The elegance of Paris is no accident. Broad boulevards, grand monuments, people-friendly greenbelts, and Haussmann facades shape its much-loved urban-scape.

That urban design goes back to the mid-1800s, when the government commissioned Baron Haussmann to modernize the city including its riverside embankments. Along with that, he ripped up most of medieval Paris and created the city’s grand boulevards. And he lined those avenues with what became known as Haussmann architecture: stately buildings with uniform facades, wrought iron balconies, and iconic slate rooftops.

Paris has built upon that planning heritage, making the city ever more green and livable: creating pedestrian zones, favoring bikes and public transit over cars, and even turning elevated rail lines of the Industrial Age into skinny green belts high above street level, ideal for bikers and strollers.

Today, like a citywide game of “connect the dots,” wide Parisian boulevards lead to famous landmarks—like the Panthéon, built to honor illustrious Parisians—and to the historic Garnier opera house.