Its charm is certainly somehow magnetic for so many of us.  Always drawn back, we never seem to get enough of it.  The mere atmosphere one absorbs while just strolling in Paris is transfixing.

If you've not already checked out  the best known landmarks of Paris, we can give you some timing tips to help avoid the crowds at:

...la Tour Eiffel (illuminated at night and sparkling for ten minutes every hour on the hour) and l'Arc de Triomphe;

...la Basilique de Sacre Coeur on top of Montmartre hill overlooking the city and la Cathedrale de Notre Dame down in the center of Paris on one of the two small islands in the middle of the Seine River;

...le Musee du Louvre, formerly the royal residence and now with the beautiful glass pyramid (designed by I. M. Pei) in the courtyard serving as the main entrance to the museum; and the glass galleried former railroad station, Gare d'Orsay, now le Musee d'Orsay housing the wonderful collection of Impressionist paintings.

Each "quartier" (neighborhood) has its own special character. On the LEFT BANK (south side of the Seine River), the Quartier Latin near l'Universite de la Sorbonne, always a bit more "artsy", now has its own kind of "chic".

In the RIGHT BANK (north side of the Seine) are the Champs Elysees which leads to the beautiful large open plaza, la Place de la Concorde (originally the site of the guillotine); the Boulevard Haussman with its Belle Epoque department stores; the Marais district is the most recent "in" place to visit.  In addition to the new opera house and the Musee de Picasso, it's also the starting point for barging on the Canal St. Martin, up to the newly developed area known as La Villette, with its Cite de la Musique and Musee de la Science.

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L'ILE-de-FRANCE is the region surrounding Paris.  Within an hour or so from the center of Paris you'll find wonderful chateaux set in magnificent gardens, beautiful forests and small villages:  Versailles (the "Sun King" Louis XIV), Fontainebleau (Napoleon), Rambouillet (Louis XVI), Chateau de Vincennes (Charles V), Chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte (built for Nicolas Fouquet, the finance minister), Montmorency (the home of Jean-Jacques Rousseau)...and the villages of Auvers-sur-Oise and Barbizon, where so many of France's finest painters settled. Within this region also are the amusement parks of Disneyland Paris and Asterix (popular French cartoon character).