Paris - 2016
In July - August- September 2016 we spent 11 days in France on our 49-day Melbourne - Dubai - Paris -
World War 1 Western Front Battlefields - Portugal - England - Wales - Scotland - Dubai - Melbourne trip.
After 2 nights in Dubai we flew to Paris.
We spent 2 nights in Paris before we went to Arras for our Somme WW1 battlefields visit and 4 nights when we returned.
Place de la Concorde
The Place de la Concorde is the largest public square in Paris.
It is rather run down and has busy roads running through it.
The place was designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel in 1755 as a moat-skirted octagon between the
Champs-Élysées to the west and the Tuileries Garden to the east.
Decorated with statues and fountains, the area was named Place Louis XV to honor the king at that time.
The square showcased an equestrian statue of the king.
During the French Revolution the statue of Louis XV of France was torn down and the area renamed Place de la Révolution.
The new revolutionary government erected the guillotine in the square, and it was here that King Louis XVI was executed on 21 January 1793.
Other important figures guillotined on the site, often in front of cheering crowds, were Queen Marie Antoinette, Princess Élisabeth of France,
Charlotte Corday, Madame du Barry, Georges Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Antoine Lavoisier,
Maximilien Robespierre, Louis de Saint-Just and Olympe de Gouges.
In 1795, the square was renamed Place de la Concorde as a gesture of reconciliation after the turmoil of the French Revolution.
The centre of the Place is occupied by a giant Egyptian obelisk decorated with hieroglyphics exalting the reign of the pharaoh Ramesses II.
It is one of two the Egyptian government gave to the French in the 19th century.
The other one stayed in Egypt, too difficult and heavy to move to France with the technology at that time.
The obelisk once marked the entrance to the Luxor Temple.
The obelisk, a yellow granite column, rises 23 metres high, including the base, and weighs over 250 tonnes.
Given the technical limitations of the day, transporting it was no easy feat.
Diagrams explaining the machinery that was used for the transportation are drawn on the pedestal.
The obelisk is flanked on both sides by fountains constructed at the time of its erection on the Place.
Roue de Paris
The Roue de Paris is a 60-metre tall transportable Ferris wheel,
originally installed on the Place de la Concorde in Paris, for the 2000 millennium celebrations.
It left Paris in 2002 and has since then seen service at numerous other locations around the world.
It needs no permanent foundations, instead 40,000 litres of water ballast provide a stable base.
It weighs 365 tonnes.
Due to its transportable design, it can be erected in 72 hours and dismantled in 60 hours by a specialist team.
Yes, we had ride on it.
The famous 1.9km long boulevard in central Paris, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées,
runs from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde.
There are some fine Paris buildings nearby.
The Grand Palais and the Petit Palace were built for Paris Universal Exposition of 1900.
Unfortunately neither were open.
The Petit Palais - Musée des Beaux-Arts
The Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées
The "Stairway to Heaven" at the Swarovski store on The Champs-Élysées.
Arc de Triomphe
At the western end of the Champs-Élysées, the 50 metre high arch was built between 1806 and 1836.
The triumphal arch is in honor of those who fought for France, in particular, those who fought during the Napoleonic Wars.
Notre Dame Cathedral
Notre-Dame de Paris - French for "Our Lady of Paris"
Located on the Île de la Cité in the middle of the River Seine, Notre-Dame is widely considered to be one of the finest examples
of French Gothic architecture, and it is among the largest and most well-known church buildings in the world.
Notre-Dame de Paris was among the first buildings in the world to use the flying buttress.
Construction began in 1163 during the reign of Louis VII and was completed by 1345.
Under a 1905 law, Notre Dame de Paris is among seventy churches in Paris built before that year that are owned by the French State.
While the building itself is owned by the State, the Catholic Church is the designated beneficiary,
having the exclusive right to use it, for religious purpose, in perpetuity.
The Church is responsible for paying the employees, security, heating and cleaning, and assuring that the Cathedral is open for free to visitors.
The Church does not receive subsidies from the French State.
All distances in france are measured from this marker that is on the forecourt of the cathedral.
The settlement of Paris began on this island.
located in a corner of the Tuileries Gardens in Paris.
The original building was built in 1822 to shelter the orange trees in the gardens.
The current buildings were initially built in 1927 to house the 8 large Water Lilie murals that Monet donated to France
as a monument to the end of World War 1.
Centre Georges Pompidou
It is named after Georges Pompidou, the President of France from 1969 to 1974, and was opened in January 1977.
It houses a library and is a centre for the contemporary arts.
The landmark building wears its skeleton on the outside, with tubes and structures color-coded to denote their function -
blue for air conditioning, green for plumbing, yellow for electricity, red for elevators.
Each floor is thus completely free of structual elements and in the words of the architects -
"it can be used for all forms of cultural activities- both known and yet to be discovered".
National Geographic described the reaction to the design as "love at second sight."
An article in Le Figaro declared "Paris has its own monster, just like the one in Loch Ness."
Musée d'Orsay
On the left bank of the Seine, it is the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built
for the 1900 Exposition Universelle (World Exhibition) which was held nearby.
By 1939 the station's short platforms had become unsuitable for the longer trains that had come to be used for mainline services.
In the 1970s it was to demolished but after public pressure for its preservation, it was refurbised into a gallery.
They have done a outstanding job.
The magnificent gallery was opened late in 1986 after it took 6 months to install the 2000 or so paintings, 600 sculptures and other works.
We visted these gardens on our 2015 visit.
We saw this church on our 2015 visit.
Cimetière Père Lachaise
Père Lachaise Cemetery was opened on 21 May 1804. The first person buried there was a five-year-old girl named Adélaïde Paillard de Villeneuve,
the daughter of a door bell-boy of the Faubourg St. Antoine. Her grave no longer exists as the plot was a temporary concession.
Oscar Wilde's tomb
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish playwright, novelist, essayist, and poet.
After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s.
He is remembered for his epigrams, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, his plays, as well as the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death.
Frédéric Chopin's tomb
Frédéric François Chopin (1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849), born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, was a Polish composer
and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era who wrote primarily for the solo piano.
He gained and has maintained renown worldwide as a leading musician of his era,
whose "poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation
Gioachino Rossini's tomb
Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas
as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces.
His best-known operas include the Italian comedies Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville), La Cenerentola (Cinderella),
and Guillaume Tell (William Tell).
A tendency for inspired, song-like melodies is evident throughout his scores, which led to the nickname "The Italian Mozart."
In 1982, shortly after CD players became available, the first CD that Margaret selected was one of Rossini's overtures.
It is still one of our most popular CDs and we play it nearly every week.
Eiffel Tower
Designed by the engineer, Gustave Eiffel, the 324m high tower was built as the entrance arch to the 1889 World Fair.
The World Fair was held to celebrate the centennial of the French Revolution.
The Eiffel Tower is the tallest structure in Paris and is the most-visited paid monument in the world.
Over 250,000,000 people have visited the tower.
On this visit we found that there was much more security at the tower.
The area around it was fenced off and you had to pass through airport-like screening.
Our hotel, the Hotel Lux was located in the Paris suburb of Picpus.
Picpus is near Place-de-la-Nation in the 12th arrondissement of Paris.
We spent 2 nights in Paris before we caught a train to Arras in northern France.
After 3 days visiting the WW1 Somme battelefields we returned to Paris.
After 4 more days we flew to Lisbon in Portugal.
In July - August- September 2016 we spent 11 days in France on our 49-day Melbourne - Dubai - Paris -
World War 1 Western Front Battlefields - Portugal - England - Wales - Scotland - Dubai - Melbourne trip.
After 2 nights in Dubai we flew to Paris.
We spent 2 nights in Paris before we went to Arras for our Somme WW1 battlefields visit and 4 nights when we returned.
Place de la Concorde
The Place de la Concorde is the largest public square in Paris.
It is rather run down and has busy roads running through it.
The place was designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel in 1755 as a moat-skirted octagon between the
Champs-Élysées to the west and the Tuileries Garden to the east.
Decorated with statues and fountains, the area was named Place Louis XV to honor the king at that time.
The square showcased an equestrian statue of the king.
During the French Revolution the statue of Louis XV of France was torn down and the area renamed Place de la Révolution.
The new revolutionary government erected the guillotine in the square, and it was here that King Louis XVI was executed on 21 January 1793.
Other important figures guillotined on the site, often in front of cheering crowds, were Queen Marie Antoinette, Princess Élisabeth of France,
Charlotte Corday, Madame du Barry, Georges Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Antoine Lavoisier,
Maximilien Robespierre, Louis de Saint-Just and Olympe de Gouges.
In 1795, the square was renamed Place de la Concorde as a gesture of reconciliation after the turmoil of the French Revolution.
The centre of the Place is occupied by a giant Egyptian obelisk decorated with hieroglyphics exalting the reign of the pharaoh Ramesses II.
It is one of two the Egyptian government gave to the French in the 19th century.
The other one stayed in Egypt, too difficult and heavy to move to France with the technology at that time.
The obelisk once marked the entrance to the Luxor Temple.
The obelisk, a yellow granite column, rises 23 metres high, including the base, and weighs over 250 tonnes.
Given the technical limitations of the day, transporting it was no easy feat.
Diagrams explaining the machinery that was used for the transportation are drawn on the pedestal.
The obelisk is flanked on both sides by fountains constructed at the time of its erection on the Place.
Roue de Paris
The Roue de Paris is a 60-metre tall transportable Ferris wheel,
originally installed on the Place de la Concorde in Paris, for the 2000 millennium celebrations.
It left Paris in 2002 and has since then seen service at numerous other locations around the world.
It needs no permanent foundations, instead 40,000 litres of water ballast provide a stable base.
It weighs 365 tonnes.
Due to its transportable design, it can be erected in 72 hours and dismantled in 60 hours by a specialist team.
Yes, we had ride on it.
The famous 1.9km long boulevard in central Paris, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées,
runs from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde.
There are some fine Paris buildings nearby.
The Grand Palais and the Petit Palace were built for Paris Universal Exposition of 1900.
Unfortunately neither were open.
The Petit Palais - Musée des Beaux-Arts
The Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées
The "Stairway to Heaven" at the Swarovski store on The Champs-Élysées.
Arc de Triomphe
At the western end of the Champs-Élysées, the 50 metre high arch was built between 1806 and 1836.
The triumphal arch is in honor of those who fought for France, in particular, those who fought during the Napoleonic Wars.
Notre Dame Cathedral
Notre-Dame de Paris - French for "Our Lady of Paris"
Located on the Île de la Cité in the middle of the River Seine, Notre-Dame is widely considered to be one of the finest examples
of French Gothic architecture, and it is among the largest and most well-known church buildings in the world.
Notre-Dame de Paris was among the first buildings in the world to use the flying buttress.
Construction began in 1163 during the reign of Louis VII and was completed by 1345.
Under a 1905 law, Notre Dame de Paris is among seventy churches in Paris built before that year that are owned by the French State.
While the building itself is owned by the State, the Catholic Church is the designated beneficiary,
having the exclusive right to use it, for religious purpose, in perpetuity.
The Church is responsible for paying the employees, security, heating and cleaning, and assuring that the Cathedral is open for free to visitors.
The Church does not receive subsidies from the French State.
All distances in france are measured from this marker that is on the forecourt of the cathedral.
The settlement of Paris began on this island.
Musée de l'Orangerie
The Musée de l'Orangerie is an art-gallery of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintingslocated in a corner of the Tuileries Gardens in Paris.
The original building was built in 1822 to shelter the orange trees in the gardens.
The current buildings were initially built in 1927 to house the 8 large Water Lilie murals that Monet donated to France
as a monument to the end of World War 1.
Centre Georges Pompidou
It is named after Georges Pompidou, the President of France from 1969 to 1974, and was opened in January 1977.
It houses a library and is a centre for the contemporary arts.
The landmark building wears its skeleton on the outside, with tubes and structures color-coded to denote their function -
blue for air conditioning, green for plumbing, yellow for electricity, red for elevators.
Each floor is thus completely free of structual elements and in the words of the architects -
"it can be used for all forms of cultural activities- both known and yet to be discovered".
National Geographic described the reaction to the design as "love at second sight."
An article in Le Figaro declared "Paris has its own monster, just like the one in Loch Ness."
Musée d'Orsay
On the left bank of the Seine, it is the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built
for the 1900 Exposition Universelle (World Exhibition) which was held nearby.
By 1939 the station's short platforms had become unsuitable for the longer trains that had come to be used for mainline services.
In the 1970s it was to demolished but after public pressure for its preservation, it was refurbised into a gallery.
They have done a outstanding job.
The magnificent gallery was opened late in 1986 after it took 6 months to install the 2000 or so paintings, 600 sculptures and other works.
We visted these gardens on our 2015 visit.
We saw this church on our 2015 visit.
Cimetière Père Lachaise
Père Lachaise Cemetery was opened on 21 May 1804. The first person buried there was a five-year-old girl named Adélaïde Paillard de Villeneuve,
the daughter of a door bell-boy of the Faubourg St. Antoine. Her grave no longer exists as the plot was a temporary concession.
Oscar Wilde's tomb
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish playwright, novelist, essayist, and poet.
After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s.
He is remembered for his epigrams, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, his plays, as well as the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death.
Frédéric Chopin's tomb
Frédéric François Chopin (1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849), born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, was a Polish composer
and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era who wrote primarily for the solo piano.
He gained and has maintained renown worldwide as a leading musician of his era,
whose "poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation
Gioachino Rossini's tomb
Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas
as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces.
His best-known operas include the Italian comedies Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville), La Cenerentola (Cinderella),
and Guillaume Tell (William Tell).
A tendency for inspired, song-like melodies is evident throughout his scores, which led to the nickname "The Italian Mozart."
In 1982, shortly after CD players became available, the first CD that Margaret selected was one of Rossini's overtures.
It is still one of our most popular CDs and we play it nearly every week.
Eiffel Tower
Designed by the engineer, Gustave Eiffel, the 324m high tower was built as the entrance arch to the 1889 World Fair.
The World Fair was held to celebrate the centennial of the French Revolution.
The Eiffel Tower is the tallest structure in Paris and is the most-visited paid monument in the world.
Over 250,000,000 people have visited the tower.
On this visit we found that there was much more security at the tower.
The area around it was fenced off and you had to pass through airport-like screening.
Our hotel, the Hotel Lux was located in the Paris suburb of Picpus.
Picpus is near Place-de-la-Nation in the 12th arrondissement of Paris.
We spent 2 nights in Paris before we caught a train to Arras in northern France.
After 3 days visiting the WW1 Somme battelefields we returned to Paris.
After 4 more days we flew to Lisbon in Portugal.
