Hôtel Beauharnais in Paris

9 November 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Paris / Île-de-France Reading Time:  8 minutes

Inauguration of the German embassy residence, 1968 © Bundesarchiv - B 145 Bild - F026336-0020/Gathmann, Jens/cc-by-sa-3.0-de

Inauguration of the German embassy residence, 1968
© Bundesarchiv – B 145 Bild – F026336-0020/Gathmann, Jens/cc-by-sa-3.0-de

The Hôtel Beauharnais is a historic hôtel particulier, a type of large French townhouse, in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. It was designed by architect Germain Boffrand. Its construction was completed in 1714. By 1803, the structure was purchased by Eugène de Beauharnais, who had it rebuilt in an Empire style. It has been listed as an official historical monument since July 25, 1951. Today it serves as the official residence of the German Ambassador to France.   read more…

Bouquinistes de Paris

1 August 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Paris / Île-de-France, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  9 minutes

© flickr.com - Ninara/cc-by-2.0

© flickr.com – Ninara/cc-by-2.0

The Bouquinistes of Paris, France, are booksellers of used and antiquarian books who ply their trade along large sections of the banks of the Seine: on the right bank from the Pont Marie to the Quai du Louvre/Quai François Mitterrand, and on the left bank from the Quai de la Tournelle to Quai Voltaire. The Seine is thus described as ‘the only river in the world that runs between two bookshelves’.   read more…

Sciences Po in Paris

19 July 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Paris / Île-de-France, Universities, Colleges, Academies Reading Time:  5 minutes

Hôtel Brochet de Saint-Prest on rue des Saints-Pères © Celette/cc-by-sa-4.0

Hôtel Brochet de Saint-Prest on rue des Saints-Pères © Celette/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Paris Institute of Political Studies (French: Institut d’études politiques de Paris), also known as Sciences Po or Sciences Po Paris, is a public research university located in Paris, France, that holds the status of grande école and grand établissement. The institute has decentralized campuses in Dijon, Le Havre, Menton, Nancy, Poitiers and Reims, each with their own academic program focused on a geopolitical part of the world. Sciences Po historically specialized in political science and history, then it progressively started to expand to other social sciences such as economics, law and sociology.   read more…

Boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris

4 February 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Paris / Île-de-France Reading Time:  9 minutes

Café de Flore © Celette/cc-by-sa-4.0

Café de Flore © Celette/cc-by-sa-4.0

Boulevard Saint-Germain is a major street in Paris on the Rive Gauche of the Seine. It curves in a 3.5-kilometre (2.1 miles) arc from the Pont de Sully in the east (the bridge at the edge of Île Saint-Louis) to the Pont de la Concorde (the bridge to the Place de la Concorde) in the west and traverses the 5th, 6th and 7th arrondissements. At its midpoint, the boulevard is traversed by the north-south Boulevard Saint-Michel. The boulevard is most famous for crossing the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter from which it derives its name.   read more…

Rue du Bac in Paris

15 January 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Paris / Île-de-France Reading Time:  6 minutes

© flickr.com - Fred Romero/cc-by-2.0

© flickr.com – Fred Romero/cc-by-2.0

Rue du Bac is a street on the Rive Gauche, the left bank of the Seine in Paris (7th arrondissement). It is known for the apparitions of the Virgin Mary, which are said to have appeared here several times to the nun Catherine Labouré in 1830. Rue du Bac, like many other streets around Paris at the time, developed as a result of the settlement of religious communities.   read more…

Musée d’Orsay in Paris

5 December 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions, Paris / Île-de-France Reading Time:  14 minutes

© Daniel Vorndran/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Daniel Vorndran/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Musée d’Orsay (English: Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d’Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It houses the largest collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin, and van Gogh. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum’s opening in 1986. It is one of the largest art museums in Europe.   read more…

Les Invalides in Paris

14 March 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks, Paris / Île-de-France Reading Time:  13 minutes

Hôtel des Invalides, as seen from the Tour Montparnasse © Jens Peter Clausen/cc-by-sa-3.0

Hôtel des Invalides, as seen from the Tour Montparnasse © Jens Peter Clausen/cc-by-sa-3.0

Les Invalides, commonly known as Hôtel national des Invalides (The National Residence of the Invalids), or also as Hôtel des Invalides, is a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, containing museums and monuments, all 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 Dôme des Invalides, a large church with the tombs of some of France’s war heroes, most notably Napoleon Bonaparte.   read more…

The Eiffel Tower

1 July 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, House of the Month, Museums, Exhibitions, Paris / Île-de-France Reading Time:  10 minutes

© Tognopop

© Tognopop

The Eiffel Tower is an iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris. It was named after the engineer Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. Erected in 1889 as the entrance arch to the 1889 World’s Fair, it was initially criticized by some of France’s leading artists and intellectuals for its design, but has become both a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognisable structures in the world. The tower is the tallest structure in Paris and the most-visited paid monument in the world; 6.98 million people ascended it in 2011. The tower received its 250 millionth visitor in 2010. The tower has three levels for visitors, with restaurants on the first and second. The third level observatory’s upper platform is 276 m (906 ft) above the ground, the highest accessible to the public in the European Union. Tickets can be purchased to ascend by stairs or lift (elevator) to the first and second levels. The climb from ground level to the first level is over 300 steps, as is the walk from the first to the second level. Although there are stairs to the third and highest level, these are usually closed to the public and it is generally only accessible by lift.   read more…

Theme Week Paris – Arrondissement du Palais Bourbon (7th) and Arrondissement de l’Élysée (8th)

22 October 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks, Paris / Île-de-France, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  7 minutes

7th arrondissement - Palais Bourbon - Seat of the National Assembly © Webster

7th arrondissement – Palais Bourbon – Seat of the National Assembly © Webster


7th arrondissement – Arrondissement du Palais Bourbon
The 7th arrondissement includes some of Paris’s major tourist attractions, such as the Eiffel Tower and the Hôtel des Invalides (Napoléon’s resting place), and a concentration of such world famous museums as the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée du quai Branly.   read more…

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