Let's get the obvious out of the way first. The "Iron Lady," as it is nicknamed by the French, was built for the 1889 World's Fair. It can be seen from all over Paris and by the end of 2009 nearly 250 million people had visited it.
The Army established a temporary cemetery in Normandy in 1944 for comrades lost on D-Day and its aftermath. The first American cemetery in Europe in World War II is now the burial site of 9,387 members of the U.S. military. Situated in Colleville-sur-Mer, the cemetery is perched on a cliff with a view of Omaha Beach.
The "Bonne Mere" of the southern city of Marseille sits atop one of its highest hills, overlooking the city and the Mediterranean. The gilded lady that tops the church gazes toward Marseille's port, to guard people at sea.
Truly a monument to excess, Versailles, just outside Paris, was the seat of power for Louis XIV, who moved the government here from the city. It is made up of the main palace building, the Grand Trianon and Marie-Antoinette's estate and gardens, which would take a day to walk.
A Benedictine Abbey and church occupy this rocky island off the northern coast of France in the English Channel. The main facade of the church was built in the 12th century. You can reach it via a natural land bridge that becomes flooded at high tide, turning the site into an island.
This church, about an hour's drive from Paris, is amazingly well-preserved considering that the current structure was dedicated in the year 1260. It houses the Sancta Camisia, said to be the tunic of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
You might not expect to find ancient Roman ruins in France but, in the heart of the Old Town of Lyon, there they are. The Romains de Fourviere were built in 15 B.C. and are still used in summer for the Nights of Fourviere festival.
Near Notre Dame on Ile de la Cite in Paris, a monument was erected to pay homage to the 200,000 people--Jews as well as French Resistance fighters--deported from Paris to Nazi death camps in the 1940s.
About 50 miles south of Bordeaux, on top of a hill, there is a farmhouse. It has a monument to the 76 French Resistance fighters killed here in an ambush by Germans in July 1944. The site also holds their 76 graves.
At the end of the Champs-Elysees in Paris stands this 75-foot, needle-like monument, brought to France from the temple of Ramses II in Egypt. It looks over Place de la Concorde, where Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI were beheaded.
