Notre-Dame Cathedral
The Gothic cathedral at the heart of Paris, fully reopened in December 2024 after the devastating 2019 fire and a five-year restoration — free to enter, with the bell towers reopened in September 2025.
Sainte-Chapelle
A jewel-box Gothic chapel on Île de la Cité holding one of the finest surviving sets of 13th-century stained glass anywhere, built by Louis IX to house Christ's Crown of Thorns.
Eiffel Tower
Gustave Eiffel's 1889 iron tower — still the tallest structure in Paris and the single most recognisable landmark in the world — with three visitable levels and a summit view stretching up to 60 kilometres on a clear day.
Sacré-Cœur Basilica
The gleaming white Romano-Byzantine basilica crowning Montmartre's highest hill, free to enter, with a paid dome climb offering one of the widest views over Paris.
Palais Garnier
Charles Garnier's opulent 1875 opera house, its Grand Staircase and gilded foyer as much a reason to visit as an actual performance — plus a Chagall-painted auditorium ceiling.
Pont Alexandre III
Paris's most ornate bridge, dripping with Art Nouveau lamps, cherubs and gilded winged horses, connecting the Champs-Élysées area to the Invalides and Eiffel Tower.
Place des Vosges
Paris's oldest planned square, a perfectly symmetrical 17th-century plaza of red-brick pavilions in the Marais, and once home to Victor Hugo.
Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation
A stark, deliberately claustrophobic Brutalist memorial on the eastern tip of Île de la Cité, honouring the roughly 200,000 people deported from France to Nazi concentration camps.
Trocadéro Esplanade
The Palais de Chaillot's grand esplanade across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower — the single best free viewpoint for photographing the tower in full.
Palace of Versailles Day Trip
Louis XIV's vast royal palace and gardens, 20 kilometres southwest of Paris — the single most popular day trip from the city, built around the mirror-lined Hall of Mirrors and 800 hectares of formal gardens.
Musée de l'Armée — Les Invalides & Napoleon's Tomb
France's national military history museum, sharing the vast Hôtel des Invalides complex with Napoleon Bonaparte's monumental tomb beneath its golden dome.
Arc de Triomphe
Napoleon's monumental triumphal arch anchoring the Champs-Élysées, with an observation terrace atop 284 steps offering one of the best panoramic views in Paris.
Panthéon
A neoclassical domed monument on the Left Bank's highest point, built as a church and repurposed as France's secular mausoleum for its most celebrated citizens — Voltaire, Rousseau, Marie Curie and Victor Hugo among them.
Grand Palais
A vast Beaux-Arts glass-and-iron exhibition hall built for the 1900 World's Fair, reopened in 2025 after renovation and now hosting major art exhibitions, including works from the closed Centre Pompidou's collection.
Place de la Concorde
Paris's largest public square, home to a 3,300-year-old Egyptian obelisk and the site of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette's execution during the Revolution.
Bois de Vincennes & Château de Vincennes
Paris's largest park, on the eastern edge of the city, home to a genuine medieval royal fortress with Europe's tallest surviving keep.
Conciergerie
A former medieval royal palace turned Revolutionary-era prison on Île de la Cité, best known as the last stop for Marie Antoinette and thousands of others before the guillotine.