Now that we’ve done a bit of ground-work on Paris in the previous article, let’s get out there and start tickin’ some tourist destinations off the ol’ list, eh?

Paris has nearly endless things to do and see, and while I haven’t done or seen all of it. I bit off a good chunk for us to chew on together. That was an interesting metaphor that came out of nowhere as I was typing, and I am sticking with it. 😂

In this article we’re going to cover…

The Eiffel Tower

You know it. You love it. Or maybe not. But you definitely know it.

The Eiffel Tower is one of the most recognizable landmarks in the world. For some reason I thought that it had some sort of utility function at one point—perhaps a broadcast tower for radio waves or something—but no, it’s always been purely decorative. This sort of blows my mind. If I imagine a world where the Eiffel Tower is not so widely recognizable, I would not necessarily gravitate toward its design, much less think that a city as dense and beautiful as frickin’ Paris would be enhanced even one iota by its addition.

Like, “you know what would really be the crowning jewel on one of the most beautiful, historic cities in the world? If we stuck a 81-storey-high pile of exposed metal beams in middle of it! And the best part? It won’t match the aesthetics of the city around it, even a little bit. Genius!” 💡

You know what I mean?

But, somehow, it works. I just can’t decide if that is my objective opinion, or something that I have been brainwashed into believing. Whatever. This is pretty low on my list of things to deconstruct and unlearn. I’ll just enjoy it. And that’s pretty easy to do when you see it twinkling off in the distance on a summer night from the banks of the Seine. It feels like you’re in a Disney movie.

And when I say twinkle, I mean…

Named for the engineer who designed it, Gustave Eiffel, it was built for the 1889 World's Fair as a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. The World’s Fair is so strange. Remember, we went to one of them on this blog in Milan in 2015! Anyway, from the time of its completion to 1930, the Eiffel Tower was actually the tallest structure in the world. It was surpassed by the The Chrysler Building in NYC in 1930, which was then surpassed by the Empire State Building just 1 year later.

So what does the Eiffel Tower look like, all these year later? Well, if you read the previous article, then you know I was living and working in Paris for a time. During this time, I had maybe the best office view known to man…

So I saw the Eiffel Tower at least 5 days per week while I lived in Paris, but usually all 7. It’s extremely tall relative to the rest of Paris, so it’s pretty typical that you’d catch a glimpse of it from some far-off part of the city. I will admit that I was pretty ambivalent toward the above office views after just a few weeks… but one thing that never got old was seeing the Eiffel Tower emerge from behind a Parisian building front to be framed before me on my walk into work on a crisp morning. It was hard to forget how lucky I was to be seeing this view in my daily commute, because in nearly every commute, there was some tourist near me who was clearly seeing this view for the first time. Sometimes it was annoying because they would just stop in their tracks right in front of me, forcing evasive maneuvers to avoid bumping into them, but it was always a nice reminder to appreciate my surroundings.

After the Olympics ended, I brought my nice big camera over to snap a few photos. I never went to the top, but I do have the Olympic rings for you here. You’ll see a lot more of this thing a couple of articles from now when we go to the Olympics. 🤫

Notre-Dame Cathedral

Next up, we have one of the best-preserved examples of French Gothic architecture: Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris.

Or, it WAS one of the most well-preserved examples of French Gothic architecture… until April 15 2019, when it caught fire. In case you were living under a rock during that time, here’s the fire’s Wikipedia page. It was really an epic (and tragic) fire. We’re talking giant flames shooting out of the roof! Incredibly, nobody was killed, and many of the key pieces of this church survived with minimal damage, but it was closed for restoration for years afterward. Macron actually set a 5-year deadline to restore the church, which elapsed like 2 months after these photos were taken! It was reopened on December 7, 2024 in a ceremony whose headline somehow managed to be a tasteless series of Trump PR stunts based on a picture of him sitting next to Jill Biden. What a classy guy.

Anyway, I only narrowly missed the re-opening ceremony, and was therefore relegated to exterior of the church. At least I got to see the construction crews wrapping up work. History will remember these as, perhaps, the more interesting pictures. 💅🏻

A bit of history on Notre-Dame for you:

Construction of this church, in its original form, took place between 1163 and 1260
It sustained some damage during the French revolution (1789-1799)
It fell into a dire state of disrepair in the years following the Napoleonic Wars (1815 onwards), so much so that its demolition was apparently once under consideration
It was during this period of disrepair when Victor Hugo’s famous novel, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame was inspired and written

Well, it’s a good thing they didn’t demolish this place because… fast forward 200 years, and THIS—not the Eiffel Tower, or the Louvre—but the once-decrepit home of Quasimodo, is the most visited monument in Paris. Indeed, it gets about 12 million visitors annually, which is more than the population of Belgium. It’s also more than the population of Denmark and Norway put together! It’s ALSO more than—just kidding, here are the pictures:

La Madeleine & Place Vendôme

Now for a couple of dark-horse inclusions, which I am combining because they are located quite close to each other.

I’ll start with La Madeleine. The longer, more formal name for this place is The Church of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine. This is—you guessed it—a church. But it doesn’t look like most other churches you will see in Paris, or in the rest of France for that matter. Being encased in Corinthian columns on all 4 sides, it looks more like a palace from ancient Greece or ancient Rome. It’s decidedly out of place in the Parisian streetscape, but it’s a well-known landmark. It’s got a metro stop named after it and everything! That’s how you know you’ve made it as a landmark in Paris—having your name on a metro stop.

Anyway, while the outside might be puzzling at first, its function as a church becomes clear the moment you walk through it’s giant doors. Construction on this thing originally started in 1764 on the orders of King Louis XV, but the project was put on pause for a while while France had its government overthrown, went through a pretty intense decapitation phase, and eventually entered the Napoleonic era. It’s was actually Napoleon’s idea to add the Greek/Roman theme to this, but he would not live long enough to see its eventual completion in 1842. I should note that 1842 is actually pretty recent in the grand scheme of Paris. Here are some pictures of this hot new piece of real estate…

Next, Place Vendôme is a beautiful and historic square in central Paris… actually, you know what? EVERYTHING in this whole article is going to be historic, so I am going to eliminate that adjective from my vocabulary. Anyway, Place Vendôme previously went by other names, such as Place Louis-le-Grand and Place Internationale, and it is the start of a famous shopping street called Rue de la Paix.

The iconic green spire at its center is known as the Vendôme Column. It was erected by Napoleon to commemorate the Battle of Austerlitz, and it has a statue of the man himself at the top of it! As such, it became a symbol of Parisian power and governance, which—when new powers arose—made it a target. Apparently a bunch of dudes on horses tied ropes to it and tried to topple it once, but it wouldn’t budge. Eventually, in the throes of the Franco-Prussian War, a revolutionary government took control of Paris for about 2 months in 1871 and demolished the column. However, it had been rebuilt by 1874 when some semblance of Parisian normalcy was restored. So there’s some of the history for you.

Today, Place Vendôme is one of those places that feels inaccessibly ornate. Lots of beautiful European cities have squares like this, where it’s hard to believe that much actual commerce could be happening anymore, but Place Vendôme seems to have been adopted as an unofficial symbol of French wealth. You’ll see it represented in the marketing materials of prominent French financial houses, such as Ardian, whose office is in this square. So it’s place in the lore of the great city is alive and well.

Jardin du Palais Royal

Jardin du Palais Royal (Royal Palace Garden) is a garden on the grounds of—you guessed it!—Palais-Royal. I supposed that Palais-Royal could have been its own entry in this article… honestly there are lots of attractions in Paris that I am leaving on the table here. To cover them all would take me years.

Palais-Royal—including its gardens—were designed in 1629 and finished in 1639. Interestingly, it was actually commissioned and constructed by an uber-wealthy French statesman named Cardinal Richelieu, and was originally named Palais-Cardinal. He held a series of escalating government positions from the early 1600s to his death in 1642. At that point, control over this lavish estate passed to the crown, and it was renamed from Palais-Cardinal to Palais-Royal.

Anyway, the garden, like the palace, is free to enter. And you can pretty easily visit one without visiting the other, if you so choose. For instance, to the see the garden it’s just a simple matter of walking in off the street. It’s a beautiful little place to wander through. There’s a nice fountain, lots of benches, and no shortage of nice restaurants and cafes in the surrounding arcade that provide nice views into this garden. It’s a very low-effort/high-reward item to put on your Paris itinerary.

Sainte-Chapelle

So, Paris has lots of cool stuff that was built without much rationale for its decadence—this mostly happened at the height of France’s colonial wealth—but Sainte-Chapelle is different. It pre-dates France being a ultra-wealthy country, and it was built with a very special purpose. Its original purpose was to house pieces of the actual crown of thorns that was worn by Jesus during his crucifixion, as well as a piece of the actual cross the he was crucified on. Supposedly, these were the genuine artifacts! I could easily get sucked down a history rabbit hole following all of the pieces of authentic Christ paraphernalia… it’s so fascinating how these little items traveled through time. These two pieces were taken during the siege of Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 1204, and came to France in 1237 when the then-Emperor of Constantinople visited on a fund-raising mission to finance the continued defense of his territories against the invading Bulgarians. At one point, these relics were being used as collateral to ensure payment, but King Louis IX took an interest in them a paid through the nose to acquire them. He went on a bit of a spending spree after this to collect as many of the “holy relics” as possible. I spent more time than I probably should have researching all of these… but this article was already getting long, so I’ll spare you the details.…

Sainte-Chapelle is located on the island in the middle of the Seine, Île de la Cité. If you recall, we spent some time talking about this island in the previous article. It is—along with Notre-Dame, which is literally next-door to this—the oldest thing in this article, having been completed in the year 1248. It’s a castle-slash-church that was built for the sole use of the French royals, and it is ridiculously ornate. I have actually never seen anything quite like it. It’s quite a tall structure, so it’s a bit unexpected how low the ceilings are when you first walk in. It’s only when you walk up one of the two unassuming Mideival spiral staircases that sit on either side of the front door that you enter into the MAIN room.

This room is pretty unreal. Its ceilings are at least 5 or 6 stories high, and the ENTIRE height of the room is covered in non-stop stained glass. It is far and away the most stained glass I’ve ever seen in such a small space. The entire room is lit up with the colors of the glass as the light hits the windows. I can be a bit of a grump when going through the hassle of seeing major tourist attractions—buying tickets, waiting in lines, ugh—but Sainte-Chapelle… as soon as I walked into this room I thought to myself “yep, this is well worth the trouble. I would have waited in MUCH longer lines to see this place.”

This is the definitely the main draw of Sainte-Chapelle, but that’s not all that you’ll find here. You’ll also find the jail cell where Marie Antoinette was held before her execution. We definitely want to pay that a visit, but in order to get there, we ended up passing through an art exhibition that really just incredible! This is some of the coolest art I’ve ever seen, in Paris, throughout the universe. The exhibit was called Révélation! Art Contemporain du Bénin. This might not require much translation, but this is contemporary art from the West African nation of Benin.

You’ll find the photos this exhibition below. HOW COOL IS THIS?

Marie Antoinette’s Jail Cell

Ok that was a nice break from French history. Now it’s on to Marie Antoinette’s jail cell. I’m sure you’ve all been introduced to the character by our mutual acquaintance, Kirsten Dunst, so I’ll save the history lesson for when I eventually visit Versailles

Before she was executed in the French Revolution, she was held in this cell. It has now been reupholstered as a sort of shrine to her, featuring her likeness, an “MA” (her initials) insignia on stained glass windows, and striking wallpaper that is patterned after her tears. She apparently did some crying in this room… understandably so.

The courtyard outside this room features a series of plaques telling the life stories of innocents who were executed in the “The Reign of Terror” that would follow the French Revolution and Marie Antoinette’s death. It’s a really insane episode in history. I love do articles about history… but I think I’d be biting of more than we can chew here. And I’m back to the chewing metaphor again!

Galeries Lafayette

This one I’m recommending not so much for the destination itself, but for the views over Paris that you can get from its roof. Galeries Lafayette is a department store. It’s so big that it basically feels like a mall. Think Harrods in London or Bloomingdale’s in NYC. There is more than 1 location for Galeries Lafayette, but this location on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement is the flagship.

I seriously doubt I will ever include things like Galeries Lafayette or Harrods in an article based on its own merits… (we’re just here for the views from the roof)… but while we’re here, it’s worth admiring the building itself. Check this out. And yes, you can walk out onto the viewing platform there.

Ok, but we’re not here for the big dumb store. We are here for the view from the ROOF.

Once you get to the top of the building, you’ll find panoramic views over the rooftops of Paris. There’s also a lovely view of Basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre. We’ll cover this church next. It’s very much an A-list tourist attraction; everybody goes there when they come to Paris, and because it sits on top of a hill, that is most often the vantage point from which you’ll see photos of Paris from above. However, to be honest, I think I prefer the views from Galeries Lafayette. And I wouldn’t have known to come up here if a friend had not guided me here. So, don’t sleep on it!

Basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre

To me, the most striking thing you can see from the top of Galeries Lafayette is the church known as Basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre. Montmartre is a particular area of Paris, and the translation here is “Sacred Heart of Montmartre.”

Incredibly, this church is one of the younger things in this city! It was proposed in 1870, and it was not completed until 1914. It’s formal consecration, however, was delayed until 1919 due to a little-known event called World War I. Incredibly, it is actually the 2nd most popular tourist destination in Paris after the Eiffel Tower. It was indeed beautiful, and its elevated position provided a stunning panoramic view over Paris… but this is where I had my most unpleasant tourist experience… maybe ever!

A friend and I were walking up the steps toward the Basilica, when a group of men approached us and offered us little bracelets. This was not my first rodeo. The usual move here is for them to throw an unsolicited product at you and then demand payment. And this bracelet scam specifically is one that I’ve heard of being used across continents; it’s not a new move. It’s annoying, but it’s hard to get too bothered by it when you consider the socio-economic disparity at play. It’s a bummer, but I’ve been all over the world and I have politely declined more of these little trinkets than I can even remember. So I just kept moving and said “no thank you.”

But just then, one of them grabbed my arm HARD, pulled me toward him, and tried to force the bracelet around my wrist. “It’s our culture!” he insisted. I was really surprised at how forcefully he grabbed me; I was pulled off balance for a minute there! I’ve never had this happen to me before, much less in broad daylight. I quickly regained my footing and threw my weight behind a hard shove to dislodge his hands from my arm, and then kept moving.

I’m not even going to lie, it rattled me a little bit! The only other time that I had been grabbed like that was in Varanasi, in India… and it was not nearly as hard this. And, listen: I am a big guy. I’m 6-4. I’m a former NCAA D1 athlete. And I go to the gym a lot. I am in a pretty good position when it comes to defending myself in situations like this. If I was much smaller, if I wasn’t as well-traveled, if I were a woman, if I’d had my family with me, this could have been pretty scary! So… I don’t know what the take-away is here. You should still visit Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre, but keep your wits about you. This was an isolated incident, but Paris is a big city and sometimes things can happen. 😂

Anyway, here are a few pictures that progress from seeing the Basilica from blocks away, to eventually climbing the hill, and seeing the view out over the Parisian rooftops. I didn’t go into the church this time around, but odds are good that I’ll be back.

And I should remind you now that Montmartre is not just the church. It’s a whole neighborhood. On the top of this hill, there is a charming little arts district that is a tourist draw in its own rite. It’s very worth walking around up here, as there are beautiful, cobblestone streets, idyllic little cafes, and a whole plaza (Place du Tertre) that is entirely devoted to the sale of art! It’s mostly paintings of Paris, but some of it is really good! It would be a great place to find a souvenir.

Oh yeah, and while we were up here, we walked into a little park and stumbled upon an old man rounding 2nd base with a woman half his age on a park bench. Oh Paris. The city of love. 🙃

This little visit to Montmartre was very eventful!

The Tuileries Garden

The Jardin des Tuileries is a giant public park in the 1st arrondissement that functions sort of as the back yard (or maybe the front yard? idk) for the Louvre Museum. So it has got the Louvre on one side and the famous plaza known as Place de la Concorde on the other—the is truly at the epicenter of Paris! And as such, it plays a very important role in French celebrations of all kinds, including the 2024 Summer Olympics, where it was the site for the Olympic cauldron. During the summer of 2024, this entire park was basically completely fenced off and covered in temporary structures. It wasn’t until a couple of months after the Olympics that all of that stuff had been cleared. Cue my visit in autumn 2024.

Its construction was ordered by Catherine de' Medici in 1564, who was Queen of France at the time—AND, a member of the famous House of Medici (yes, THOSE Medicis). This was part of a giant relocation after the untimely death of her husband, Henry II. She left a palace on the east side of Paris (Hôtel des Tournelles) to build a new palace here (Palais des Tuileries). Neither of these structures still stand today, the latter of which was burned by the Paris Commune in 1871. Remember them? That was the same short-lived revolutionary government that demolished (temporarily) the Vendôme Column, as discussed previously.

Anyway, today it’s just a beautiful park in the middle of Paris which sits on such insane real estate that it is probably visited—either knowingly or unknowingly—by at least 70% of tourists who come through Paris. And yes, in the first shot in this gallery you will see the famous Arc de Triomphe, just down the street from Place de la Concorde, which is in the foreground. This view can be seen from the western gates of Jardin des Tuileries.

The Louvre Museum

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for… the LEGENDARY Louvre Museum.

Similar to the way I treated my series in London, where I broke out the British Museum into a free-standing article from the rest of my “museum-ing” coverage, I think the Louvre deserves its own space. That is coming up next. But for now, here’s a teaser of what is to come. Stay tuned, mes belles chéries.

For track of the day, I’m going end with one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies: Ratatouille.

The song for this will be the track of the day, but in order to fully appreciate it, it’s best to watch the scene itself. COVID was not fun for me; this scene helped get me through the pandemic. If pandemic-Peter knew that post-pandemic-Peter would be living in Paris… (buffering; thinking of a way to end this sentence involving the letter ‘P’)… he would be pleased. 🤌

Set VPNs to UK for best results, and enjoy. ✨