National Geographic Special - The World\'s Most Beautiful Places

Machu Picchu—the “lost city of the Incas”—sits at 7,970
ft (2,430 m) in the remote Peruvian Andes.

96 CITIES & BEYOND

paris

FRANCE

Baron Haussmann’s reordering of Paris in

the 19th century, which drove broad boule-

vards through the labyrinthine alleys of the

medieval city, was hardly designed to create

one of the world’s most romantic places.

Yet something magical happened: charm

and intimacy flourished amid the city’s new

order of bohemian cafés, tiny patisseries,

wonderful restaurants, rambling flea mar-

kets, and quaint neighborhoods. In Paris,

the rational and the romantic blend togeth-

er in a way that feels distinctly French.

DON’T MISS

Join a guided walking tour through the city’s smaller

neighborhoods, where parts of medieval Paris little

touched by Haussmann’s makeover survive: the

Marais, Montmartre, Saint-Germain, Île de la Cité,

and Notre Dame and the Latin Quarter.

Place de la Concorde, Paris’s largest square, crowns

the eastern end of the grand Champs-Élysées.