In the heart of Paris, the castle of King François 1er (1494-1547) has become the most visited art museum in the world and the most visited cultural site in France.
The works on display cover a wide temporal and geographical area, from Antiquity to 1848, and from Western Europe to Iran, via Greece, Egypt and the Middle East. From Antiquity to 1848, the museum's works are varied in nature: paintings, sculptures, drawings, ceramics, archaeological objects, art artefacts in various materials, etc.
Among the most famous pieces are the Venus de Milo, the Victory of Samothrace, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Eugène Delacroix's Liberty Guiding the People. Since 1989, the glass pyramid by architect Pei has marked the entrance for visitors.
The Musée du Louvre has two off-site branches: Le Louvre-Lens (northern France) and Le Louvre Abou Dhabi.
Located 22 km from Paris, the Versailles Palace was originally a hunting lodge for King Louis XIII (1601-1643). For his successor, his son, King Louis XIV (1638-1715), or Sun King, it became a place for entertainment and, above all, for the exercise of the king's power surround by his royal court.
The castle was enlarged by the architects Le Vau and Hardouin-Mansart, the gardens were designed by the gardener Le Nôtre, and the living quarters were decorated by the painter Le Brun. The castle is famous for its Hall of Mirrors, the setting for prestigious receptions. Les Grandes Eaux, Molière's comedies and Lully's music accompanied the festivities held at Versailles. In addition to the gardens, the estate has been enriched by the Parc, including the Grand Canal, the Orangery, the Trianon Estate with the Grand Trianon, Small Trianon and the Hameau de la Reine.
Within the castle, you can visit the Grands Appartements of King Louis XIV. Versailles has inspired a number of other palaces abroad, including : Schönbrunn Palace in Austria, Esterházy Palace in Hungary, Wilanów Palace in Poland, Granja Palace in Spain, Peterhof Palace and Drottningholm Palace in Russia. In the 19th century, Versailles became a museum.
Latin Quarter
So called because it was the district of students and intellectuals in the days when writing was in Latin. It's located near the center of Paris on the left bank of the Seine. Here you'll find the buildings of many former universities and schools (some of which have since moved outside Paris), as well as numerous bookshops. A few publishers still remain.
The district is criss-crossed by two major thoroughfares: rue Saint-Jacques, which was the north-south route through Lutetia in the time of the Romans and their successors the Gallo-Romans, and boulevard Saint-Germain, which runs east-west. Numerous other streets, both wide and narrow, complete the layout.
Between the Cluny Museum or Middle Ages Museum (whose ancient Gallo-Roman walls can still be seen) and the small Curie Museum (featuring a reconstruction of Marie Curie's laboratory), between the Sorbonne and the Ocean House in Paris (formerly the Oceanographic Institute), a scale model replica of the Prince's Palace in Monaco, between the Ecole Normale Supérieure on rue d'Ulm and the School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry on rue Vauquelin, between the Lutetia arenas and the Luxembourg Palace (upper house of Parliament where senators sit) in the Luxembourg Gardens, you'll find a wealth of varied treasures: remnants of the ancient Philippe II Auguste wall (1165-1223) or a copy of the metre-standard on rue de Vaugirard, the Pantheon "To great men, the grateful fatherland" or the oldest tree in Paris (which is not the most beautiful), a robinia or false acacia, planted 424 years ago in the Square Viviani, next to Notre-Dame Cathedral and, at the start of Rue Henri-Barbusse, the Arcueil water manhole, which supplied Parisians with drinking water in the early 17th century, and the Médicis fountain in the Luxembourg Gardens.