Day 8 - Belle Paris

Day 8, July 11, 2013:

Today, it’s more pounding the pavement around Paris, again a city that just begs to be walked.  We jumped on the metro and headed over to the Place de la Concorde.  To the East are the grand jardins of the Louvre, but to the west, the Avenue Des Champs Elysees.   The city is preparing for Bastille Day on the 14^th so getting around some of the intersections where they were setting up for the parade was a trick but walking the Champs Elysees on a sunny day is something everyone should have the chance to do.   The Avenue is wide (6 lanes) with broad sidewalks and lots of chi-chi shops, a bit like our Bloor street at home.  Mary Rose got sucked into an old mansion which is now Gucci but the boys were more interested in clothes for the younger crowd.  Suffice to say we made it down the three or four kilometers with our wallets only slightly bruised to end at the Arc du Triomphe de l’Etoile. 

The Arc at the center of Place Charles de Gaulle at the confluence of twelve radiating avenues, so you have to access it through an underground tunnel and the traffic around it is fierce!    Its sister, the smaller arch, the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel is west of the Louvre.   This is a monument to those who fought for France in the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars, with the names of all French victories and generals inscribed on its inner and outer surfaces.  Beneath its vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I.  It was commissioned in 1806 after the victory at Austerlitz by Emperor Napoleon at the peak of his fortunes but actually wasn’t completed until over 30 years later.  Napoleon never saw it completed but his remains were paraded under it after his death.  Further to the west, the Grande Arche de la Défense, was built in 1982 which finished the line of monuments that forms Paris's Axe Historique.  This arch is modern but built on the same scale as the others and can be seen from the Arc du Triomphe.  We did not go up the Arc as the lines were massive; instead we headed South towards the Seine to the Trocadero.

The Palais de Chaillot was built for the Exposition Internationale of 1937, on the hill where the old Palais du Trocadéro used to stand and sits on a hill overlooking the Place du Trocadero and the gardens leading to the Seine and across the river – the Tour Eiffel!  The Palais is in the shape of two wings shaped to form a wide arc separated by a wide esplanade and houses a number of museums.  We did not go into any of them (the boys wouldn’t let me), instead it was across the river to the awe inspiring Eiffel Tower.  This place too was mobbed, the line up for the elevator to the second stage was almost an hour and we never made it to the top as they closed elevator access as so many people had already purchased tickets.

The Eiffel Tower, located on the Champ de Mars in Paris is, named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower in 1889 as the entrance arch to the World's Fair.   This was the tallest structure in the world until the 1930’s when the Chrysler tower in New York City was built and is the most visited monument in the world.   When Hitler marched into Paris, the cables to the elevator were cut to make him walk the stairs to the top, when a Nazi flag was flown from the summit; a French resistance fighter climbed the tower and replaced it with a French flag.  This incredible iron structure was completed in a little over two years by a crew of men and each piece was prefabricated and shipped to the site where it was added to the structure.  Eiffel actually built it with only a quarter of the funds supplied by the French government; he retained the rights to all commercial traffic at the site for 20 years after which it was scheduled to be torn down.  By that time it had become so important for radio traffic and the war effort that it was saved.  This is a brilliant piece of construction, all cast iron and riveted on site.  It was originally painted a rusty red color but now is painted every seven years – Eiffel Tower Brown.  We loved the view from the second stage which is undergoing considerable renovation but Duncan refused to go to the edge – it gave him the willies.

Well, back on the Metro and back to our hotel, picked up our luggage, quick feed of Mussels on the square than back to Gard du Nord, across the Chunnel to jolly old England and home (Glen Iris).  Paris in 40 hours!  Tomorrow we pick up our vehicle and head north for the fourth country on our trip – Scotland.