Arc de Triomphe

Napoleon commissioned this arch in 1806, right after his victory at Austerlitz, but he never got to walk through it as Emperor. Construction took thirty years, and by the time it was finished in 1836, Napoleon had been exiled, returned, been exiled again, and died. His body did eventually pass under the arch in 1840, when his remains were brought back from Saint Helena.

The arch sits at the center of the Place de l'Étoile — the "star" — where twelve avenues radiate outward. Driving around it is one of the most terrifying traffic experiences in the world: no lane markings, no traffic lights, and insurance companies in France consider accidents in this roundabout to be automatically shared liability because assigning fault is basically impossible.

Beneath the arch lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, placed here in 1921, with an eternal flame that has been rekindled every evening at 6:30 PM without interruption since 1923. During the Nazi occupation, German soldiers marched past it daily, but even they didn't dare extinguish the flame — it had become too powerful a symbol.

In 2021, the artist Christo (who had died the year before) fulfilled a sixty-year dream: wrapping the entire Arc de Triomphe in 25,000 square meters of silvery-blue fabric. It was temporary — just sixteen days — and drew five million visitors. The project had been in Christo's head since he'd lived in Paris as a young refugee in 1961.