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The French will tell you that there is so much more to see and do in Paris than just what you see in the brochure.

Whether its a holiday, on business, or for a weekend break Paris continues to increase in popularity amongst us Brits - and rightly so!

That's why its important to get your travel plans sorted out properly, and in our opinion, flight, holiday and hotel specialists Opodo offer the best service online - but you can find that out for yourself here...

The next four years saw an increasingly brutal occupation regime imposed on the city. On the surface, things continued much as before - the "City of Light" was an extremely popular assignment for German forces and a favourite destination for those with time off.

Paris was occupied by a Gallic tribe until the Romans arrived in 52 BC. The invaders referred to the previous occupants as the Parisii, but called their new city Lutetia, meaning "marshy place". About fifty years later the city had spread to the left bank of the Seine, now known as the Latin Quarter, and had been renamed "Paris".

The city's escape from Attila proved a short-lived reprieve, as it was attacked and overrun in 464 by Childeric I (Childeric the Frank). His son Clovis I made the city his capital in 506 and was buried there on his death in 511, alongside St. Geneviéve.

As running battles were fought in the streets of Paris, Hitler ordered the city's commandant, von Choltitz, to destroy the capital. Von Choltitz, however, stalled. When General Leclerc's 2nd Armoured Division arrived on the outskirts of the city, von Choltitz ordered his forces to retreat, leaving the city open and largely intact with only stragglers from the garrison and dead-end resisters from the Vichy regime left to offer resistance. De Gaulle and Leclerc entered the city to a jubilant reception, establishing a temporary military government that lasted until 1946.

In March 2001, Paris voted for a left-wing mayor for the first time since 1871. Bertrand Delanoë made history not only as the first left-wing mayor for 130 years, but for the fact that he is the first openly gay man to hold such a high public position in France. His election was widely seen as a rejection by the electorate of the corruption of the Chirac era. His manifesto promised to tackle the city administration's corruption and inefficiency, as well as reducing crime and improving education - all while keeping taxation stable.

The Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de Vincennes were both transformed into large public parks. Although Haussmann was forced to resign in 1869 after financial irregularities, his scheme is largely responsible for the present-day look and layout of Paris.

The Louvre was redeveloped and acquired its spectacular glass pyramid, while a futuristic new district was constructed just outside the city limits at La Defense. The Opéra Bastille and Bibliotheque Nationale de France François Mitterrand proved less successful, experiencing big cost overruns and a series of technical problems.

The lines stayed mostly static for the next four years, with Paris experiencing the occasional bombardment from enemy aircraft and the giant "Big Bertha" long-distance artillery guns. The city's hedonistic life survived for a while before being subdued by the bloodshed on the front and the impact of rationing and a devastating flu epidemic in 1916. The war was finally ended by the Armistice of 11 November 1918, signed at Compiegne to the northeast of Paris.

A concentration camp was established in the Parisian suburb of Drancy to serve as a waystation en route to Auschwitz. Some 70,000 people passed through the camp. Contrary to later assertions by postwar French governments, the camp was run by the French authorities on behalf of the Nazis until July 1943, and the roundups were orchestrated by the Vichy French police. This was only acknowledged by the French government in 1995 and memorialised only as recently as 2001.

Under the rule of Philippe Auguste, who became king in 1180, a number of major building works were carried out in Paris. He built a new city wall and began the construction of the Louvre Palace, as well as paving streets and establishing a covered market at Les Halles (where it would remain until 1969).

Lutetia was renamed Paris in 212, after the local tribe, but the rest of the 3rd and 4th century was wracked by war and civil unrest. The city came under attack from barbarian invaders, prompting the construction of a defensive city wall. In 357 the Emperor Constantine's nephew Julian arrived in Paris to become the city's new governor. Although his uncle was famously the emperor who declared Christianity the official religion of the Empire, Julian "the Apostate" strove to roll back its advance. He became emperor in 361 but died in battle only two years later.

The history of Paris spans over 2,000 years, during which time the city grew from a small Celtic settlement to the multicultural capital of a modern European state.

Tensions were high, and led to the largest abuse in the city's postwar history, when the Paris police, told wrong news about policemen having been murdered by independentists, massacred an estimated 300 pro-independence demonstrators on 17 August 1961; remarkably, the event, though known in some circles, was largely ignored until the 1990s. (See Paris massacre of 1961)

The French Crown initially controlled little more than Paris and the surrounding region, the Ile de France, but over the centuries steadily expanded its territory and power. Paris itself developed an increasing degree of importance as a royal capital, a centre of learning and an ecclesiastical centre.

The city was saved, however, by a desperate French effort to reinforce their lines and by a German failure to press home the attack. In the most famous incident of the "miracle on the Marne", as it became known, thousands of Parisian taxis were commandeered to carry soldiers to the front lines. The Germans were pushed back to the Oise some 75 miles away from the city.

Paris Weekend and Paris online resources.