The French capital is one of the most stimulating cities on earth. Although described countless times, words still fail to capture the exact quality that renders Paris enduringly seductive. Is it the elegance of the tree-lined boulevards? The Radiance of the light? The magnificence of the architecture? The style and ambience of the cares? Come find out for yourself…
Paris is home to more than 2 million people, with another 10.5 million living in the Ile de France Droite (Right Bank) north of the river, and the Rive Gauche (Left Bank) south of the river. Paris is divided into twenty arrondissements or districts that radiate from the City Centre.
Sights that you shouldn’t miss include the Musee de Louvre, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs-Elysees and the Arc de Tromphe. The Louvre dates back to 1200 when it began life as a fortress became a public museum in 1793. A glass pyramid entrance designed by architect IM Pei was added in the 1980s. Brave the crowds and wander through rooms full of paintings, sculptures and antiquities including the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo.
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R oma, Italy “city of the Soul” was the epithet Lord Byron gave to Rome. Poetic hyperbole perhaps but the description still strikes a chord in visitors to the city.
Though less efficient and sophisticated than Milan, less picturesque and well preserved than Florence of Venice, Rome remains, in Thomas Hardy’s works, “Time’s central city”. Rome in an unrepeatable city and is so-called Eternal for having alternated sumptuous ages with others of decadence and it is always reviving as it gathers treasures and memories with the charm of its incomparable landscape.
For centuries, Rome has been called the “Eternal City”, a title through its importance as one of the great capitals of the Roman Empire and as the world center of the Roman Catholic Church. Since 1871 it has been the capital of a united Italy.
BP arcelona is Spain’s most modern outward-looking city and cosmopolitan city. It’s a major Mediterranean port and the prosperous capital of Catalonia, one of Europe’s most dynamic regions. There has been continuous human settlement here since before Roman times and the city has grown and adapted to meet new challenges throughout its long history. Hosting the 1992 Olympic Games was the most recent impetus for successful redevelopment and renewal.
According to legend, the name Barcelona dates from Hercules’s colonial
