Paris

Built by Gustave Eiffel for the 1889 World's Fair to commemorate the centennial of the French Revolution, the Eiffel Tower is now one of the world's most recognisable monuments as well as one of the most visited ones, attracting nearly seven million visitors every year. It towers over the city at 324 metres (1,063 feet) and weighs over 10,000 tons, making it both an imposing monument and an engineering marvel. Climb all the way to the top for a breathtaking view of the City of Light.

The Musée du Louvre, among the world's largest museums, houses a vast collection of masterpieces, including the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Caravaggio. Its iconic entrance is adorned by the 21-metre-high glass Pyramide du Louvre. With 35,000 paintings, sculptures, and artefacts spanning from Assyrian to Islamic art, as well as antiquities from prehistory to the 19th century, the Louvre stands as a cultural treasure trove in the heart of Paris.

Commissioned by emperor Napoleon Bonaparte in 1806 on account of the French victory at the Battle of Austerlitz, the Arc de Triomphe took 30 years to be erected and was then inaugurated by the French king Louis-Philippe in 1836, 15 years after Napoleon's death. Standing tall at 50 metres (164 feet), it is one of the most famous monuments in Paris. Located at the centre of Place Charles de Gaulle at the western end of the Champs-Élysées Avenue, the arch honours those who fought and died for France in the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. Under its vault, lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from the First World War.

With its 10 million yearly visitors, Notre-Dame was the most visited site in Paris until a devastating fire ravaged a significant part of the cathedral in April 2019. The structure of the building itself was preserved, as well as most works of art that used to be contained inside. The place has always been the religious centre of the city: the Celts considered the grounds sacred, the Romans built a temple here, the Christians, a basilica, and the last religious structure before the Notre-Dame cathedral was erected was a Romanesque church. The Gothic cathedral of Notre-Dame, finished in 1345, is a tectonic masterpiece. The massive structure is 128 metres (420 feet) long and has two 69-metre-tall (226 feet) towers.

Boat cruises on the Seine embark at the foot of the Eiffel Tower and take you through the heart of Paris where you can admire the prestigious monuments and landmarks of the city and the stunning architecture from bridge to bridge and bank to bank. To learn history along the way, plug in your audio guide and choose your language. Come back at night for another tour, and it will be a different Paris before your eyes, yet just as magical.

The town of Versailles is a wealthy Parisian suburb and municipality, located 20 kilometres outside the city. In the 11th century, Versailles was merely a country village enveloping a castle and the church of Saint-Julien. Today, it is mostly known for the lavish Château de Versailles, which served as home to King Louis XIV and the summer palace to Napoleon. It also saw the historic signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 in the now-legendary Hall of Mirrors.

Housed in a former railway station, the Musée d'Orsay holds a mesmerising collection of mainly French paintings, sculptures, and photography, including the world's largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings, with works from artists such as Van Gogh, Cézanne, Renoir, and Monet.

Installed in the tunnels of former quarries, in the heart of Paris, the Catacombs are at once a fascinating and eerie attraction. Walk down the many steps to experience this spooky underground cemetery. Here you will find the osseous remains of more than 6 million people, moved to this location from an old cemetery.

Originally built as a church to house the reliquary of Saint Genevieve, this neoclassical building in the Latin Quarter, modelled after the Pantheon in Rome, is the final resting place of numerous writers, philosophers, poets and scientists, such as Rousseau, Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, and Marie Curie.

Place de la Concorde is an expansive 84,000m² square located at the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées. It holds historical importance for several reasons: the liberation struggle during World War II brought many battles to Place de la Concorde; during the French Revolution, over a thousand people were beheaded here, many of them famous: Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and revolutionary Robespierre, just to name a few. The site is dominated by the 24-metre Obélisque de Louxor, one of Cleopatra's needles - a gift from Egyptian viceroy Mohammed Ali to Louis Philippe.

Père Lachaise is the largest cemetery in Paris and is reputed to be the most visited in the world. It is a huge and peaceful park and the final resting place of many Frenchmen and foreigners who have enriched French life over the past 200 years: Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde, Camille Pissarro, Marcel Proust, Molière, Max Ernst, Maria Callas, and Jim Morrison, to name just a few.