The Sorbonne
One of the first colleges of the medieval University of Paris, founded 1253 — and where May 1968 boiled over.
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Most of what you see is Henri-Paul Nénot's 1884 reconstruction wrapped around Jacques Lemercier's 1635 chapel — three eras of one 770-year-old institution on a single Latin Quarter block.
What to look for
- The chapel's dome behind its west façade — the 1635 Lemercier survivor, a monument since 1887 and older than everything around it.
- The Cour d'honneur and péristyle — shared ceremonial ground that belongs to none of the resident universities, but to all of them.
Still a live campus — Sorbonne University, Panthéon-Sorbonne and Sorbonne Nouvelle sit inside — so treat it as a working building, not a museum.
The Sorbonne is one of 33 sights worth the detour in Paris, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Paris pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Paris
- Eiffel TowerThe 300-metre iron tower Parisian artists petitioned against before it was even finished.
- Louvre MuseumThe world's most-visited museum lives inside a 12th-century fortress that became a royal palace.
- Notre-Dame de ParisThe spire fell on live TV in April 2019; since December 2024 you can walk back inside.
- Musée d'OrsayVan Gogh and Monet hung inside a Beaux-Arts station built for the Paris–Orléans railway.
- Champs-ÉlyséesA single 1.9-km straight line runs from the Concorde obelisk to the Arc de Triomphe — Paris's ceremonial spine on the Axe historique.
- Place de la BastilleThe prison that lit a revolution is gone — and the mob that stormed it on 14 July 1789 came for gunpowder, not the seven forgotten men inside.