Nor does Paris falter in its reputation as a great hive of artistic and intellectual activity. World-class art collections at the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay, as well as the great many smaller museums devoted to individual artists and collectors, underscore an impressive roster of talents linked to the city, including Delacroix, Ingres, Seurat, Degas, Van Gogh, Picasso, Braque and Gris, to name but a few. The newly reopened Pompidou Centre embodies a cultural attitude that both proclaims Parisian cleverness and invites you to share in it. And it is only one of many grand and ground-breaking modern buildings – the new Bibliothèque Nationale, the Institut du Monde Arabe, among others – that assert modern architecture and design.

In fact, the whole city is something of a work of art. Two thousand years of shaping and reshaping have resulted in monumental buildings, sweeping avenues, grand esplanades and bridges. Many of its older buildings have survived intact, spared the ravages of flood and fire and saved from Hitler’s intended destruction. Moreover, they survive with a sense of continuity and homogeneity, as new sits comfortably against a backdrop of old – the glass Pyramid against the grand fortress of the Louvre, the Column of Liberty against the Opera Bastille. Time has acted as judge, as buildings once swathed in controversy – the Eiffel Tower, the Sacre-Cœur, the Pompidou Centre – have in their turn become symbols of the city. Yet for all the tremendous pomp and magnificence of its monuments, Paris operates on a very human scale, with exquisite, secretive little nooks tucked away from the Grands Boulevards and very definite little communities revolving around games of boules and the local boulangerie and café.

Synopsis
With comprehensive updates including all the latest information on restaurants, bars, clubs, plus new stories on the ever-changing cityscape: the Louvre Museum, Pyramid and innovations, and the Arc d'Triomphe. Also included are day trips from the city to Chartres, Versailles, and Disneyland, Paris.

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