Instant Cities: Paris

Paris › Places and landmarks

Métro entrances

The green Art Nouveau entrances of the Paris Métro, drawn by Hector Guimard around 1900.

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Photo: Coyau, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

When the first Métro line opened in 1900, Hector Guimard designed its entrances: cast-iron stalks and leaves painted green, with lamps like flower buds and the word Métropolitain in curling letters.

Some 85 of them are still in use, and two of the rare ones with a glass roof survive, at Porte Dauphine and Abbesses. Ride through Paris in 3D ›

More in Paris

Eiffel TowerGustave Eiffel’s iron tower on the Champ de Mars, built for the World’s Fair of 1889 and the symbol of Paris ever since. Notre-DameThe Gothic cathedral on the Île de la Cité, begun in 1163 and open again since the fire of 2019. Sainte-ChapelleLouis IX’s royal chapel of 1248, its walls almost all stained glass. LouvreA royal palace turned into the world’s most visited museum, with the glass pyramid in its courtyard. Pont NeufThe “new bridge”, which is in fact the oldest bridge still standing across the Seine in Paris. Hôtel de VilleThe city hall of Paris, on this spot since 1357 and rebuilt after the Commune burned it in 1871. ConciergerieA medieval royal palace on the island, later the prison where Marie-Antoinette awaited the guillotine. Tour Saint-JacquesA lone Gothic bell tower, all that remains of a church on the pilgrims’ road to Santiago. Centre PompidouThe museum of modern art with its pipes, ducts and escalators on the outside, opened in 1977. BouquinistesThe green boxes of second-hand booksellers along the quays of the Seine. Bateaux-mouchesThe sightseeing boats that glide up and down the Seine, past Notre-Dame and under the bridges. CroissantThe flaky, buttery crescent of a Paris breakfast, from the boulangerie on every corner.