrate the World's Fair and the centenary of the French Revolution. The great majority of Parisians loathed it, and the press brayed on about how it was an industrial pimple on the face of the city. But a century and then some later, the elegant slope-legged tower has become the quintessential symbol of the City of Light.

Its latest attraction is a mantle of 20,000 flashbulbs, originally installed to celebrate the new millennium, that glitter for ten minutes every hour on the hour after dark. So, do you need to actually visit it? Well, yes, and not just if you happen to be proposing publicly to Katie Holmes. It's a fascinating example of early industrial architecture, and the panoramas really are swell.

Bastille and Eastern Paris

Over the last decade, hip Paris has been leaning farther and farther east, as mega-rehab projects transform what was a dowdy part of town. The Place de la Bastille, where the dreaded prison once stood and the 1789 Revolution began, is now home to the clunky modern Opéra Bastille. But far more indicative of the neighborhood's dynamism are the boîtes, bistros, and galleries that animate the web of streets radiating northeast. Behind the opera house on Avenue Daumesnil, the Viaduc des Arts—a restored 1850s railway
viaduct—curves east for almost a mile, flanked by wide, tree-lined sidewalks. Under its arcades are dozens of craft shops and restaurants; on top, the Promenade Plantée, a linear park with roof-level views, spreads its trees, benches, and reflecting pools along a pedestrian-only path. Southeast of the Viaduc on the Seine at Bercy, 35-acre Bercy Park wraps itself around a handful of 200-year-old wine warehouses and equally ancient sycamores. The park links via a footbridge to the National Library on the Left Bank at Tolbiac—as a billion-dollar building, it's just too mediocre to be true.

Château de Versailles

People visit Versailles in the hopes of being absolutely dazzled by opulence. They're rarely disappointed. The palace is glorious, but unless you already have a good grasp of French history, it's a good idea to bone up, since the endless references to seemingly out-of-sequence kings and their queens, mistresses, and children can dull the magic if you can't keep up.

Musée du Louvre

The world's most famous museum, originally a royal residence, usually elicits one of two strong reactions from those who've never been before—exhilaration or dread. The most reasonable response may be a mixture of the two, since it's a lot of work to see even a small part of it. What's needed is some strategy. Download a floor plan from the website before you show up, and arrive with a list of what you absolutely can't miss (Leonardo's masterpieces, Veronese's like-it-or-loathe-it Wedding at Cana, Caravaggio's superb Fortune Teller, Michelangelo's Dying Slave sculpture, etc., etc.).

Île de la Cité and Île St-Louis

Midstream in the Seine, the Île de la Cité is Paris's birthplace, where a Celtic tribe known as the Parisii built their wattle settlement around 250 BC. The island is bound to the mainland by four bridges, including the city's oldest—the now mislabeled Pont Neuf ("new bridge"). Developed in the 17th century as an exclusive enclave, half-mile-long Île St-Louis is lined by the mossy town houses of the old-money elite (the Rothschilds lord over the upstream eastern side).

Plaques identify dozens of the artists, writers, and bigwig politicians who've lived here, from Charles Baudelaire to Georges Pompidou and Ernest Hemingway. Some of the richest, most irresistible ice cream anywhere comes from Berthillon.

Notre-Dame de Paris

Faith may have helped Bishop Maurice de Sully get Notre-Dame underway in 1160, but ceaseless toil is what finished the job by the end of the century. Despite severe damage during the Revolution of 1789 and clumsy 19th-century restorations and additions (including the faux-medieval spire, much of the statuary, and the stained glass), this great Gothic masterpiece ranks among the most moving and important Christian sites in the world. After a ten-year, largely successful restoration (finished in 2002), the blond-stone facade is again free of grime. In high season, you'll have plenty of time to admire the exterior as you wait to get in. And wait again, if you want to gaze down on Paris with a 230-foot-high gargoyle's-eye view: The 400-step climb up the north tower, passing the cathedral's giant bells and Gallery of Chimeras, is worth the effort—and the long lines. Your
best chance to beat the queue is to avoid Sundays and holidays, and arrive before opening hours or at the end of the day. On weekends in July and August, the towers are open until 11 p.m., so do the interior first then get in line for the climb. Notre-Dame's buttressed back is best seen from the adjoining Pont de l'Archevêché or the Quai d'Orléans midstream on the Île Saint Louis.

Luxembourg Gardens

On that inevitable day when you don't want to go to a museum and you're sick of shopping, come to the Luxembourg Gardens. Quite simply, there's no better people-watching in Paris, and it changes all day long. In the morning, you'll see joggers, early tennis players, dog-walkers, and students; around 11 a.m. or so, a more mature crowd arrives—elegantly dressed women out for a stroll, men playing chess or checkers in the northwest corner—along with nannies pushing baby carriages and scolding toddlers. At noon, secretaries from the surrounding art galleries and publishing houses come to picnic, followed by academics carrying heavy books and heading for the park's quietest corners. By afternoon, all of Paris is present, and the genius of this park becomes undeniable—you can do everything from riding a merry-go-round or a pony to learning how to keep bees (a beekeeping school produces honey for the French Sénat, which occupies the palace on the park's northern flank). Just south of the park on the Rue d'Assas is in one our favorite little museums: Musée
Zadkine, the former home and studio of Russian sculptor Ossip Zadkine. Zadkine ran with the wild, absinthe-swilling Montparnasse crowd of the early 20th century; as interesting as his stylized figures in bronze and marble is the studio itself, which rambles around a leafy garden court and gives a glimpse of what the artists' colony of the Left Bank—made famous by Picasso, Modigliani, et al—was like (100 bis Rue d'Assas; 33-1-55-42-77-20;

Arc de Triomphe

The Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile {ahrk duh tree-ohmf' duh lay-twahl'}, the world's largest triumphal arch, forms the backdrop for an impressive urban ensemble in Paris. The monument surmounts the hill of Chaillot at the center of a star-shaped configuration of 12 radiating avenues. It is the climax of a vista seen the length of the Champs Elysées from the smaller Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in the Tuileries gardens, and from the Obélisque de Luxor in the place de la Concorde.

Pompidou Centere

The Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou is a giant, futuristic arts center located in the Beaubourg {boh-boor'} district of Paris. President Pompidou conceived (1969) the idea for Beaubourg, as the center is also known, to bring art and culture to the "man in the street". It was completed in 1978 by the architects Renzo Piano of Italy and Richard Rogers of England, and by the engineering firm of Ove Arup and Partners of England. The structure forms a huge transparent box whose exposed frame of tubular steel columns carries trusses spanning the width of the building. External mechanical systems -- elevators painted red; escalators in clear plastic tunnels; and giant tubes for air (painted blue), water (green), and electricity (yellow) -- all are conspicuously placed outside the main columns.