So, the next day was one of our free days in Paris. Having just charged up my camera batteries, I was ready for taking photos the moment we got off the bus along the Champs-Élysées. We were meant to be dropped of at the Arc de Triomphe, but the combination of strict driving rules and traffic meant that we couldn't actually drive all the way up there. So naturally the first thing I do is walk all the way up the hill to the Arc.
The Arc de Triomphe was originally commissioned to be built by Napoleon himself in 1806, although he never actually got to see it built, because he died a good fifteen years before it was finished, and inaugurated in 1836. Yes, that's right, it took THIRTY YEARS to build, from start to finish. And honestly, if you look at it, that's not all that surprising:
Yeah. It's pretty damn big. The big sets of words engraved in the sides of the monument are names of places where Napoleon won battles, while the smaller words are the names of his generals. The names that are underlined indicate they died in battle. The two carvings to the left and the right of the front, I believe represent Napoleon leaving and coming back from war.
It also happens to house the French tomb of the unknown soldier:
Anyway, that thing is like, monstrously huge. You can pay something like six euros to climb up to the top, and this is what you see:
Have I mentioned that Paris is like, super-huge? In those pictures you can see a couple of landmarks in Paris, most notably the Eiffel Tower, but also the Sacré Coeur ("Sacred Heart") Basilica all the way on the distance of that last photo. There's also the Champs-Élysées, which, after walking back down to the ground floor, I set off down.
Oh, but one other thing I found kinda cool - inside the Arc, they have a screen showing a birds-eye video feed of the tomb of the unknown soldier below:
Not particularly noteworthy, I just thought I'd show you guys.
Anyway, back to the Champs-Élysées. Si tu peux le parler allez tombez la chemise.
Um.. Yeah. That. Every time I hear the name of the street, I can't help but think of that song.
Anyway (again), the Champs-Élysées is easily one of the most expensive areas of real estate in the world. It's also one of the busiest shopping streets in the world Pretty much all of the street down the end of the Arc is either shopping or overly priced restaurants. And it is PACKED, especially in summer. The funny thing is, though, that almost every store on the street operates at a huge loss. The reason for this being simply that the cost of renting a building is so ridiculously high that it's almost impossible to break even, let alone turn a profit. And yet they keep on being rented out, if only for the sheer bragging rights of saying you have a store on the Champs-Élysées. A lot of big name chains have stores on that street: Chanel, Bulgari, H&M, McDonald's...
It's a long street.
They also use it for military parades. Apparently, there's a very correct way to parade down the Champs-Élysées, and there's a very wrong way. When Hitler invaded in WWII, he paraded up the Champs-Élysées in the wrong direction, he went up the street, towards the Arc de Triomphe. When Paris was retaken, the joint American and French forces celebrated their victory by parading down the street, away from the Arc, and towards Place de la Concorde, where I was now heading.
The Place de la Concorde is a big plaza or something in the middle of Paris. It stands at the the heart of a giant cross, with the Champs-Élysées stretching out to the East, the Tuileries Gardens (and by extension, the Louvre) off to the West, the building which houses the French National Assembly all the way to the South, on the other side of the Seine and across the Pont de la Concorde, and to the North is L'église de la Madeleine, which is basically a big-ass church. At the centre of the cross, and in the centre of the Plaza is an Egyptian obelisk, the Luxor Obelisk. It stands 23 metres tall, and has a gold-leafed pyramidion resting on top. There are also some fountains. I got some photos:
Anyway, I didn't really stop to look, I just kept on walking straight through, down through the Gardens. The Gardens, by the way, like a lot of things in Paris, are HUGE.
You can barely see the end of them in that photo, and they're fairly wide as well. So at length, I eventually came to the far end of the Gardens, to the most famous art museum in the world: The Louvre.
Now, I'm going to tell you something now: The Louvre is big. There's almost no way one person would be able to see everything in it in a day, and even if you did, you wouldn't be able to take in and fully appreciate the artwork surrounding you. Before the reign of Louis XIV, the entire place was the French Royal Palace, and the Tuileries Gardens were the Royal Gardens. At some point, it was converted into a huge museum and it still holds an incredible amount of important artworks, most notable da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Of course, the entire place is a massive tourist destination, and despite the fact that there are at least three, possible even four separate entrances, waiting time for tickets can be upwards of a couple of hours. I didn't go inside, but instead just took photos:
After loitering around there for a while (and grabbing some lunch), I met up with some other guys from the tour, and we set off for our last tourist destination for that day, the Notre Dame Cathedral.
That's it there. The Notre Dame Cathedral was completed in 1345, and is probably one of the most well-known churches in the world. It's a prime example of Gothic architecture, and pioneered a couple of architectural tricks, such as the "flying buttresses", or arched exterior supports, which became necessary when the sheer size of the building caused it to crack under stress. Also, entry is free, meaning that there is more or less always a steady stream of people going in one door, and another stream coming out the other door. That said, though, it's not actually all the interesting inside. There are a lot of alcoves with displays and memorials towards something or other, and a lot of candles and places to donate to get a candle, but that's about it. Oh, and the windows are kinda pretty.
After we looked around in there, we headed back to the pick-up point for the bus and went back to the campsite.
*phew* That took a bit of writing... and there's almost as much again tomorrow. Tune in again for day 3: Working Title!
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