Page 169 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Europe

P ARIS  167

Fainsilber has created an and foreign companies. La
imaginative interplay of light, Grande Arche is an enormous
vegetation, and water in the hollow cube, spacious enough
high-tech, five-floor building, to contain Notre-Dame
which soars to a height of 40 m cathedral. Designed by Danish
(133 ft). At the museum’s heart architect Otto von Spreckelsen,
is the Explora exhibit, a the arch houses an exhibition
fascinating guide to the worlds gallery and offers superb views
of science and technology. The over the city, though the
Géode, a giant entertainment rooftop is closed to the public.
sphere, houses a huge
hemispherical cinema screen.
In the auditorium of the j Bois de Boulogne
Planetarium, special-effects q Porte Maillot, Porte Dauphine,
projectors create exciting Porte d’Auteuil, Sablons. Open 24 hrs
images of the stars and planets. daily. & to specialist gardens and
Also in the park, the Grande facilities. 7
Halle was the old cattle hall, and
has been turned into a huge Located between the Seine River
exhibition space. The Cité de la Monument to Oscar Wilde in the Père and the western edges of Paris,
Musique is a quirky but elegant Lachaise Cemetery this 865-ha (2,137-acre) park
complex that holds a music offers a vast belt of greenery for
conservatory – home of the Duncan, among others. The strolling, cycling, riding, boating,
world-famous Paris conservatoire equally charismatic Sarah picnicking, or spending a day at
since 1990 – and a concert hall. Bernhardt, famous for her the races. The Bois de Boulogne
There is also a museum covering portrayal of Racine heroines, was once part of the immense
the history of music from the also reposes at Père Lachaise. Forêt du Rouvre. In the mid-19th
Renaissance to the present day. Striking funerary sculpture and century, Napoleon III had the
Built as a venue for pop concerts, famous graves make this a area redesigned and landscaped
the Zénith theater seats more pleasant place for a leisurely, by Baron Haussmann along the
than 6,000 spectators. nostalgic stroll. lines of Hyde Park in London (see
p62). A number of self-contained
g Cimetière du h La Défense parks include the Pré Catelan,
which has the widest beech
Père Lachaise W La Défense. La Grande Arche tree in Paris, and the Bagatelle
16 Rue du Repos. q Père-Lachaise, Tel 01-47 74 84 24. Open Mon–Sat. gardens, with architectural follies
and an 18th-century villa famous
A Dumas. Tel 01-55 25 82 10. Open 7 8 ∑ ladefense.fr
daily. ∑ pere-lachaise.com for its rose garden. The villa was
This still-expanding skyscraper built in just 64 days as the result
Paris’s most prestigious business city on the western of a bet between the Comte
cemetery is set on a wooded hill edge of Paris is one of the largest d’Artois and Marie-Antoinette.
overlooking the city. The land office developments in Europe By day, the Bois is busy with
was once owned by Père de la and covers 80 ha (198 acres). It families, joggers, and walkers,
Chaise, Louis XIV’s confessor, was launched in 1957 to create but after dark it is notoriously
but it was bought by order of a new home for leading French seedy – and best avoided.
Napoleon in 1803 to create a
completely new cemetery. This
became so popular with the
Parisian bourgeoisie that its
boundaries were extended six
times during the 19th century.
Here are buried celebrities such
as the writer Honoré de Balzac,
the famous playwright Molière,
the composer Frédéric Chopin,
singer Edith Piaf, and actors
Simone Signoret and Yves
Montand. Famous foreigners
interred in the cemetery include
Oscar Wilde and the singer Jim
Morrison. The Columbarium,
built at the end of the 19th
century, houses the ashes of
American dancer Isadora Kiosque de l’Empereur, on an island in the Grand Lac, Bois de Boulogne

166-167_EW_Europe.indd 167 14/07/16 10:44 am