During one’s first visit, one cannot avoid the traditional and timeless attractions of Paris like the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral, Louvre museum and Pompidou Center, the last one considered most avant-garde up to the turn of the century. Then there is, of course, the most atmospheric area of Montmartre and the banks of Seine River, where painters of every hue run their small kiosks. In the evening while the younger visitors converge to the steps of Sacre Coeur in Montmartre, the well-heeled ones take up every available cafes on both sides of Champs Elysees that start from the Arc de Triomphe.

For repeat visitors and tourists with more time on their hands, Paris, however, has a lot more to offer, particularly the new sites and complexes built in recent times. Anyone revisiting Paris after an extended absence will be surprised to see all the construction going on across the city. To the list of Parisian monuments and sights, already considered to be of infinite length, have been added the “Seven World Wonders of Francois Mitterrand”, after its culture-friendly former president. The expanded and spruced up Louvre (with its new Glass Pyramid), which turned it into the world’s largest and best equipped museum is an important part of the Mitterrand vision. However, for those who are interested in modern art, one would recommend an exciting new museum.

Housed in a 17th century Renaissance mansion in the now fashionable Marais district is Picasso’s payment-in-kind to the taxman. His family chose to meet the huge inheritance tax levy with a portion of his personal art and memorabilia collection. T

he congenial Musee Picasso offers an undiluted impression of this prolific genius, while the pleasant enough garden at the rear provides a place to ponder it all over delicious fruit tarts. While standing at the controversially famous or famously controversial glass pyramid of Louvre, if you face eastward, you will see that there is a straight line, several kilometres in length, connecting the Tuileries, Champs Elysees, Arch de Triomph and the Avenue de la Grande Armee. Just beyond this vista is the gigantic “Grande Arche de la Defence”.

La Grande Arche is a spectacular symbol of contemporary architecture and described as “the ultimate monument of the century”. This is a gigantic open cube shaped edifice, which stands resplendent in the La Defence district, “the Manhattan on the Seine”, with its sleek skyscrapers, shopping centres and open esplanades. Those who disapproved the modernistic glass pyramid must be frozen in horror at what has happened at Parc de la Villette.

Here is the La Cite’ des Sciences et de l’industrie, a park of innovation, futuristic architecture, outrageous experiment and sheer good fun. It’s a remarkable development of walks, monuments, squares and buildings created to inspire, educate, amuse and (probably) aggravate. But while the detractors sneer, the fact is that the Parc de la Villette has already become the city of lights third most visited site, after the Eiffel Tower and the Pompidou Centre both of which incidentally were considered appalling examples of modernistic architecture when they opened. In the east of the city at the Bastille, one comes across the imposing new Opera House, which in terms of its architecture is, well, quite novel.

Reminiscent of a stranded whale, the building is located on the very site, which saw the storming of the Bastille and, with it, the commencement of the French Revolution. Paris did not start modernising until the Centre Pompidou in the Beaubourg was opened. The boldly avant-garde glass house with a multitude of exposed coloured pipes — blue for ventilation, yellow for electric lines, green for water and red for fire-fighting equipment —was considered hideous, impossible and revolting. But today it is one of the city’s prime attractions. In and around the Centre Pompidou there is always something going on. More or less talented fire- eaters, jugglers, clowns or mimes perform on the courtyard in front, watched by tourists who eagerly surge forward to gain as favourable a vantage point as possible.

Native Parisian’s frown on such antics or disdainfully look away — When it comes to tourists, Parisians like to appear blasé. Then why do they bother to add to their city’s charm? Because like us, they too love Paris, in all her moods and temperaments and the worst thing that could ever happen to the city of dreams would be to become predictable.

So Paris just keeps changing her looks. Paris, no matter how many times you visit it or how often you re-discover it, never rests on its laurels. It is arrogantly aware of the great tourist attractions it has in abundance but treats them all with a Gallic shrug.

Far more important in the eyes of the fiendishly fashion-conscious Parisians a new boutiques celebrating a newly discovered designer, a modish gallery displaying interesting albeit impossible art-works, a poet in a cellar or a singer in a turmoil or a new restaurant with attitude.

Paris continues to remain what it has been for a long time — a city of people and their culture. Even after all the changes, it still possesses a formidable mystic.