Shanti Obray visited Paris with her family lately on a vacation. Paris is today one of the
world’s leading business and cultural centres, and its influence in politics, education,
entertainment, media, fashion, science and the arts all contribute to its status as one of
the world’s major global cities. Paris is one of the most popular tourist destinations in
the world, with 45 million tourists every year in the Paris Region, 60% of whom are foreign
visitors. There are numerous iconic landmarks among its many attractions, along with
world-famous institutions and popular parks.
Shanti Obray is a student and lives in UK, she started this travel with her family by train
from UK to Paris.
Here is Shanti’s experience with Paris, for centuries, the city had been a labyrinth of
narrow streets and half-timber houses, but, beginning in 1852, the Baron Haussmann’s
urbanisation program involved leveling entire quarters to make way for wide avenues lined
with neo-classical stone buildings of bourgeoisie standing. Most of this ‘new’ Paris is the
Paris we see today. The building code has seen few changes since, and the Second Empire
plans are in many cases still followed. The “alignement†law is still in place, which
regulates building facades of new constructions according to a pre-defined street width. A
building’s height is limited according to the width of the streets it lines, and under the
regulation, it is difficult to get an approval to build a taller building.
Three of the most famous Parisian landmarks are the twelfth-century cathedral Notre Dame de
Paris on the Île de la Cité, the Napoleonic Arc de Triomphe and the nineteenth-century
Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel Tower was a “temporary†construction by Gustave Eiffel for the
1889 Universal Exposition, but the tower was never dismantled and is now an enduring symbol
of Paris.
Two of Paris’ oldest and famous gardens are the Tuileries Garden, created in the 16th
century for a palace on the banks of the Seine near the Louvre, and the Left bank
Luxembourg Garden, another former private garden belonging to a château built for the Marie
de’ Medici in 1612. The Jardin des Plantes, created by Louis XIII’s doctor Guy de La Brosse
for the cultivation of medicinal plants, was Paris’ first public garden.
