#5 best destination in the world

Musee des Vampires Et du Monde de l’Imaginaire

• Macabre museum dedicated to research on vampirism and folklore

Père Lachaise Cemetery

• Largest cemetery in Paris and the most visited necropolis in the world
• Was the first garden cemetery, as well as the first municipal cemetery in Paris
• Established in 1804

59 Rivoli

• Art collective in a former squat, with 30 artists’ studios, an exhibition space, and a concert venue

Notre-Dame de Paris

• Medieval Catholic cathedral widely considered to be one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture
• #12 of the top 25 landmarks in the world
• Contains relics such as the purported Crown of Thorns, a fragment of the True Cross, and one of the Holy Nail
• UNESCO World Heritage Site

Musée d’Orsay

• Museum on the bank of the Seine housed in a railway station built between 1898 and 1914
• #1 of the top 25 museums in the world
• Includes paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography
• Houses the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces in the world by painters like Monet and Van Gogh

Louvre

• #7 of the top 25 museums in the world
• World’s largest art museum with approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century
• Most visited art museum in the world
• Originally a museum housed in the Louvre Palace

Eiffel Tower

• Iron lattice tower constructed from 1887-1889, as the entrance to the World’s Fair
• #14 of the top 25 landmarks in the world
• Initially it was criticized by some of France’s leading artists and intellectuals for its design
• Now it is one of the most recognizable structures in the world
• 81 stories, it’s the tallest structure in Paris

Catacombs of Paris

• Underground ossuaries in Paris, which hold the remains of more than six million people, in a small part of a tunnel network built to consolidate Paris’ ancient stone quarries
• This ossuary was created as part of the effort to eliminate the city’s overflowing cemeteries, in the late 1700s

Chemin de fer de Petite Ceinture

• Was a circular railway built as a means to supply the city’s fortification walls, and as a connection between Paris’ railway termini
• Built in 1851
• Mostly abandoned in 1934, due to the popularity of the Paris Metro

Disneyland Paris

• Most visited theme park in Europe
• #20 of the top 25 amusement parks in the world
• 4,800 acres compasses 2 theme parks, resort hotels, shopping, dining, an entertainment complex, and a golf course
• Opened in 1992

Seine

• Important commercial waterway in Paris that goes through 37 bridges, one of which, Pont Neuf, dates back to 1607

Palace of Versailles

• Royal château in Versailles that is now a museum
• Village dating back to the 11th century, now a wealthy suburb of Paris
• Building the château and maintaining the court there was phenomenally expensive, but did a good deal to establish the dominance of French style and taste in the whole of Europe, giving French luxury manufacturing advantages
• UNESCO World Heritage Site

Vieux Lyon

• One of Europe’s most extensive Renaissance neighborhoods
• In the Saint Jean quarter, in the Middle Ages, it was the focus of political and religious power
• In the Saint-Paul section, in the 15th and 16th centuries, Italian banker-merchants moved into extensive urban residences called hôtels particuliers, where trade fairs made the city wealthy
• In the Saint Georges section, silk weavers settled beginning in the 16th century
• In the Middle Ages the first traboules were built. Traboules are corridors through buildings and courtyards, connecting one street directly with another
• Visitors can discover an architectural heritage of galleries and spiral staircases in secret passageways

Old Town Nice

• Historic neighborhood that looks like a medieval village with narrow streets curving between old buildings with red-tile roofs, small restaurants and open-markets

Plage de Santa Giulia – Piaghja di Santa Ghjulia

• #25 of the top 25 beaches in the world

Notre-Dame de la Garde

• Catholic basilica in Marseille, and site of a popular Assumption Day pilgrimage
• Built on the foundations of an ancient fort at the highest natural point in Marseille, a limestone outcropping on the side of the Old Port of Marseille
• Construction began in 1852 and lasted for 21 years
• Originally an enlargement of a medieval chapel, it consists of a lower church or crypt in the Romanesque style, carved from the rock, and an upper church of Neo-Byzantine style decorated with mosaics
• A square bell tower topped by a belfry supports a statue of the Madonna and Child made of copper gilded with gold leaf
• The tiles were supplied by the workshop in Venice which had made the originals

Place de la Bourse

• Square in Bordeaux, one of the city’s most recognisable sights
• Built from 1730 to 1775
• UNESCO World Heritage Site

Tumulus of Bougon

• One of the oldest buildings in the world
• Group of five Neolithic barrows located in Bougon
• Their discovery in 1840 raised great scientific interest
• To protect the monuments, the site was acquired by the department of Deux-Sèvres in 1873
• The oldest structures of this prehistoric monument date to 4700 BC

Dolmen de Bagneux

• Megalith and one of the largest dolmen in France and in Europe
• Archaeologists still do not know who erected these dolmens, which makes it difficult to know why they did it
• They are generally all regarded as tombs or burial chambers, despite the absence of clear evidence for this
• Constructed around 3000 BC
• One of the oldest buildings in the world

Puy du Fou

• #2 of the top theme parks in the world
• Started in 1977

Gavrinis

• Small island that contains the Gavrinis tomb, a megalithic monument notable for its abundance of megalithic art in the European Neolithic
• Built in 3500 BC
• One of the oldest buildings in the world

Saint-Michel Tumulus

• One of the oldest buildings in the world
• Megalithic grave mound, and the largest grave mound in continental Europe
• Built in 4500 BC
• Explored in 1862, researchers found there a central vault containing a fairly prestigious funerary furniture : axes, pearls, flint tools and sillimanite

Barnenez

• One of the oldest buildings in the world
• Neolithic monument located in Brittany
• It dates to the early Neolithic, about 4850 BC
• It is considered one of the earliest megalithic monuments in Europe, as well as one of the oldest man-made structures in the world, along with the Tumulus of Bougon and Locmariaquer megaliths, also located in Great West France
• It is also remarkable for the presence of megalithic art

Mont Saint-Michel

• Island commune in Normandy, off the country’s coast
• The island is 247 acres and houses only 44 people
• Was a strategic fortification since the 8th century because when the tide came in, it drove off or drowned would-be assailants
• Exemplifies the feudal society that constructed it: on top, God, the abbey and monastery; below, the great halls; then stores and housing; and at the bottom, outside the walls, houses for fishermen and farmers.
• UNESCO World Heritage Site

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Costs

Number of Days: 35 days

Best Time To Fly: April-June, Sept-Nov

Airline tickets: $1,570

Seattle -> Paris (round trip) = $1,570
Nice -> Ajaccio (one way) = $63
Ajaccio -> Marseille (one way) = $70

Food: $49/day x 35 days = $1,715

Rental car: $26/day x 21 days = $546

Gas: $208

Entertainment: $375

Airbnb: $125/day x 33 days = $4,125

TOTAL: $8,539