4Musée d’Orsay

Pixabay

This museum is also a must-see. This is a relatively new museum since it first opened in 1986. It is a converted railway station and has the world’s largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings from the world’s most famous artists like Monet, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Renoir and Degas. The French wanted to have a transitional museum between the Louvre and the National Museum of Modern Art. It is beautifully located in the 7th arrondissement and sits directly next to the Seine river. It is the tenth most visited museum in the world.

5The Pantheon

Pixabay

This neoclassical building might look a bit familiar if you’ve ever been to Rome since it was modelled on the Pantheon in Rome. It is located in the 5th arrondissement, right on the Sainte-Geneviève mountain which shows beautiful views of all Paris (it’s worth going there just to see the gorgeous view). It is now used as a secular mausoleum (a building that acts as a burial chamber) and some of France’s most iconic people are buried here: Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Louis Braille, Marie Curie and Alexandre Dumas.

6Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral

Unsplash

This huge French Gothic cathedral is located in the 4th arrondissement. The cathedral was begun in 1160 and was largely complete by 1260, but officially, it was completed in 1345. If you’ve ever heard of Esmeralda and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame or the writer Victor Hugo (especially the Disney movie version), then you know the importance of this cathedral. The entry into the cathedral is free but to see the view of the whole city from the towers costs 8,50 euros. The cathedral is located on a small island on the Seine. You can get there from the many bridges like the Pont Notre-Dame, Pont du Change or the Pont Neuf.

On April 15 2019, a terrible fire destroyed a big part of Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral. Luckily, the firefighters were able to save many artifacts and the two towers didn’t collapse. Obviously, the renovation works will cost a lot of money and will take many decades to be completed, but Parisians have hope.