Day 45: Paris III

October 21, 2022

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Yesterday we looked down the Champs Elysees, and though we would have liked the iconic walk, decided we had other places we would like more. But today we realized that was nonsense, so we planned on The Walk.

Champs Elysee is one of the eleven or so spokes that radiate as l'Etoile from around the Arc de Triomphe. So our plan put us right back at the Arc. The basic outline or shape of the Arc is known to everyone, so even as teenagers we probably could have identified it and given one sentence about it. But even cycling by it in much later years, we would not get much more detail, by virtue of the darn thing being in the middle of a huge roundabout. So I thought I was pretty clever yesterday, showing readers and myself some closeups of the statuary on the walls.

Today that changed, when clever boots Dodie pointed out the tunnel under the roundabout, that takes one to the Arc. We found that for a mere 13 euros one can also climb to the top, for a panoramic view of the city. Even at the base one could learn a lot, because it is covered with inscriptions about Napoleon, his generals, and battles, plus mention of other great and glorious French wars. There is also an "Unknown Soldier" and peace flame component. With just a glance at all this, I set off for the top, leaving Dodie and 13 euros saved, at ground level.

Inscriptions cover the inside of the arches.

I tried a more artful version of the stairs, going down, but you can see my fat foot in the photo.

The stairs going up are narrow, with only room for single file. There was no way I was not going to keep up with the line of people on the ascent (90.2% of the population of France is younger than me!), so I got up there pretty winded.

There is a small museum/exposition space near the top, and I quickly saw that I was not so smart in having shown a portion of the frieze yesterday. They have it all documented here in detail.

And of course the statuary did not just "happen", it was carefully planned and pre-molded. Here on display is a preliminary mold of the "spirit of liberty" which I think appears in one of my photos of the exterior.

At the very top, there was indeed a 360 degree panorama of the city. I was interested to see the wedge shaped buildings, that come from the star shaped road layouts. and to look down some of the grand boulevards.. One could also see landmarks in the distance, like the La Defense high rise business district, or the Sacre Coeur church.

Looking toward Montmartre and Sacre Coeur

In the small museum area there was coverage of the amazing history of the Arc. It began after the battle of Austerlitz, when Napoleon promised his Great Army a souvenir of it in Paris. Construction was from 1806 to 1836, and Louis Phillipe I changed the idea a bit to include glorifying his role in the July 1830 revolution. After that the Arc can be seen playing a role in the funeral of Victor Hugo in 1885, and a WWI victory parade by the Allies in 1919.

Most chilling are images of the Nazis marching down the Champs Elysee, and then of General de Gaulle doing the same. It is said in the caption below that though the Nazis marched on the Champs, they never touched the Arc.

When I returned to the ground, Dodie noticed my jacket and vest all unzippered, and recommended I do them up. "No, I am all sweaty from the climb", I replied. "Why didn't you use the elevator?", she asked. "What, there is an elevator!" I probably would have wanted to use the steps anyway, say I.

Marches down the Champs Elysee are now pretty much out, and are replaced by strolls, shopping at flagship outlets of ultra high end brands, and the usual intensely laid back Paris cafe scenes. Here is some of what we saw:

We put this in because moules frites is a joke with us. I usually say I would eat it if the moules were frites as well. 14.90 is a reasonable price for here.

See the continuous of tall and beautiful buildings

The buildings are so artfully constructed, we love them!

Any one of these would be a great apartment for us. One can only guess at what the rent would be!

Look, Thomas Jefferson had an apartment here.

Herme had a stand in Galeries Lafayette, from yesterday, but this must be his flagship.

The macarons are treated like treasure. There are 18 flavours. 2.50 euros per bite!

A pair of elegant Parisiens, but not the yellow ones in the centre.

This lady bought five boxes, but she probably spent under 100 euros, so no problem.

"Flitty scarves" became a symbol of Paris for Joni. But don't worry, we found these much cheaper at Montmartre later in the day.

A series of name brand flagships follows.

We bypassed the many cafes and found a bench in the gardens on the way to the Louvre, where we had the sandwiches we had brought from "home". However I did buy a coffee. We used a small boiled egg to show how much coffee came in that cup!

The Champs Elysee ends with three palaces on one side and the Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde, straight ahead. The Place de la Concorde is where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were beheaded, not to mention revolutionary Robespierre.

The Obelisk is the central attraction now. It came from the temple in Luxor, in 1829. It was so much of a bug to erect that diagrams showing how they did it were inscribed on the base. The base itself used to support a statue of Louis XV, destroyed in the revolution.

The Luxor Obelisk in Place de la Concorde

There are Egyptian hieroglyphics on the top and French diagrams of how they did the installation, on the bottom.

To plot out our walk after the end of the Champs Elysee, we were using the excellent Rick Steves Pocket Paris map. Dodie stopped to check this, and noticed a man beside her studying the very same map. The man and his wife turned out to be Jim and Debbie Busch, from Naples, Florida, and before that Minnesota. They too had been in England and were now here. As with cyclists you meet on the road we exchanged stories of who were all were, where we had been, and where we were heading. Jim is a retired Geography teacher and sports coach and Debbie a Special Ed teacher. We enjoyed hearing a bit about their life in Naples, their daughter and grandchild, where they were staying here, their visit to Bath and Stonehenge, etc. I must say this was all easier and more enjoyable in English, and also because we had been to every place they could mention, in the U.S. and Europe! We walked on together to the Louvre, and said goodbye after such a pleasant chat.

Here is the arch that leads to the Louvre's famous glass pyramid. The next shot shows the figures on the top.

The stark pyramidal shape was controversial to put amid the classical buildings, but now it is all famous.

The Louvre. We celebrated our 50th anniversary in here. Jim and Debbie are also here on an anniversary trip.

Our next step was to use the Metro to teleport to the Montmartre district, home of the Moulin Rouge, but also of the Sacré Coeur church. Teleport is a good word, because we stepped out of the Metro into a quite different world from the relative calm of the Louvre and its classical buildings. Here there was a lot more commercial energy, and more "active" crowds.

Below the church this mime gets ready to perform.

First things first, these ladies wait for a free self cleaning toilet. It sanitizes between visits, but if you are good friends you could "go" together to save time!

This funicular is part of the Metro system, and will take you up to the church. We saw some young men who ran up the steps, but they arrived pretty pooped!

There are scads of love locks on the fence at the top. Some fence parts, maybe right in front, valuable real estate and are really crowded with locks, but other areas are less densely locked. Many vendors on site will sell you a lock, if you want.

There was a long line to get into the church, but it moved extremely quickly. The church is way bigger than it looks, and people were easily absorbed into it, walked around all they liked and were ejected at the other side.

The church art makes good use of gold and blue colours, plus a lot of mosaics. There are side chapels for veneration of various saints, especially St. Therese of Lisieux, but none of the mummies and statues seen in other large churches. This church seems unique in that somebody decided in 1870 it should be built, and must have lobbied the National Assembly because it got approved as a national project in 1873. Final completion was in 1919.

The big feature of the church is the beautiful mosaic of Christ risen. This was completed in 1923. This, and other mosaics are really nice. Christ is definitely wearing his heart on his robe, and you can see the heart theme in the stained glass as well. I think there is a "sacred heart" thing in Paray le Monial, but I can't quite remember the origin. I would look it up if it were not bedtime!

Some images from the church:

In a side office, a nun who looks to be the brains of the operation studies her screen,

We took the funicular back down, and back into the lively street scenes.

The chestnuts were really nice, as was the whole experience of it and of Montmartre.

The Metro and RER then made relatively short work of bringing us back to Maisons-Lafitte, where we said our last goodbye to Didier. It had been a fine visit to our old friend and to Paris, that never grows old.

Today we had carefully checked to see if our bikes, brought onto the RER would face any insurmountable steps in the stations. We found that with care, it could all be done with elevators. So our plan is to take the bikes on the RER, unbelievably back to Etoile again, then down Champs Elysée, past the Louvre, and along the Seine, to finally rejoin our cycle track. We will then be in the dead centre of Paris, and trusting in the little blue line in the GPS to get us out!

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