Miscellaneous historic sites in France

Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower (La tour Eiffel) is an iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris. It was named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. Erected in 1889 as the entrance arch to the 1889 World's Fair, it was initially criticised by some of France's leading artists and intellectuals for its design, but has become both a global cultural icon of France and one of the most r ...
Founded: 1889 | Location: Paris, France

Kammerzell House

The Kammerzell House is one of the most famous buildings of Strasbourg and one of the most ornate and well preserved medieval civil housing buildings in late Gothic architecture in the areas formerly belonging to the Holy Roman Empire. Built in 1427 but twice transformed in 1467 and 1589, the building as it is now historically belongs to the German Renaissance but is stylistically still attached to the Rhineland black an ...
Founded: 1427 | Location: Strasbourg, France

Monet's Garden

Claude Monet lived for forty-three years, from 1883 to 1926, in Giverny. With a passion for gardening as well as for colours, he conceived both his flower garden and water garden as true works of art. Walking through his house and gardens, visitors can still feel the atmosphere which reigned at the home of the Master of Impressionnism and marvel at the floral compositions and nymphéas, his greatest sources of inspiration ...
Founded: 1890 | Location: Giverny, France

La Vieille Bourse

The Vieille Bourse (Old Stock Exchange) in Lille is the former building of the Lille Chamber of Commerce and Industry. It is located between the Grand Place and the Place du Théâtre and is considered to be one of the landmarks of the city centre. The building is in the form of a quadrangle, made up of 24 identical houses enclosing an inner courtyard, which serves as a meeting place for booksellers, florists, chess p ...
Founded: 1652 | Location: Lille, France

Moulin Rouge

Moulin Rouge (French for Red Mill) is a cabaret co-founded in 1889 by Charles Zidler and Joseph Oller, who also owned the Paris Olympia. Close to Montmartre in the Paris district of Pigalle on Boulevard de Clichy in the 18th arrondissement, it is marked by the red windmill on its roof. Moulin Rouge is best known as the spiritual birthplace of the modern form of the can-can dance. Originally introduced as a seductive danc ...
Founded: 1889 | Location: Paris, France

Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux

The Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux is an opera house first inaugurated on 17 April 1780. It was in this theatre that the ballet La fille mal gardée premiered in 1789, and where a young Marius Petipa staged some of his first ballets. The theatre was designed by the architect Victor Louis (1731–1800). Louis later designed the galleries surrounding, the gardens of the Palais Royal, and the Théâtre Français in Pa ...
Founded: 1780 | Location: Bordeaux, France

Barrage Vauban

The Barrage Vauban is a weir (barrier across a river designed to alter its flow) erected in the 17th century on the river Ill west of the 'Petite France' district in Strasbourg. It was constructed from 1686 to 1700 by the French Engineer Jacques Tarade according to plans by Vauban. Several stories high, it houses sculptures in its main level and a panoramical terrace on its roof.
Founded: 1686-1700 | Location: Strasbourg, France

Nice Castle Hill

The Castle of Nice was a citadel used for military purposes. Built at the top of a hill, it stood overlooking the bay of Nice from the 11th century to the 18th century. It was besieged several times, especially in 1543 and in 1691, before it was taken by French troops in 1705 and finally destroyed in 1706 by command of Louis XIV. Nowadays, Castle Hill is used as a park. It"s the most famous public garden in ...
Founded: 11th century | Location: Nice, France

Pont d'Avignon

The Pont Saint-Bénézet, also known as the Pont d'Avignon, is a famous medieval bridge in the town of Avignon. It was built between 1177 and 1185. This early bridge was destroyed forty years later during the Albigensian Crusade when Louis VIII of France laid siege to Avignon. The bridge was rebuilt with 22 stone arches. It was very costly to maintain as the arches tended to collapse when the Rhône flooded. Eventually in ...
Founded: 1177-1185 | Location: Avignon, France

BETASOM Submarine Base

BETASOM (an Italian language acronym of Bordeaux Sommergibile) was a submarine base established at Bordeaux, France by the Italian Regia Marina Italiana during World War II. From this base, Italian submarines participated in the Battle of the Atlantic from 1940 to 1943 as part of the Axis anti-shipping campaign against the Allies. Axis naval co-operation started after the signing of the Pact of Steel in Jun ...
Founded: 1940 | Location: Bordeaux, France

Metallic tower of Fourviére

The Tour métallique de Fourvière (Metallic tower of Fourvière), a landmark of Lyon, is a steel framework tower which bears a striking resemblance to the Eiffel Tower, which predates it by three years. With a height of 85.9 metres and weight of 210 tons, the 'metallic tower' was built between 1892 and 1894. During the Exposition universelle of 1914 in Lyon it had a restaurant and an elevator capable of taking 22 people ...
Founded: 1892-1894 | Location: Lyon, France

Hotel Negresco

The Hotel Negresco is located on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France. It was named after Henri Negresco (1868–1920), who had the palatial hotel constructed in 1912. Today it is considered as the landmark of so-called Belle Époque era in French Riviera. Henri Negresco was the son of an innkeeper. He was educated and worked as a confectioner at the luxurious Casa Capșa in Bucharest, Romania, left ho ...
Founded: 1912 | Location: Nice, France

Temple du Change

The Temple du Change or Loge du Change, formerly used for the stock exchange of Lyon, was originally built after plans by architect Simon Gourdet between 1631 and 1653. It was then rebuilt under the direction of Jacques-Germain Soufflot in 1748-1750. It has been assigned to Protestant worship since 1803, hence its designation Temple. The first Loge du Change was a small classical building with four arches in front and tw ...
Founded: 1631/1748 | Location: Lyon, France

Pont Neuf

The Pont Neuf is a 16th-century bridge in Toulouse across the Garonne river. Original planning for the bridge started in 1542 by the assembly of a committee of master masons and carpenters. Construction started on the foundations in 1544; the first arch was started in 1614. The bridge was finished in 1632, and was inaugurated on 19 October 1659. The bridge is not symmetrical; the longest arch is the third from the right- ...
Founded: 1544-1632 | Location: Toulouse, France

Molitor Building

Immeuble locatif à la porte Molitor is the first appartment block in the world with with glazed façades. It was designed by Le Corbusier in 1931-1934. At the Fourth International Congress of Modern Architecture in Athens, Le Corbusier claimed that the elements of planning were: the sky, trees, steel and cement, and in that order and hierarchy. He claimed that the inhabitants of a city who lived with these el ...
Founded: 1931-1934 | Location: Boulogne-Billancourt, France

Villa Savoye

Villa Savoye is a modernist villa in Poissy, in the outskirts of Paris. It was designed by Swiss architects Le Corbusier and his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, and built between 1928 and 1931 using reinforced concrete. A manifesto of Le Corbusier"s 'five points' of new architecture, the villa is representative of the bases of modern architecture, and is one of the most easily recognizable and renowned examples ...
Founded: 1928-1931 | Location: Poissy, France

Fort du Hâ

Fort du Hâ Prison was originally built in 1846 within remains of the 15th century Chateau du Hâ. The prison was taken over by German forces soon after the June 1940 occupation of France and used to incarcerate political prisoners. On 23 October 1941, 20 political prisoners were taken from Fort du Hâ to Camp de Souge and shot in retaliation for the killing of a German military advisor in Bordeaux. The prison continued ...
Founded: 1846 | Location: Bordeaux, France

Pointe du Hoc

Pointe du Hoc is a promontory with a 30m cliff overlooking the English Channel. During World War II it was the highest point between Utah Beach to the west and Omaha Beach to the east. The German army fortified the area with concrete casemates and gun pits. On D-Day (6 June 1944) the United States Army Ranger Assault Group assaulted and captured Pointe du Hoc after scaling the cliffs. Six French-made 155 m ...
Founded: 1944 | Location: Saint-Pierre-du-Mont, France

Montpellier Botanical Garden

The Jardin des plantes de Montpellier (4.5 hectares) is a historic botanical garden and arboretum maintained by the Montpellier University. The garden was established in 1593 by letters patent from King Henri IV, under the leadership of Pierre Richer de Belleval, professor of botany and anatomy. It is France"s oldest botanical garden, inspired by the Orto botanico di Padova (1545) and in turn serving as model for th ...
Founded: 1593 | Location: Montpellier, France

Jumièges Abbey Ruins

Jumièges Abbey was founded in 654 on a gift of forested land belonging to the royal fisc presented by Clovis II and his queen, Balthild, to the Frankish nobleman Filibertus, who had been the companion of Saints Ouen and Wandrille at the Merovingian court of Dagobert I. Under the second abbot, Saint Achard, Jumièges prospered and soon numbered nearly a thousand monks. In the 9th century it was pillaged and b ...
Founded: 654 AD | Location: Jumièges, France

Featured Historic Landmarks, Sites & Buildings

Historic Site of the week

Monte d'Accoddi

Monte d"Accoddi is a Neolithic archaeological site in northern Sardinia, located in the territory of Sassari. The site consists of a massive raised stone platform thought to have been an altar. It was constructed by the Ozieri culture or earlier, with the oldest parts dated to around 4,000–3,650 BC.

The site was discovered in 1954 in a field owned by the Segni family. No chambers or entrances to the mound have been found, leading to the presumption it was an altar, a temple or a step pyramid. It may have also served an observational function, as its square plan is coordinated with the cardinal points of the compass.

The initial Ozieri structure was abandoned or destroyed around 3000 BC, with traces of fire found in the archeological evidence. Around 2800 BC the remains of the original structure were completely covered with a layered mixture of earth and stone, and large blocks of limestone were then applied to establish a second platform, truncated by a step pyramid (36 m × 29 m, about 10 m in height), accessible by means of a second ramp, 42 m long, built over the older one. This second temple resembles contemporary Mesopotamian ziggurats, and is attributed to the Abealzu-Filigosa culture.

Archeological excavations from the chalcolithic Abealzu-Filigosa layers indicate the Monte d"Accoddi was used for animal sacrifice, with the remains of sheep, cattle, and swine recovered in near equal proportions. It is among the earliest known sacrificial sites in Western Europe.

The site appears to have been abandoned again around 1800 BC, at the onset of the Nuragic age.

The monument was partially reconstructed during the 1980s. It is open to the public and accessible by the old route of SS131 highway, near the hamlet of Ottava. It is 14,9 km from Sassari and 45 km from Alghero. There is no public transportation to the site. The opening times vary throughout the year.