Major monuments in Paris

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Monuments and sights to see in Paris La Défense is a major business district to the west of Paris which holds many of the Paris urban area’s tallest high-rises, housing numerous public artworks and the Grande Arche. The Parc des Princes is a stadium located in the 16th district of Paris, France, currently the home of soccer team Paris Saint-Germain, with a seating capacity of 48,712. The Stade Roland Garros is the location for The French Open, a major tennis tournament held over two weeks between late May and early June. It is the premier clay court tennis tournament in the world. The Eiffel Tower is an iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris. Built in 1889, it has become both a global icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world. The tower is the tallest building in Paris and the most-visited paid monument in the world. Trocadéro is the site of the Palais de Chaillot, which houses a number of museums: a naval museum, an ethnology museum, an architecture museum, a museum of French monuments, and a theater below the esplanade. The Arc de Triomphe honors those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars, with the names of all French victories and generals inscribed on its inner and outer surfaces. Beneath its vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I. Parc Monceau is unusual in France due to its English style: its informal layout, curved walkways and randomly-placed statues distinguish it from the more traditional, French-style garden. It also includes a collection of scaled-down architectural features, or follies - including an Egyptian pyramid, a Chinese fort, a Dutch windmill, and Corinthian pillars. Place de la Concorde is one of the major public squares in Paris, decorated with statues and fountains, the area was named Place Louis XV to honor the king at that time. The center of the Place is occupied by a giant Egyptian obelisk decorated with hieroglyphics exalting the reign of the pharaoh Ramses II. The Parc des Expositions is the foremost French exhibition center and the fourth in Europe. This strategic Parisexpo venue hosts over 200 events every year attended by 6 million people coming from the four corners of the world, with a 220,00 sq. m. surface, 8 halls, 32 meeting rooms and 3 amphitheatres. The Bois de Boulogne is a park located along the western edge of the 16th district of Paris. The northern part is occupied by the Jardin d’Acclimatation, an amusement park with a ménagerie and other attractions, while numerous leisure and sports activities fill up the southern part on weekends. Gare Montparnasse is one of the six large terminus railway stations of Paris, located in the 14th district. It became famous for the derailment of the Granville-Paris Express steam train on 22 October 1895. The Champs-Elysées, a prestigious avenue in Paris, France with cinemas, cafés, luxury specialty shops and pruned horse-chestnut trees, is one of the most famous streets in the world. The Tour Montparnasse is an office skyscraper in the area of Montparnasse - it is the tallest skyscraper in France. Parc Montsouris, a public park in the 14th district, is a popular place for students from the adjacent Cité Universitaire. The main upper lawn was used once for a golf tournament. In the lower section of the park, an island in the middle of a tiny lake provides sanctuary to forty species of wild ducks, geese, herons, and other migratory birds. Some turtles imported from Florida, regularly sunbathe on the lake’s stony shores. The Musée Orsay, housed in the former Gare d’Orsay, an impressive Beaux-Arts railway station, holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915 (paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography). It is probably best known for its extensive collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces. Les Invalides is a complex in the 7th arrondissement containing museums and monuments -a ll relating to the military history of France - as well as a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans (the building’s original purpose). The buildings house the Musée de l’Armée, the military museum of the Army of France, the Musée des Plans-Reliefs, and the Musée d’Histoire Contemporaine, as well as the burial site for some of France’s war heroes, notably Napoleon Bonaparte. The Palais Garnier, known also as the Opéra de Paris or Opéra Garnier, is a 1,600-seat opera house, which was the primary home of the Paris opera from 1875 until 1989. Restoration was completed during 2007. The Moulin Rouge is a cabaret built in 1889 by Joseph Oller located in the red-light district of Pigalle in the 18th district, marked by the red windmill on its roof. It is best known as the spiritual birthplace of the modern form of the French Can-Can dance. Gare Saint-Lazare is the second busiest train station in Paris. It has been represented in a number of artworks by artists, especially during the Impressionist period. The Louvre Museum is one of the world’s largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. Located in the 1st district, nearly 35,000 objects from prehistory to the 19th century are exhibited there over an area of 60,600 square metres. The Jardin de Luxembourg is the second largest public park in Paris located in the 6th district. The park is the garden of the French Senate, which is itself housed in the Luxembourg Palace. The garden contains just over a hundred statues, monuments, and fountains, scattered throughout the grounds. Sacré-Cœur Basilica is a Roman Catholic church and minor basilica, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. A popular landmark, the basilica is located at the summit of the butte Montmartre, the highest point in the city. Many artists had studios or worked around the community of Montmartre such as Salvador Dalí, Amedeo Modigliani, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh. Montmartre has also been also the setting for several hit films, including Amélie and La Vie en Rose. The Pompidou Center is a complex in the Beaubourg area of the 4th district of Paris. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture. It houses a vast public library, the Musée National d’Art Moderne, which is the largest museum for modern art in Europe, and IRCAM, a centre for music and acoustic research. Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in Europe, handling trains to Northern France, as well as to various international destinations such as Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The station complex was designed by French architect Jacques Hittorff and built between 1861 and 1864. Notre Dame de Paris (Notre Dame Cathedral) is widely considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture in France and in Europe, and the naturalism of its sculptures and stained glass are in contrast with earlier Romanesque architecture. The Pantheon functions as a secular mausoleum containing the remains of distinguished French citizens. It is an early example of neoclassicism, with a façade modeled on the Pantheon in Rome. Located in the 5th district, it is one of the most important architectural achievements of its time and the first great neoclassical monument. The Parc de la Villette park houses public facilities devoted to science and music, playgrounds for children, and thirty-five architectural follies. The park is the home to Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, La Géode (an I-MAX theater), the Cité de la Musique music musuem and amphitheater, as well as four concert venues, including Le Zénith and Le Trabendo. The Gare de l’Est in the 10th district, not far from the Gare du Nord, is part of the north-south axis of Paris created by Baron Haussmann. It is one of the largest and the oldest railway stations in Paris. The Place de la République is a square in Paris, located on the border between the 3rd, 10th and 11th districts. It is named after the French Republic, represented by a statue created by the Morice brothers in 1879, with an academic Marianne wearing a Phrygian cap, lifting one arm lift towards the sky with her breasts covered. The Bastille was a fortress-prison in Paris—best known today because of the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, which along with the Tennis Court Oath, is considered the beginning of the French Revolution. Today, it is home to the Opéra Bastille and the Colonne de Juillet at its center, which commemorates the events of the July Revolution of 1830. The large ditch behind the fort has been transformed into a marina for pleasure boats, the Bassin de l’Arsenal. Gare d’Austerlitz, in the 13th district of Paris, is the start of the Paris–Bordeaux railway, to which the line to Toulouse is connected. A large refurbishment project is currently underway, including four new platforms are being constructed and all the existing tracks are being refurbished, in order to handle new TGV services. The station takes its name from the Czech town once known as Austerlitz (today Slavkov u Brna). Gare de Lyon is the northern terminus of the Paris–Marseille railway. It station was built for the 1900 World Expo. It is considered a classic example of the architecture of its time. Most notable is the large clock tower atop one corner of the station, similar in style to the clock tower of the United Kingdom Houses of Parliament. The station also houses the Le Train Bleu restaurant, which has served drinks and meals to travellers and other guests since 1901 in an ornately-decorated setting. François Mitterand National Library: after the move of the major collections from the rue de Richelieu, the National Library of France opened to the public on 20 December 1996. It contains more than ten million volumes. It is one of the largest and most modern libraries in the world, intended to cover all fields of knowledge, and designed to be accessible to all using the most modern data transfer technologies. Place des Vosges is the oldest planned square in Paris, located in the Marais district, and was the prototype of all the residential squares of European cities to come. It is home to an equestrian statue of Louis XIII erected in the center and the Vicotr Hugo House/Museum. The Parc de Bercy is a group of three connected gardens in the 12th district of Paris. With a combined area of some 14 hectares, it is one of the largest parks in the city. The area used to be an important location for wine warehouses, and some remains of the industry can still be seen in the park at Bercy Village. Also in the park are the The Fairground Art Museum and the POPB indoor sports and music arena. Père Lachaise Cemetery is the largest cemetery in the city of Paris, reputed to be the world’s most-visited cemetery, containing the graves of Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, Balzac, Jim Morrison, Maria Callas, Isadora Duncan, Delacroix, Gertrude Stein, Marcel Proust, Henri Salvador, Modigliani and Jean de la Fontaine, etc. Place de la Nation is a square on the border of the 11th and 12th districts. A throne was set up here on 26 July 1660 for the solemn entry of Louis XIV and Maria Theresa of Spain into Paris, arriving after their marriage. This gave the square its original name of Place du Trône. The central monument, The Triumph of the Republic, is a bronze group by sculptor Aimé-Jules Dalou, created in honor of the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. A personification of the Republic, looking towards place de la Bastille, thus creates a Republican axis still frequently used for popular demonstrations. The Château de Vincennes is a massive 14th and 17th century French royal castle near the edge of eastern of Paris. Its keep is the tallest medieval fortified structure of Europe. The complex also contains a Sainte-Chapelle and a musuem.
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