Instant Cities: Paris

Paris › Places and landmarks

Tour Saint-Jacques

A lone Gothic bell tower, all that remains of a church on the pilgrims’ road to Santiago.

See it in 3D Watch the tour

Photo: Fabien Barrau, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The tower is all that is left of the church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, where pilgrims gathered before setting off for Santiago de Compostela. The church was pulled down after the Revolution; the tower, finished in 1523, was kept.

Blaise Pascal is said to have repeated his experiments on air pressure here; his statue stands at its foot. Visit it in 3D ›

More in Paris

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