The Real World: Paris

Lycée Alain is a senior high school/sixth form college in Le Vésinet, Yvelines, France, in the Paris metropolitan area. It is named after Émile Chartier, a.k.a. "Alain".

Le Vésinet (French: [lə vezinɛ] (listen)) is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is a part of the affluent suburbs of western Paris, 16.4 km (10.2 mi) from the center of Paris. Le Vésinet is one of the wealthiest suburbs of Paris, known for its wooded avenues, mansions and lakes. It contains many public gardens designed by French landscape gardener Paul de Lavenne, comte de Choulot.

Le Vésinet–Centre is a railway station in Le Vésinet, a suburb about 16 km west of central Paris. Le Vésinet–Centre station uses a basic RER station setup, two tracks and two side platforms.

The Palais Rose, located at 14 Allée des Fêtes at the corner of 12 rue Diderot in Vésinet in the department of Yvelines, was built in 1899, inspired by the Grand Trianon in Versailles. In 1986 it was added to the official ISHM listing of historical monuments. The Palais Rose in Vésinet should not be confused with the “other” Palais Rose, which once stood on the Avenue Foch and was razed in the early 1970s. The two buildings did however share a number of features. Both structures were designed around 1900 in the “Grand Trianon” style. The Palais Rose in Vésinet was built for the shipowner Arthur Schweitzer. Some ten subsequent owners, including notables such as Comte Robert de Montesquiou and the Marquise Luisa Casati, contributed to the fame of this dwelling, organizing lavish receptions there. Various owners succeeded one another until the property was purchased by an individual. It was then comprehensively restored in the 2000s under the direction of Emad Khashoggi, head of COGEMAD, who was also responsible for the Château Louis XIV project in the forest of Louveciennes.

Le Vésinet–Le Pecq is a railway station in Le Vésinet, France, built in 1972, on the A1 branch of the Paris Region RER commuter rail line A. It primarily serves the communities of Le Vésinet, Le Pecq, and southern Montesson in the western suburbs of Paris.

The British School of Paris (BSP) is a coeducational private day school in Croissy-sur-Seine, France, in Paris' western suburbs.Numbering approximately 600 pupils aged between 3 and 18, it is the only British School Overseas in France accredited by the UK Government. In the 2023–24 academic year, annual fees ranged from €19,126 in Nursery to €31,498 in Sixth Form.

Le Port-Marly (French pronunciation: ​[lə pɔʁ maʁli]) is a commune in the outer western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region, north of Versailles. In 2019, Le Port-Marly had a population of 5,481.

The Machine de Marly, also known as the Marly Machine or the Machine of Marly, was a large hydraulic system in Yvelines, France, built in 1684 to pump water from the river Seine and deliver it to the Palace of Versailles.King Louis XIV needed a large water supply for his fountains at Versailles. Before the Marly Machine was built, the amount of water delivered to Versailles already exceeded that used by the city of Paris, but this was insufficient, and fountain-rationing was necessary. Ironically most of the water pumped by the Marly Machine ended up being used to develop a new garden at the Château de Marly. However, even if all the water pumped at Marly (an average of 3,200 cubic metres or 703,902 imperial gallons or 845,351 US gallons per day) had been supplied to Versailles, it still would not have been enough: the fountains running à l'ordinaire (that is, at half pressure) required at least four times as much.The Machine de Marly, based on a prototype at the Château de Modave, consisted of fourteen gigantic water wheels, each roughly 11.5 metres or 38 feet in diameter, that powered more than 250 pumps to bring water 162 metres (177 yd) up a hillside from the Seine River to the Louveciennes Aqueduct. Louis XIV had countless schemes and inventions that were supposed to bring water to his fountains. The Machine de Marly was by far his most extensive and costly plan. After three years of construction and a cost of approximately 5,500,000 livres, the massive contraption, considered the most complex of the 17th century, was completed. "The chief engineer for the project was Arnold de Ville and the 'contractor' was Rennequin Sualem (after whom the quai by the machine is now named)." Both men had experience in pumping water from coal mines in the region of Liège (in modern Belgium).The machine suffered from frequent breakdowns, required a permanent staff of sixty to maintain and often required costly repairs. It functioned for 133 years. Destroyed in 1817, it was replaced by a "machine temporaire" during 10 years and then a steam engine entered in service from 1827 to 1859. From 1859 to 1963, the pumping at Marly was assumed by another hydraulic machine conceived by the engineer Xavier Dufrayer. Dufrayer's machine was scrapped in 1968 and replaced by electromechanical pumps.

The Golden Triangle of the Yvelines is an expression used to refer to the Yvelines area of France that includes suburban Chatou, Croissy-sur-Seine, and Le Vésinet, due to the number of wealthy residents, which include many state leaders, CEOs, and celebrities. The expression Golden Triangle in a French context, initially referred to the area of Paris bounded by the Avenues des Champs-Élysées, George V, and Montaigne.

The Communauté d'agglomération Saint Germain Boucles de Seine is the communauté d'agglomération, an intercommunal structure, in the western suburbs of Paris. It is located in the Yvelines and Val-d'Oise departments, in the Île-de-France region, northern France. It was created in January 2016. Its seat is in Le Pecq. Its area is 666.7 km2. Its population was 335,109 in 2018.

The Château de Louveciennes in Louveciennes, in the Yvelines département of France, is composed of the château itself, constructed at the end of the 17th century. It was then expanded and redecorated by Ange-Jacques Gabriel for Madame du Barry in the 18th century, and the music (or reception) pavilion was constructed by Claude Nicolas Ledoux (1770–71). The pavilion sits in the middle of a park that was designed in the 19th century.

Croissy-sur-Seine (French pronunciation: ​[kʁwasi syʁ sɛn], literally Croissy on Seine) is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is a suburban town on the western outskirts of Paris. Many expatriates reside in Croissy, given as it is the site of The British School of Paris, one of the top ten private international schools in the world. Croissy was Russia's base camp for Euro 2016, which ran from June 10 to July 10, 2016.