Paris is often called the "Capital of the World". It was founded in the 3rd century. BC. Celts who called themselves "Parisians". Since then, 23 centuries have passed: the settlements of the Gauls, the legions of Caesar, the invasions of barbarians, dynasties and regimes, conspiracies and revolutions, the great of this world and billions of unknown ones have created, probably, the most beautiful c...

Paris may not open to Russians right away. Our standardized cities, devoid of real aesthetics, seem to blind us. The mere fact that in Moscow ancient mansions and churches are being destroyed and built with “new buildings” speaks for itself. In Paris, we often look like people who have closed their eyes from the bright light, who have found themselves in the sun, where they feel good and warm, but...

Evening Paris... These words alone are enough to spur the imagination! Night illumination, new angles and discoveries of a seemingly familiar city...

And new neighborhoods that you didn’t have time to see in daylight... Not to mention restaurants, night bars, all kinds of entertainment venues… You will find in this excursion both new sensations and new, useful information... It is difficult to imag...

Paris enchants everyone at any age. In a child's room, you want more entertainment than aesthetics, pleasure rather than discovery. Therefore, we try to adapt our excursions to children's tastes.

Ride on a carousel during a sightseeing tour, admire a fountain made from characters from children's fairy tales, feed pigeons by hand, ride a pony, see some kind of street performance, drop into an aquari...

Russians in France of the 20th century – this is one of the most dramatic and vibrant pages of our culture. And, first of all, this concerns the capital of France.

In Paris there is a number of unique churches and the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, through which the entire Russian emigration passed. Icons of the White Guard units are still kept in the cathedral; the Russian Tsar came here, Picasso and...

The French are sophisticated gardeners, probably leading the way in this art since the 17th century. Paris is the capital of France, so the uniqueness of its parks is not surprising.

Of course, this is the most central park in Paris - the Luxembourg Garden (Jardin du Luxembourg), glorified by poets and artists and founded by the famous queen, Catherine de Medici. Previously, the Paris meridian pass...

Tragic and joyful stories of renowned individuals in Paris.

Paris, a stunning city, is a compilation of love tales between famous individuals from various eras. Philosopher Abelard, Napoleon, Balzac, Dumas, French monarchs and their attendants, Victor Hugo, Chopin, George Sand, Toulouse Lautrec, Modigliani, Anna Akhmatova, Edith Piaf, and many others have documented their romantic stories and life ...

The history of Mount Parnassus (which is what the word "Montparnasse" literally means) began in the 16th century, when students expelled by the construction of the monastery from a favorite place of meetings and duels - Pré-aux-Claires - moved here, calling the ancient stone quarries the mountain of muses.

Since the era of the French Revolution, many cafes and cabarets have sprung up in this quarte...

Once upon a time, his black and white portrait hung in every intelligent Khrushchev building. Sweater, gray beard, narrowed eyes. A hunter of lions, a hunter of fish and beautiful women, in the end — on yourself.

A hunter of lions, a hunter of fish and beautiful women, in the end — on yourself. Ernest Hemingway. This name has a smell. It smells of salt and snow. It smells of blood, sadness and also...

This excursion will give you a general idea of ​​this magnificent city with its unique architecture, where many styles and traditions intertwined and mixed and the Madrid we see today appeared.

Alcalá Street - this is where kings entered the city – leads directly to the Royal Palace. Officially, there is no main city street in Madrid. However, many will certainly agree that Gran Via, whose name tra...

As is known, Dumas “played” in the Lyon library the diaries of a certain D’Artagnan, captain of the royal musketeers who served under Louis XIV.

As a result of artistic processing, D'Artagnan was transferred to the time of Louis XIII, the father of Louis XIV, and the names of his friends and enemies, found in various memoirs and diaries, acquired features and biographies that in no way corresponded...

Situated on the banks of the Garone River, near the Atlantic coast, Bordeaux is one of the largest ports in Europe, a major commercial and cultural center, and the world capital of fine wines. This is a unique architectural monument, which is often called “little Paris”. Victor Hugo said about him: “Bordeaux is an interesting, original and perhaps unique city. Take Versailles, mix it with Antwerp ...

The Gironde department (French Gironde, Occitan Gironda) and its main city Bordeaux have lived in the rhythm of growing and harvesting grapes for 2000 years. The first grape seedlings were planted in the 1st century after Christ by the Gallic tribe of Biturigi vivisci, who founded the city of Burdigala – Bordeaux. Today, the vineyards of Bordeaux extend across the department's 500 to 542 districts...

The Dordogne Valley attracts tourists with its tranquil beauty, brightness and diversity of landscapes, picturesque villages, cities, its world-famous caves and grottoes with rock paintings of primitive man.

The Dordogne River is one of the longest and most beautiful rivers in France. It flows in the southwest of France and originates in the Auvergne mountains and flows into the Garonne, with which...

Paris is more than twenty centuries old. Moreover, over the past seventeen centuries it has been and remains the capital of a state that has played and continues to play one of the most important roles in the history of world culture and politics.

It is not surprising that so many ancient active architectural structures have been preserved here, which is simply impossible to imagine in any other ci...

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Paris was the most attractive city in the world. Thanks to the urban planning work of Baron Haussmann, people come here from all over the world to look at entire blocks of palace houses, dizzying vistas of the streets, a harmonious combination of centuries-old history and modernity...

Paris is also the epicenter of new emerging trends and trends in art - ...

We would like to offer you a series of excursions and pilgrimages to the holy places of France.

One cannot admire the beauty, the customs, the preservation of which for centuries and millennia cannot but evoke deep respect, the traditions and cultural heritage, the aromas and variety of wines and cheeses, the splendor of palaces and the luxury of gardens, and not remember the spiritual heritage of ...

Paris was and is famous for its theaters. Their interiors, schools. There are so many of them here - public, private, cooperative, world famous, exclusively French....

Each theater is a separate building, an architectural gem, inside which, like a jewelry box, are hidden breathtaking interiors and decorations. We must not forget that modern French theater is a combination of at least three great Fr...

Streets of the Neva, Peter the Great, golden domes with Orthodox crosses, mosaics. "Russian Corner" in the center of the cold, prim and bourgeois Haussmannian Paris. “It’s very interesting, very original, very beautiful.” – Napoleon III exclaimed when he saw the plans for the future Russian church, and allocated a small piece of land on Daru Street for construction.

The first stone was laid in 1859...

Haute Couture was born in Paris at the court of Marie Antoinette. In a very characteristic, but unexpected form – in the form of ideas, not outfits. At this time, the first “haute couture” (Haute Couture) outfits appeared, or rather their ideas, which were embodied at court in accordance with the ideal…

The next stage – This is the post-revolutionary time, when a number of fundamental changes occur...

Paris during the Second Empire. Ladies in ball gowns with dizzying necklines and huge crinolines, monsieurs in black tailcoats and high top hats, brilliant courtesans. Music by Verdi and short stories by Maupassant,

World Exhibitions, Salon of Les Misérables, Manet's Olympia, the beginning of impressionism, Sarah Bernhardt. The city center, turned into a gigantic construction site - the Grand Opera...

Royal Palace (Palacio Real de Madrid) – the largest of all the royal palaces in Europe existing today and one of the main attractions of Madrid. The palace is the official residence of the kings of Spain. However, now King Felipe VI does not live in it, and the palace is used for ceremonies and as one of the museums of Madrid.

National Museum of Prado — one of the largest and most important museums...

Marais is the quarter where kings lived in the 14th-16th centuries. It starts behind the City Hall, in which (in the previous building) the ball described by Dumas in the story with the queen’s pendants was held, and ends at the Place de la Bastille,

where the column with the Genius of Freedom rises and the modern Opera building flaunts. The outlines of the former fortress are paved with cobbleston...

Annecy is a city where there is no bad mood, a city near the cleanest lake in Europe.

One view of this corner of France can fill the souls of travelers with pleasure and harmony, invigorate you if you are tired or heal your stress and depression. Snow-capped mountain peaks are reflected in the mirror surface of the lake.

Opposite these Alpine ridges on the shore lies a medieval city with winding str...

The Cité is the heart of Paris and France. The French state was born and took shape here. In the 3rd century. BC. Celtic tribes "Parisians" settled here. In the 1st century BC. The Cité is the center of a Gallo-Roman province with a Roman fortress, church, houses, baths, market…

On the site of the first Roman churches today stands Notre-Dame de Paris with its unique relics, history, bas-reliefs, sc...

The Church of Saint-Germain (Saint-Germain-des-Près) is the oldest in Paris, the only one of which a significant part dates back to the Romanesque era.

Its construction began in the 11th century, on the site of a previous church where the kings of the Merovingian dynasty were buried. Around the church for centuries there was a monastery, probably the largest in Europe. Members of royal families ser...

Lyon, founded over 2,000 years ago at the confluence of the Rhone and Saone rivers, was once called Lugdunum and was the capital of the Gauls. Today it is the second largest city in France.

Two majestic ancient theaters and Gallo-Roman ruins – Fourviere and Saint-Romain-en-Gal in the south of Lyon represent the most important European archaeological center after Rome. Proof of this is the Museum of...

The Stone Age is divided into the Old Stone Age, or Paleolithic, and the New Stone Age, or Neolithic. The Paleolithic is the era of the existence of fossil humans and belongs to that distant time when the climate of the Earth and its flora and fauna were quite different from modern ones.

Neolithic - New Stone Age, or the age of polished stone.

The Ice Age, and with it the megafauna and species diver...

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In the South-West of France, near the city of Bordeaux, on the Charente River, the city of Cognac is located, which gave its name to the now famous strong drink throughout the world. The city essentially owes its birth to Roman settlements on the banks of the river. The Romans called it Conniacum, but later the name was simplified.

Then the Vandals replaced the Romans, followed by the Visigoths, th...

Traveling through the magical Burgundy, famous for its architectural masterpieces, castles, wine cellars and fabulous landscapes, will give you the chance to reveal the secrets of France and even the whole of Europe. After all, Burgundy once included modern Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg.

So, having become acquainted even in passing with the huge European heritage, having taken a ride through the ...

Less than a kilometer separates the Louvre with the throne rooms that were once located in it from the Place de Greve, which for many centuries served as a place of execution.

And this almost kilometer is literally overflowing not just with historically significant buildings, but with entire districts, more or less known to the Russian reader from French fiction…

The Palais Royal is known from the e...

Brittany… Rocky shores covered with heather, trembling under the pressure of ocean waves; a wind saturated with iodine, salt and the spicy smell of herbs - this is Brittany. Golden beaches, many kilometers long, washed by purple waters - this is also Brittany, the most aristocratic French resort. A modern miracle. Not multi-storey - there are castles at every step, the Middle Ages with houses expa...

Morbilhan - translated from Breton - means "little sea". The unique configuration of the bay, a large influx of fresh water, strong currents and a warm microclimate have created its unique landscape over the centuries.

The “Little Sea”, with an area of ​​12 thousand hectares, is surrounded by land on almost all sides. Numerous islands in the bay are hilltops that have been submerged by rising sea l...

French Taj Mahal, temple of love and eternal youth.

No doubt you have heard of the Indian Love Monument – the Taj Mahal mosque-mausoleum, built by order of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died in childbirth.

In the Rhône-Alpes region near Lyon, in the city of Bourg-en-Bresse, Ain department, there is its own monument to love and eternal life. In the desolate mar...

One of the richest and most brilliant rivals of the French crown. In the 15th century Burgundy owned not only a significant part of today's France, but also most of the modern territory of Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Probably, the most brilliant courtyard in Europe of the 14th-15th centuries is located here. In the 12th century. This is where the Gothic style was born. The landscapes of Burgun...

The first mention of winemaking between Lyon and Macon dates back to the mid-10th century, and in 1395 the cultivation of the “black Gamay with white juice” grape variety (Camay Noir a jus Blanc) was officially permitted only in the Beaujolais region (Beaujolais) and is simultaneously prohibited throughout the rest of Burgundy. Now two thirds of all world plantings of the Gamay variety are in Beau...

It is difficult to recognize the boundaries between color and light here; the dizzying beauty extends for tens of kilometers, and where it seemed that the eye could no longer recognize or distinguish, the Alpine mountains act as a contrasting background. Cold shades of eternally snow-capped mountains, like nothing better, highlight the fullness of saturation and variety of color.

The route runs fro...

Poitiers (Poitiers, ancient Limonum) is a city in France, on the Maple River (Loire basin) - the main city of the historical region of Poitou and the administrative center of the Vienne department, a fairly large and busy city. On the site of a fortress of the Celtic tribe of Pictavia, the city of Limonum arose in the Gallo-Roman era. It was one of the most important Roman metropolises in Aquitain...

Already in the 2nd century. there was a Roman church on the hill. In the 3rd century. here the first bishop of the city of Paris, St. Dionysius, who became the patron saint of the French royal dynasties, was beheaded. It was at the site of this execution, 13 centuries later, that Ignatius of Loyola founded the Jesuit order.

Until the end of the 18th century. on the hill there were quarries where li...

Albie – capital of the Tarn department, Languedoc. It is located on a hill above the Tarn River, west of Toulouse.

The history of the city is inextricably linked with the history of Christianity. The heretical teaching, known in Europe under the name of the Cathar heresy, is also called the Albigensian heresy, i.e. heresy of the Albi region. To suppress this heresy, the Pope organized a crusade in ...

There are two zoos and two aquariums in Paris.

The ancient aviary-type zoo is located in the Bois de Vincennes (Bois De Vincennes). The cage-type zoo is located in the area of ​​Austerlitz Station (Gare d'Austerlitz).

It is located on the territory of an ancient botanical garden, founded before the French Revolution. A paleontology museum was also built on the territory of this botanical garden.

An incredibly beautiful medieval city, located on a hilltop, with fortifications and towers from the 13th-15th centuries. It was once an impregnable fortress. Many ancient houses surrounded by small vineyards serve as a picturesque setting for the impressive cathedral - an architectural monument of the 13th-16th centuries. The whole city is a single whole, visible from afar - one of the most spect...

If you want to plunge a little into a fairy tale – welcome to the museum of wax figures and magical effects!

This is a building that itself has such impressive interiors from the brilliant era of the second half of the 19th century that it would be worth a visit for them alone!

Several rooms are dedicated to special effects that will enchant both you and your children.

But the most interesting thing ...

Saint Denis Cathedral is older than Notre Dame Cathedral. In the crypt, in the underground part of the cathedral, are the tombs of the French kings.

Here there are sarcophagi decorated with sculptural images in which the bodies of the dead French kings rested. During the French Revolution, their remains were thrown into nearby ditches. However, after the revolution, the bones were collected and, si...

Half an hour's drive from Saint Michel is the town of Saint-Malo. The famous Emerald Coast of France begins here. Rugged coast: sometimes rocky, sometimes beachy, yachts, boats, a truly emerald sea...

For those who in childhood were attracted by the adventures of corsairs and the open spaces of the sea, San Malo will seem like a living illustration for adventure books. It was from here that these f...

Champagne - translated into Russian means: country of fields. And indeed, there is a wide French field here. Thanks to medieval monasteries, some of these fields have long been used to grow vineyards - the northernmost in France and probably in Europe.

And in the 17th century, in the amazing era of Louis XIV, a certain monk named Dom Perignon (House from the Latin domus - “lord”, an appeal to a cle...

Père Lachaise - literally Father Lachaise, confessor of the royal chair, i.e. king. The confessor of Louis XIV, Père Lachaise, was buried here, after whom the cemetery is named.

In this cemetery, in ancient, exquisite crypts decorated with statues of famous sculptors, celebrities are buried - the pride of France:

Jean-Baptiste Moliere, Jean de La Fontaine, Honoré de Balzac, Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, ...

In the 1st century AD there was a small Roman settlement here – Divio (wonderful, divine – thanks to the purity of the local river). In the Middle Ages it was a powerful, well-defended city. In the 11th century it becomes the capital of Burgundy. During the XIV-XV centuries. The Burgundian dukes claim absolute power in the French kingdom. The ancestor of the Burgundian branch of Valois is consider...

It is located at the border of two regions - Brittany and Normandy. These areas are most visited by European tourists, especially English ones. For our compatriots they still remain “terra incognita”. Meanwhile, there is something to see here: before us, in fact, there are not two regions, but two original countries, each of which is a fairy tale.

Mont Saint-Michel is an island monastery where eart...

As one of the most picturesque cities in France, Reims offers tourists the charm of the French countryside. Here the historical past and the present day coexist harmoniously: Roman arches, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the 17th and 18th centuries, Art Nouveau and Art Deco...

The leisurely lifestyle of the French provinces does not seem to have changed much over the centuries, when celebratory p...

Southern Burgundy is a country of its own.

Wine lovers will find a real treat here. Chalon and Maconian wines are among the finest wines of Burgundy; they have the characteristic taste of Burgundy wines, and the prices here are much more attractive than the prices of wines from the famous Gold Coast. Is it possible, having been here, not to try all this taste and olfactory diversity?

A lot of finds ...

Bon. Once the capital of a duchy no less powerful than medieval France, Beaune is very picturesque and somewhat reminiscent of Bruges. Probably the tastes of the Duke of Burgundy, who owned a significant part of Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg, played an important role in its construction.

The old part is surrounded by a powerful wall of the 15th century, inside which – palaces, including the remai...

What can compare with Parisian museums?

With the Louvre, whose collections originate from a gift from Leonardo da Vinci... With the Orsay Museum - the former Orleans Station, which showed clocks in the 19th century. different times - Paris and Orleans, and where today a unique collection of works of the 19th and early 20th centuries is kept. ... With the Center Georges Pompidou, with the Picasso, I...

In the old quarter of Paris, next to the 12th-century fortress wall and fashionable mansions of the 16th and 17th centuries, is the cozy Museum of Magic.

The history of this art is represented by various devices, devices - all kinds of means that were used by magicians and magicians in Europe. A short performance awaits you showing tricks and revealing the secrets of some of them.

After walking arou...

Chenonceau. A castle-bridge spanning a tributary of the Loire, the Cher River. Probably the most beautiful of all Loire castles. The right to own it was disputed by Henry II's lover, Diane de Poitiers, and his wife, Catherine de' Medici. The castle has seen dozens of kings and queens, the famous feasts of Catherine de Medici and her voluptuous court. From here Mary Stuart left for her homeland.

Vilandry. The only complex of parks and gardens in Europe, including philosophical gardens, gardens of love, heraldic and vegetable gardens... They are located on three levels: the top - the water surface of ponds, the middle - musical instruments and love feelings, the bottom - garlands of colorful vegetables... In addition, there is a labyrinth, a garden of medicinal herbs, magnificent centuries...

Angers. From the 2nd century AD – it is the capital of the Andean tribe. In 898, the Ruler of Angers, Fulk the Red, founded the Angevin dynasty, independent of the French kings and playing a significant role in the history of Europe. In 1092, the French king Philip Augustus kidnapped the beautiful countess from the Angevin count and married her.

Thus begins the enmity between the Angevin house and ...

Chaumont. This castle was Catherine de Medici's favorite castle. While her husband, Henry II, was king, France obeyed his beloved – the famous Diane de Poitiers. Diana herself lived several tens of kilometers away – at the Chateau de Chenonceau. Of course, the word “lived” used here in its relative meaning, because the nobility in those days owned both castles in the provinces and palaces in Paris...