Interesting Metro-stations and other Paris, France Off The Beaten Path Tips

The Paris Metro cannot only be very helpful to get around the city. It also can be a very interesting source of information. On line 1(the yellow line) there are three stations the are interesting:

- Station Bastille shows you a cartoon-alike image of the French history that took place on the square above the station: The French Revolution.

- Station Tuileries shows lots of articles from the whole of the 20th century and gives you a nice image of the history of the past century.

- Station Louvre-Rivoli is all designed to show the wealth of the museum above. Lots of nice statues are exposed in, to my opinion, the most beautiful station you´ll find in Paris.

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Right next to the modern shopping centre of Les Halles, you will find the second largest church in Paris: the Saint-Eustache. It is a Gotic building, based on the older Notre Dame. Constuction was started in the year 1532 and took more then 100 years. The current building is 105 meters long and 43 meters wide: an enormous structure.

What else? "Sunking" Louis XIV got his First Holy Communion here in this church, poet Moliere is buried here and very extraordinairy: on of the two towertops of the front facade is missing. I tried to find out why, but I still don't know...

Between the church and the Forum Les Halles you can find a remarkable statue made by Henri de Millers, called l'Écoute. L'Écoute means "the hearing", and that is what the hand and the big head show you.

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Right in front of the famous Notre Dame church, about 20 metres from its front facade, there is a simple bronze milestone. This stone indicates the zero point of France, as it has been for hundreds of years. From here distances from Paris to other cities in France and even outside of France are measured. At the 10th of October 1924 the stone was placed.

The stone is not exactly the centre of France, that lies more to the south of the country, but it is the place where centuries ago the first beginning of the city was built.

Lots of people just walk over the stone, looking at the impressive front of the Notre Dame, but just take a look down, and you can see the official centre of France...

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Close to the Pont Marie, from Le Marais to Ile St-Louis, you will find the nice building called Hôtel de Sens. This building used to be the house of the archbishop of Sens, who ruled of the region before Paris got its own bishop.

It was built between 1475 and 1507 and is one of the oldest houses in Paris that always had people living in it. First several archbishops lived in it, and later in 1911 Queen Margot moved in after she was divorced of her husband Henri IV. Today the Library of Forney is based in the Hotel de Sens. The gardens around the palace are very nice. Typically French design with symmetry and a lot of straight lines.

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Right north from the Institut du Monde Arabe and the Jardin des Plantes, you will find a narrow and stretched park at the banks of the Seine. The quay here is called Quai Saint Bernard and has a large amount of art pieces that are exposed here.

Mainly modern art is everywhere here, surrounded by a nice green environment at the south, and the widest part of the Seine at the north. It is a very nice place to walk through on your way from the Institut towards the entrance of the Jardin des Plantes.

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In 1577, the pharmacist Nicolas Houel started a garden where he planted medicinal plants for his organisation, the Christian house of Charity. The first botanical garden of Paris was born, and grew to an amount of 1000 plants in 1624. Two years later the importance of the garden increase when King Louis XIII started a medicinal garden called "Jardin du Roi", garden of the King, advised by his doctors.

During the regime of King Louis XIV, the garden grew bigger and bigger. Doctor Guy Crescent Fagon was appointed in 1693 to organise the garden again. He built several greenhouses that still exist, as well as a labyrinth and a small amphitheatre. The Jardins you see nowadays are still more or less like mister Crescent Fagon designed it.

After the French Revolution the gardens lost their Royal status. From that period on, animals were introduced in the gardens. Today there is a large collection of reptiles, birds, insects, and even bears in the western part of the park.

Several pieces of art are always shown in the gardens, with temporary expositions too.

Address: Rue Cuvier / Rue Buffon
Metro: Jussieu / Place Monge

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Website: http://www.insecula.com/salle/MS02441.html

At the south of the Jardin des Plantes, you will find a little piece of Northern Africa in Paris. Here, the Mosque of Paris was built between 1922 and 1926, to honour the fallen soldiers from the French colonies in Northern Africa who fought during the World War I.

The building has a high minaret of 33 meters, that is beautifully decorated and topped with a green roof. The doors of the building are made of wood that have great carving in it, and all the many pillars are decorated by multi coloured mosaic. The building has strong Spanish-Morish influences, which is very clear in its inner square, that looks like the Alhambra in Granada.

"La Mosquée" is not only a house to pray, it is the centre of Islam in Paris. It also has a library and an education centre where quran-lessons can be followed. The building is open for visitors every day except fridays and sundays from 9-12 and from 14-18 o'clock.

Don't forget to try a glass of mint tea at the "salon de thé" at the other side of the building. (check out my restaurant-tip for more info)

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Website: www.la-mosquee.com

During the regime of Julius Caesar, Ancient Rome conquered France. When they reached the place that now is Paris, all they saw was some life at the Ile de la Cité. Those were the Germanic tribe called Parisii.

The Romans decided not to set up their base on that island, but at the southern bank of the river. This new town they called Lutetia. At the end of the second century A.D. they built a theatre at the place that now is situated between the Pantheon and the Jardin des Plantes. In 280 A.D. though, the rebellious Germanics destroyed the arena, at the end of the Roman domination in the area.

Years passed, the name Lutetia was turned into Paris, named after its original inhabitants, and the theater was covered by buildings and even a part of the citywalls. In 1869 the ancient Roman arena was rediscovered and at the beginning of the 20th century it was completely restaured.

Today it is not a spectacular place to see compared to other Roman theaters around Europe. Instead it is a nice park-ish area that has the shapes of a theater. It is often visited by students or families who want to have a picknick or play a game of "pétanque".

Address: Rue des Arènes / Rue de Navarre
Metro: Jussieu / Cardinal Lemoine

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This very small church in Quartier Latin is one of the oldest churches in the city. It is said that it was built somewhere in the 12th century. It is situated at the little square Rene Viviani that not only has the old church, but also shows you Paris' oldest tree, that dates from the 17th century.

The church has had strong bonds with the university of Sorbonne for many century, and many principals were chosen inside the churchwalls. Later, during the Revolution, the building was turned into a salt-storage and in 1889 it was given to the Syrian community of the city, who made their own Christian church inside.

Inside the church you can see several paintings and statues, of which a lot of them are of orthodox origin.

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When you visit Paris, and its Jardins du Luxembourg, you should really take a little bit of time to admire the outside of the park too. At the fences around the park, at the side of the Boulevard St. Michel, there almost always is a exhibition of great journalism and artistic photographs. In 2005 I admired a great exhibition of impressive photo's of the "World Press Photo" election. And in 2006 there was a series of photo's by Unicef, showing colourful images of children all over the world. Very impressive to see.

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