Paris
The capital and gem in France's tourist crown, Paris, is a glutton for superlatives and travel clichés. As a result, visitors often arrive all moist and runny with giddy expectations of grand vistas and romance along the Seine, of landscapes painted on bus-sized canvases, of phenomenally haughty people, of pick-an-ist types in cafes monologuing on the use of garlic or the finer points of Jerry Lewis. Paris has long inspired opinionated outbursts from delusional to denouncing, but on one matter travelers remain in agreement: it's among the most stimulating cities in the world.

Musee du Louvre
This enormous building, constructed around 1200 as a fortress and rebuilt in the mid-16th century for use as a royal palace, began its career as a public museum in 1793. As part of Mitterand's "grand projects" in the 1980s, the Louvre was revamped with the addition of a 21m (67ft) glass pyramid entrance.

Museum's rooms are full of paintings, sculptures and antiquities, including the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and Winged Victory (which looks like it's been dropped and put back together). If the clamor becomes unbearable, your best bet is to pick a period or section of the Louvre and pretend that the rest is somewhere across town.

Centre Georges Pompidou
The Centre Georges Pompidou, displaying and promoting modern and contemporary art, is far and away the most visited sight in Paris. Built between 1972 and 1977, the hi-tech though daffy design has recently begun to age, prompting face-lifts and closures of many parts of the centre. Woven into this mêlée of renovation are several good (though pricey) galleries plus a free, three-tiered library with over 2000 periodicals, including English-language newspapers and magazines from around the world. A square just to the west attracts street musicians, Marcel Marceau impersonators and lots of unsavory types selling drugs or picking pockets.

Notre Dame
The city's cathedral ranks as one of the greatest achievements of Gothic architecture. Notre Dame was begun in 1163 and completed around 1345; the massive interior can accommodate over 6000 worshippers. Notre Dame is known for its sublime balance, there are all sorts of minor anomalies as the French love nothing better than to mess with things. These include the differently shaped three main entrances, which have statues that were once colored to make them more effective as Bible lessons for the hoi polloi.

The interior is dominated by spectacular and enormous rose windows, and a 7800-pipe organ that was recently restored but has not been working properly since. From the base of the north tower, visitors with ramrod straight spines can climb to the top of the west façade and savor the views over many of the cathedral's most ferocious-looking gargoyles, not to mention a good part of Paris. Under the square in front of the cathedral, an archaeological crypt displays in situ the remains of structures from the Gallo-Roman and later periods.

Sainte Chapelle
Lying inside the Palais de Justice (law courts), Sainte Chapelle was consecrated in 1248 and built to house what was reputedly Jesus' crown of thorns and other relics purchased by King Louis IX earlier in the 13th century. The gem-like chapel, illuminated by a veritable curtain of 13th-century stained glass (the oldest and finest in Paris), is best viewed from the law courts' main entrance - a magnificently gilded, 18th-century gate. Once past the airport-like security, you can wander around the long hallways of the Palais de Justice and, if you can find a court in session, observe the proceedings. Civil cases are heard in the morning, while criminal trials - usually reserved for larceny or that French specialty "crimes passionnel" (crimes of passion) - begin after lunch.

Museed Orsay
Spectacularly housed in a former railway station built in 1900, the Musée d'Orsay was re-inaugurated in its present form in 1986. Inside is a trove of artistic treasures produced between 1848 and 1914, including the fruits of the Impressionists and Postimpressionists. Most of their paintings and sculptures are found on the ground floor and the skylight-lit upper level, while the middle level has some magnificent rooms showcasing the Art-Nouveau movement. Nearby, the Musée Rodin displays the vital bronze and marble sculptures by Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel, including casts of some of Rodin's most celebrated works. There's a shady sculptured garden out at the back, one of Paris' treasured islands of calm.

Eiffel Tower
This towering edifice was built for the World Fair of 1889, held to commemorate the centenary of the French Revolution. Named after its designer, Gustave Eiffel, it stands 320m (1050ft) high and held the record as the world's tallest structure until 1930. Salvation came when it proved an ideal platform for the antennas needed for the new science of radiotelegraphy.

People can visit any of the three public levels of this tower, which can be accessed by lift or stairs. Just south-east of the tower is a grassy expanse that was once the site of the world's first balloon flights and is now used by teens as a skateboarding arena or by activists bad-mouthing Chirac.

Hotel des Invalides
Louis XIV ordered the first national hospital for soldiers to be built. The resulting structure, with its gilded dome, is a masterpiece of 17th-century classical French religious architecture. Now a military museum, it contains flags and banners, swords, medals, armor and other items from French military history, including some of Napoleon’s personal possessions. But the main attraction is Napoleon’s Tomb: This enormous crypt contains six coffins placed one inside the other, nesting-doll style, with the emperor inviolable in the center coffin.

Avenue des Champs Elysees
A popular promenade for the ostentatious aristos of old, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées has long symbolised the style and joie de vivre of Paris. Encroaching fast-food joints, car showrooms and cinemas have somewhat dulled the sheen, but the 2km (1mi) long, 70m (235ft) wide stretch is still an ideal place for evening walks and relishing the food at overpriced restaurants.

Outer France
The relatively small region surrounding Paris - known as the lle de France (Island of France) - was where the kingdom of France began its 12th century expansion. Today, it's a popular day-trip destination for Parisians and Paris-based visitors. Among the region's many attractions are woodlands ideal for hiking, sky scrape red districts endowed with sleekly functional architecture, the much-maligned Euro Disney, elegant historical towns and Versailles, the country's former political capital and seat of the royal court.

The latter is the site of the Château de Versailles, the grandest and most famous palace in France. Built in the mid-1600s during the reign of Louis XIV, the chateau is a keen reminder of just how much one massive ego and a nation's wealth could buy in days of old (eat your heart out, Bill Gates). Apart from grand halls, bedchambers, gardens, ponds and fountains too elaborate to discuss, there's also a 75m (250ft) Hall of Mirrors, where nobles dressed like ninnies could watch each other dancing.

Canal Saint Martin
The little - touristed Saint Martin canal, running through the north-eastern districts of the Right Bank, is one of Paris' hidden delights. The 5km (3mi) waterway, parts of which are higher than the surrounding land, was built in 1806 to link the Seine with the much longer Canal de l'Ourcq. Its shaded towpaths - specked with sunlight filtering through the plane trees - are a wonderful place for a romantic stroll or bike ride past locks, metal bridges and unassuming but well turned-out Parisian neighborhoods.