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Place de la Bastille


In the 14th century, an eighttowered fortress was built here to defend the royal city. However, the city quickly expanded and the Bastille lost its military role. It became a prison, the cells of which symbolised the arbitrary nature of royal power. Six hundred rioters, mostly from the Faubourg Saint- Antoine, stormed it on 14 July 1789, and at the cost of one hundred deaths, they set free… six prisoners. The fortress was demolished soon afterwards, and the legend built. In the centre of the square, the Colonne de Juillet, crowned by a winged figure of Liberty, commemorates the revolutionary days of 1830 that also set alight this rebellious neighbourhood.






Opéra Bastille - Opéra national de Paris


Inaugurated on a certain 14 July 1989, it has brought ballets and orchestras to the industrial East, to form the Opéra national de Paris in tandem with the Palais Garnier. This imposing building by Carlos Ott has a modern elegance about it: state-of-the-art acoustics and technology, integrated decor and costume workshops, etc. Performances or guided visits provide the perfect opportunity to marvel at the blue granite, pear wood from China, and 2,700 black velvet seats in the great auditorium, white marble from Verona in the amphitheatre, and the Monde by Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely at the bottom of the central staircase…
Place de la Bastille (12e). M° Bastille. Tél. : 0 892 89 90 90 (0,34 €/min).
www.operadeparis.fr





Place de la République

The square’s huge dimensions were drawn up in 1854, at the convergence of the new Haussmannien boulevards. Its creation severed the boulevard du Temple from its most lively section, nicknamed the “boulevard of crime” in reference to the melodramas played out in its many theatres. Among the allegories of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, a nine and a halfmetre- high bronze Marianne was erected at the centre of the square. Draped with a classical toga and leaning on the Tables of Law, she brandishes an olive branch.






Cimetière du Père-Lachaise


This huge “city of the dead” owes its name to Père de La Chaise, the confessor of Louis XIV, who lived on this hill. Opened in 1804, the cemetery retained the little pathways, undulating topography, lime trees and chestnut trees of the former Jesuit domain. But that did not entice Parisian families to bury their dead in this disreputable area. It took the transfer of Héloïse and Abélard, and Molière and La Fontaine in 1817 to reverse the trend. From then onwards, a fashionable craze was to transform it into a mossy hillside museum of funerary art. Countesses, black cats, Gothic chapels and famous people – Apollinaire, Chopin, Colette, Éluard, Kardec (the father of Spiritism), Jim Morrison, Musset, Piaf, Proust, Oscar Wilde… weave a thousand tales that will capture your imagination and set you dreaming.
16, rue du Repos (20e). M° Père-Lachaise.Tlj, sauf jours fériés.