Paris' major business district, La Défense holds many of the urban area's tallest high-rises, and is actually Europe's largest business district.

AKA the "ENSB-A". Beaux Arts has a history going on over 350 years, training many Europe's greatest artists. The school's style was modeled on classical "antiquities," preserving these idealized forms and passing the style on to future generations.

Every major city in the world has a University, why would Paris be any different? Just because it's the city of love doesn't mean that they don't value a good education! In fact, the French are kind of snooty about their education, they love it even. Are you a student going to class? A Professor getting ready to give another boring lecture on the importance of adverbs? Or are you just looking for a little information that's not going to be found at the Public Libraries?

Collège de France is a very special place. Each professor is required to give lectures where attendance is free and open to anyone, though some high-level courses are not open to the general public. The professors are chosen from among the foremost researchers of the day, with no requirement other than that of being at the top of their fields. It's really a rather awesome place to learn something new.

Formerly this building used to house many various military training facilities. Technically, it's not much different now. It's still training people to fight, seeing as how the Collège interarmées de défense (Joint defence college), and the Institut des hautes études de défense nationale (Institute of High Studies of National Defence) are located here now.