Seine, France

France-13, originally uploaded by Abhishek's Received Postcards.

The Seine is a slow-flowing major river and commercial waterway within the regions of Île-de-France and Haute-Normandie in France and famous as a romantic backdrop in photographs of Paris, France. It is also a tourist attraction, with excursion boats offering sightseeing tours of the Rive Droite and Rive Gauche within the city of Paris. It terminates in the Bay of the Seine region of the English Channel and is navigable by ocean-going vessels for about ten percent of its length, as far as Rouen, 120 km (75 miles) from the sea, while over sixty percent of its length, as far as Burgundy near the Swiss Alps, is negotiable by commercial riverboats and nearly its whole length is available for recreational boating.

In 1991, the banks of the Seine in Paris—the Rive Gauche and Rive Droite—were added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in Europe.