Fourvière, Lyon

Home for Catholic Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière in Lyon, France, this place is nick named as the "hill that prays" because of the vast religious influence. With the combination of the basilica and the hill side with the town view, Fourvière provides an eye catching scenery to visit and worship. Not to mention that this was the site of Lugdunum's original Roman settlement too. We all know that how magnificent Eiffel is and as a result of a rivalry a similar tower named La Tour Métallique was built on the hill. As a matter of fact, this one stands higher than Eiffel due to its surface being on a hill.

The main attraction of Fourvière is of course the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière. Its construction details date back around year 1872 and head responsible for the design of the basilica was Pierre Bossan. The building mainly has four main towers with a belltower topped with a gilded statue of the Virgin Mary of gold. The reason behind the basilica being devoted to Virgin Mary is that she saved the city Lyon from Cholera endemic in 1823 and each year people of Lyon light candles which is called as the Festival of Lights as a remembrance of her great service and gratitude.

A museum of Sacred Art is seen within the basilica and visitors are allowed for tour trips of it. Other attractions of Lyon and Fourvière include Parc de la Tete d'Or; Park of Rose garden and zoo, Gite-Loutarde, Theatres Romains de Fourviere and the Presqu'ile.

Travellers' Guide

Villa Florentine 
25 montee Saint-Barthelemy, 69005 Lyon, France
33472565656
Grand Hotel des Terreaux 
16 rue Lanterne, 69001 Lyon, France
Hotel de la Cite Concorde
22, quai Charles de Gaulle, 69006 Lyon, France
+33 (0) 4 78 17 86 73
Cour des Loges 
2, 4, 6, 8 rue du Boeuf, 69005 Lyon, France
Sofitel Lyon Bellecour
20, quai Gailleton, 69002 Lyon, France

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Louvre Museum

Located on the right bank of the Seine, Louvre Museum is one of the world’s largest museums with nearly 35, 000 objects in display over 60,600 square metres. Museum is located at the Louvre Palace built in the late 12th century under Philip II. It was officially opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings. But it was closed again in 1796 because of structural problems but was opened again in 1801. The museum’s artifacts are divided into eight curatorial departments as Egyptian Antiquities; Near Eastern Antiquities; Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculpture; Decorative Arts; Paintings; Prints and Drawings.

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Mont Saint-Michel

Found in France, one kilometer off the north-western coast near the mouth of the Couesnon River at Avranches, Mont Saint- Michel, earlier known as Monte Tombe”, can be described as a vital point of fortifications since 8th century AD. In earlier times, the bay was a land which was shaped into today’s landscape and several blocks of granite, granulite rose up which later became Lillemer, the Mont-Dol, Tombelaine and Mont Tombe, later called Mont-Saint-Michel. 

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Palace of Versailles

20km southwest of Paris is the beautiful country side of France;Versailles which is enchantingly famous for the castle of King Louis XIV known as Palace of Versailles. The first ever seigneur of Versailles mentioned was Hugues de Versailles and then in 1575, Albert de Gondi bought the Versailles. Gondi had invited King Louis XIII for hunting trips near Versailles during early 17th century which resulted in construction of a hunting lodge in 1624 as the king was pleased. After few years later King Louis XII gained the ownership of Versailles his son, Louis XIV became familiar with the place since he was a boy.  When Louis XIV became king, he renovated the château in Versailles which was the hunting lodge earlier into one of the biggest castles in the world. Its constructions and renovations began in 1661 using the master minds of architect Louis Le Vau, landscape architect André Le Nôtre, and painter-decorator Charles Le Brun. King Louis XIV moved the capital of France to this castle at Versailles from Paris and officially settled down there on 6 May, 1682.

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English Channel

Separating the Northern France and Southern England lies the English Channel also joining the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about 560 km long and varies in width from 240 km at its widest, to only 34 km in the Strait of Dover. It is the smallest of the shallow seas around the continental shelf of Europe, covering an area of some 75,000 km2. It is believed that the name “English Channel” was from the designation "Engelse Kanaal" in Dutch sea maps from the 16th century onwards. It was also known as the British Sea, and it was called the "Oceanus Britannicus" by the 2nd century geographer Ptolemy. The channel has been a huge advantage for British specially acting as a natural defense blocking many invasions and as a link between cultures of neighbouring countries.

Around 10,000 years ago, before the end of the Devensian glaciations, the British Isles were part of continental Europe. During this period the North Sea and almost all of the British Isles were covered with ice. The sea level was about 120 m lower than it is today, and the channel was an expanse of low-lying tundra, through which passed a river which drained the Rhine and Thames towards the Atlantic to the west. As the ice sheet melted, a large freshwater lake formed in the southern part of what is now the North Sea. As the melt water could still not escape to the north the outflow channel from the lake entered the Atlantic Ocean in the region of Dover and Calais.

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Eiffel Tower

Once the tallest structure in the world, Eiffel Tower has been the iconic symbol for Paris and to the France.  It was built in 1889 as a puddle iron lattice tower standing magnificently above all. The tower is the tallest building in Paris and the most-visited paid monument in the world; millions of people ascend it every year. Named after its designer, engineer Gustave Eiffel, the tower was built as the entrance arch to the 1889 World's Fair. The tower stands 324 metres (1,063 ft) tall, about the same height as an 81-storey building. The tower has three levels for visitors. Tickets can be purchased to ascend, by stairs or lift, to the first and second levels. The walk from ground level to the first level is over 300 steps, as is the walk from the first to the second level. The third and highest level is accessible only by elevator. Both the first and second levels feature restaurants.

Three hundred workers joined together 18,038 pieces of puddle iron (a very pure form of structural iron), using two and a half million rivets, in a structural design by Maurice Koechlin. Eiffel was assisted in the design by engineers Émile Nouguier and Maurice Koechlin and architect Stephen Sauvestre. The risk of accident was great as, unlike modern skyscrapers, the tower is an open frame without any intermediate floors except the two platforms. However, because Eiffel took safety precautions, including the use of movable stagings, guard-rails and screens, only one man died. The tower was inaugurated on 31 March 1889, and opened on 6 May. Eiffel had a permit for the tower to stand for 20 years; it was to be dismantled in 1909, when its ownership would revert to the City of Paris. The City had planned to tear it down (part of the original contest rules for designing a tower was that it could be easily demolished) but as the tower proved valuable for communication purposes, it was allowed to remain after the expiry of the permit. The military used it to dispatch Parisian taxis to the front line during the First Battle of the Marne.

The pig iron structure of the Eiffel Tower weighs 7,300 tonnes while the entire structure, including non-metal components, is approximately 10,000 tonnes. As a demonstration of the economy of design, if the 7,300 tonnes of the metal structure were melted down it would fill the 125 metre square base to a depth of only 6 cm (2.36 in), assuming the density of the metal to be 7.8 tonnes per cubic metre. Depending on the ambient temperature, the top of the tower may shift away from the sun by up to 18 cm (7.1 in) because of thermal expansion of the metal on the side facing the sun. Researchers have found that Eiffel used empirical and graphical methods accounting for the effects of wind rather than a specific mathematical formula. Careful examination of the tower shows a basically exponential shape; actually two different exponentials, the lower section overdesigned to ensure resistance to wind forces. Several mathematical explanations have been proposed over the years for the success of the design; the most recent is described as a nonlinear integral equation based on counterbalancing the wind pressure on any point on the tower with the tension between the construction elements at that point. As a demonstration of the tower's effectiveness in wind resistance, it sways only 6–7 cm (2–3 in) in the wind.

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