It is one of the best-known Paris landmarks. In the centrepiece of the Place Charles de Gaulle-Etoile, from where it .overlooks the Champs Elysées, this monument was built by Napoleon in 1806 and is  dedicated to the glory of the revolutionary army and the French army in general. It is adorned with reliefs and sculptures depicting scenes from Napoleon’s epic battles. At the base of the arch is the tomb of an unknown soldier, killed in the Great War; From the top of the Arch, you can enjoy a wonderful view and admirethe capital’s historic axis with the Avenue des Champs-Elysées, Place de la Concorde, Jardin des Tuileries and the Louvre on one side and the Arche de la Défense on the other.

    The Latin Quarter is the Left Bank's geographic and cerebral hub, which takes its name from the university tradition of studying and speaking in Latin, a practice that disappeared at the time of the French Revolution. The area is populated mainly by students and academics from the Sorbonne, the headquarters of the University of Paris. Most of the St-Germain cafés, where the likes of Sartre, Picasso and Hemingway spent their days and nights, are patronized largely by tourists now. Yet the Left Bank is far from dead. It is a lively and colorful district, rich in history and character.

    To the south, dwarfed beneath its 59-story Tower, lies Montparnasse, the bohemian center of interwar Paris. During the 17th century students from the Latin Quarter had jokingly given this area the pompous name of Mont Parnasse (Mount Parnassus). It developed during the 18th century into a center for popular entertainment, as bars, restaurants and cabarets -- which were at that time just outside the city boundaries -- could serve tax-free wine. That tradition survived even after the district became part of Paris during the latter half of the 19th century. While the area of Montmartre had been popular in bohemian circles through the 1890s, during the period immediately prior to World War I, artists and poets suddenly moved to Montparnasse on the Left Bank, thereby bringing it into the limelight and attracting painters and composers as well. Even Russian political refugees such as Lenin and Trotsky became a part of the intellectual community whose social life centered around four cafés on the boulevard Montparnasse -- la Coupole, le Select, la Rotonde, and le Dôme.