Paris to the Mediterranean: Coasts & Cafés

The airport for Puerto La Cruz in northeast on the Caribbean. Isla de Margarita is off the coast.

Southeast of Cordoba in southern Spain, Granada was occupied by the Moors until Castilian troops took it over in 1492 ending the Moor reign.

Motril is its second largest town and to some, the name is synonymous with sugar and sugar cane, which is the basis of its economy.

Portugal is for explorers. Its valiant seamen first charted the Azores, discovered Japan, and unlocked the major sea routes the world over. Now you can share the anticipation they must have felt as you explore this exciting city.

You’ll discover an 8th-century Moorish castle, quaint cafes and a palm-studded coastline. The Alfama district is a maze of narrow, twisting streets, whitewashed houses, flowered balconies, archways, terraces and courtyards that charm your socks off. (And if you can find your way out of this dizzying array, 20th-century Lisbon is just as intoxicating.)

Of course, if you’d rather play by the sea, the Portuguese Riviera lies just outside town, offering something for everyone, from sun, sand and surf to thrilling casinos. Lisbon is a vast garden abounding with flowers and tropical plants. The city’s appeal lies in the magnificent vistas from its many belvederes and in the tree-lined avenues and squares decorated with mosaic pavements.

Nice (nês), city (1990 pop. 342,439), capital of Alpes-Maritimes dept., SE France, on the Mediterranean Sea. This famous French Riviera resort relies mostly on tourists, but electronics and other manufactures are important. Nice probably originated as a Greek colony in the 5th cent. B.C. Sardinia held it from 1814 to 1860, when a plebiscite gave it to France.

It lies just west of Monaco and enjoys moderate weather during the winter months and lovely warm weather in the Spring and Summer. Whether you are just driving through or staying, Nice is a very nice place to stay! Many great hotels and restaurants are to be found along the coastline and in the surrounding hills overlooking the Mediterranean.

As the French capital, Paris is the commercial, financial, and industrial focus of France, a major transportation hub, and a cultural and intellectual center of international renown. A beautiful city in which tourism is the main industry, Paris is cut by the Seine River. On its stately, formal right (northern) bank are many of the most fashionable streets and shops, and such landmarks as the Arc de Triomphe, Place de la Concorde, Louvre, and Sacré Coeur.

The left bank houses governmental offices and is the site of much of the city’s intellectual life. It is known for its old Latin Quarter and for such landmarks as the Sorbonne, the Luxembourg Palace, the Panthéon, and the modern Pompidou Center (see Beaubourg). The historic core of Paris is the Île de la Cité, a small island occupied in part by the Palais de Justice and the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris. Above the city rises the Eiffel Tower. Paris is divided into 20 arrondissements (boroughs) and governed by a mayor.

A fishing village when it was conquered (52 B.C.) by Caesar, it became an important Roman town. It was a Merovingian capital in the 5th cent. and became the national capital with the accession (987) of Hugh Capet, count of Paris. It flowered as the center of medieval commerce and scholasticism but suffered severely during the Hundred Years War. Paris consistently displayed a rebellious and independent spirit, as in its resistance to Henry IV (1589-93); the first Fronde (1648-49); the revolutions of 1789, 1830, and 1848; and the Commune of Paris (1871). During World War II it was occupied (1940-44) by the Germans but was relatively undamaged.

Rome wasn’t built in a day…but you can tour it in just over 10 hours. A teeming anthill of humanity and antiquity intermingled with awful traffic jams, Rome grew up on the Tiber (“Fiume Tevere”) among seven low hills that rise from the river’s soggy eastern banks. It’s a city of many peeling layers of history, of which the bottom layer–that of the earliest Roman centuries–is the most interesting and still astonishingly whole. The hub of this layer is the Palatine Hill, the Forum, the Colosseum and the Circus Maximus.

On the western bank is the Citta Vaticana, the independent papal city where the Pope blesses pilgrims from all over the world. Neighboring Trastevere (“Across the Tiber”) is a mix of Roman, Greek and Jewish subcultures, great for little restaurants and nightlife. Further north on the other bank is “vecchia Roma,” medieval Rome of the Pantheon and Piazza Navona; Renaissance Rome is centered south of the Corso Vittorio Emanuele. Commercial Rome is the city of the Via del Corso, the Piazza del Popolo, the controversial Victor Emmanuel monument and finally the Stazione Termini, the nexus for all trains and roads from Rome.

This historical city, located in Andalusia, is one of the world’s most beautiful cities and contains many landmarks, including the Moorish Alcazar and the Gothic Cathedral. Seville was also the site of the 1992 world’s fair.