France’s 3 Most Impressive City Squares

Whether cafe-lined meeting point or complex thoroughfare, a “place” (square) is often the historic beating heart or symbolic epicentre of any French city, town or village. But which are France’s biggest and most beautiful?

1. Place des Quinconces, Bordeaux

This 12-hectare (126,000m²) behemoth on the banks of the Garonne in the elegant Nouvelle Aquitaine capital – is not only the biggest in France but the largest in Europe. Throughout the year, visitors flock to enjoy the open spaces (it features six hectares of green space) and to take in seasonal fairs and circuses, sporting and cultural events, as well as the huge Fête du Vin. The square was created over a ten-year period, between 1818 and 1828, on the site formerly occupied by Château Trompette. Not to be missed are the colossal white marble statues of Bordeaux brainboxes Montaigne and Montesquieu; two rostral columns on the eastern side; and, on the west, the Monument aux Girondins. The latter honours the Girondins, a political group who fell victim to the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution.

Note: in calcuating Place des Quinconces’ place at the top of French squares’ surface area list, one must include not just the central esplanade but also the area stretching from the tram station to the car park. Also unmissable in Bordeaux is the Place de la Bourse with its Water Mirror.

2. Place de la Concorde, Paris

A trip to French capital’s biggest square (7.56 hectares or 84,000m²) at the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées – was not always simply the sensorial overload of noise and activity it is today. Yes it may serve as a mind-boggling traffic intersection with seemingly zero rules, no lane markings and a survival-of- the-bravest driving policy, but believe us when we say it once held a much more sinister public image. In between its creation to honour King Louis XV in 1772 and being redesigned between 1836 and 1846 by architect Jacques Ignace Hittorff, Place de la Concorde was an execution site. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, as well as Danton and Robespierre, were all guillotined here. Post-Revolution, it was named Place de la Concorde as a reconciliatory gesture. Visitors not focused solely on crashing their hire car can spot the 3,300-year-old Egyptian Luxor obelisk, erected in October 1836, some seriously prestigious hotels, a newly renovated 18th-century jewel-the Hotel de la Marine, managed by the Centre des Monuments Nationaux (CMN) – and two monumental fountains, Fontaine des Mers and Fontaine des Fleuves, both spruced up in 2023.

3. Place Bellecour, Lyon

Third on the list is this behemoth, red-tinted pedestrian place (Europe’s largest traffic-free one), measuring 312m by 200m and sitting on a presqu’île (peninsula) sandwiched twixt the Saône and Rhône rivers. It is Lyon‘s epic navigation hub and starting point for tourist office visits, with four key streets forking off from it: Rue de la République, which leads up to Hôtel de Ville and the Opéra; Rue Victor Hugo and Rue du Plat, which both lead to the city’s Perrache district with its iconic train station-opened in 1857 and terminus for trains from Paris; and Rue du Président Edouard Herriot, with its string of luxury boutiques leading down to Place des Terreaux, itself another gem of a square and home to the city’s Fine Arts Museum. Statue-spotters can admire the huge equestrian depiction of Louis XIV by local sculptor François- Frédéric Lemot. It was put in place in 1825, after being lugged by 24 horses all the way from Paris. And local aviator and author Antoine de Saint- Exupéry can be seen with his famed creation Le Petit Prince atop a white marble column.

From France Today Magazine