1880: Transportation within Paris is by horse carriage; for cross-country trips, the locomotive is available.

1910: In the year following the first flight across the English Channel by Louis Blériot, Parisians realize that the age of aviation has arrived. Automobiles are common on Parisian streets.

Today: Paris's streets, designed in the 1870s, are choked with automobile traffic. For travel on the continent, the TGV, or bullet train, travels at speeds often exceeding 186 miles per hour.

1880: Paris is the artistic center of the world, home to impressionist painters such as Alfred Sisley, Auguste Renoir, Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, and Paul Cézanne.

1910: Paris is the home of the influential and challenging Cubist artistic movement, promoted by painters such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.

Today: The best-known Parisian artists, such as Jean-Marc Bustamante and Sophie Calle, are photographers.

1880: The Garnier Opera building is less...