Bonjour de France! For the past five days we have been exploring Paris, France. With such an incredible number of places, museums, and monuments to see, five days was not nearly enough. Paris is a wonderful city, full of culture and history. In addition, Paris has to be one of the most expensive cities in the world! I was floored by how much everything cost. Random things such as a Coke were 10 or 15 times what they are in the States. What follows are the pictures of our adventures around the city. As before, click on the thumbnails to view a larger image.
Our trip began with our departure from Antwerp's Berchem Station aboard Thaley's super-fast TGV (train à grande vitesse in French, meaning very fast train). We arrived in Paris at Gare du-Nord.
This monument stands on the former site of the Bastille. It commemorates the 1790 Fête de la Fédération, held on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789; the storming of the Bastille was seen as a symbol of the uprising of the modern French nation, and of the reconciliation of all the French inside the constitutional monarchy which preceded the First Republic, during the French Revolution.
Place des Vosges
The Place des Vosges is the oldest square in Paris. It is located in le Marais, and is part of the 3rd and 4th arrondissements of Paris.
Originally known as the Place Royale, the Place des Vosges was built by Henri IV from 1605 to 1612. A true square (140 m x 140 m), it embodied the first European program of royal city planning. It was built on the site of the Hôtel des Tournelles and its gardens: at a tournament at the Tournelles, a royal residence, Henri II was wounded and died. Catherine de Medicis had the Gothic pile demolished, and she removed to the Louvre.
The Place des Vosges, inaugurated in 1612 with a grand carrousel to celebrate the wedding of Louis XIII and Anne of Austria, is the prototype of all the residential squares of European cities that were to come. What was new about the Place Royale in 1612 was that the housefronts were all built to the same design, probably by Baptiste du Cerceau, of red brick with strips of stone quoins over vaulted arcades that stand on square pillars. The steeply-pitched blue slate roofs are pierced with discreet small-paned dormers above the pedimented dormers that stand upon the cornices. Only the north range was built with the vaulted ceilings that the
"galleries" were meant to have. Two pavilions that rise higher than the unified roofline of the square center the north and south faces and offer access to the square through triple arches. Though they are designated the Pavilion of the King and of the Queen, no royal personage has ever lived in the aristocratic square. The Place des Vosges initiated subsequent developments of Paris that created a suitable urban background for the French aristocracy.
Before the square was completed Henri ordered the Place Dauphine to be laid out. Within a mere five-year period the king oversaw an unmatched building scheme for the ravaged medieval city: additions to the Louvre, the Pont Neuf, and the Hôpital Saint Louis as well as
the two royal squares.
One of Cortot's four fountains, 1825.Cardinal Richelieu had an equestrian bronze of Louis XIII erected in the center (there were no garden plots until 1680). The original was melted down in the Revolution; the present version, begun in 1818 by Louis Dupaty and completed by Jean-Pierre Cortot, replaced it in 1825. The square was renamed in 1799 when the département of the Vosges became the first to pay taxes supporting a campaign of the Revolutionary army. The Restoration returned the old royal name, but the short-lived Second Republic restored the revolutionary one in 1848.
Entrance to the square over Rue de Birague.
Statue of King Louis XIII.
The arcades around the outside of the square.
The author lived here for 16 years, from 1832 to 1848. It was here the he wrote Les Misérables.
Sights Around The Marais
Le Marais (pronounced /maʁɛ/ and meaning “the marsh” in French) is a district in Paris, France, traditionally a bourgeois area, but also well-known historically.
It spreads across parts of the 3rd and 4th arrondissements in Paris (on the Rive Droite, or Right Bank, of the Seine).
Notre Dame de Paris
Notre Dame de Paris, known simply as Notre Dame in English, is a Gothic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in Paris, France, with its main entrance to the west. It is still used as a Roman Catholic cathedral and is the seat of the Archbishop of Paris. Notre Dame de Paris is widely considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture. It was restored and saved from destruction by Viollet-le-Duc, one of France's most famous architects. Notre Dame translates as "Our Lady" from French.
Notre Dame de Paris was one of the first Gothic cathedrals, and its construction spanned the Gothic period. Its sculptures and stained glass show the heavy influence of naturalism, giving them a more secular look that was lacking from earlier Romanesque architecture.
Notre Dame de Paris was among the first buildings in the world to use the flying buttress. The building was not originally designed to include the flying buttresses around the choir and nave. After the construction began and the thinner walls (popularized in the Gothic style) grew ever higher, stress fractures began to occur as the walls pushed outward. So, naturally, the cathedral's architects built supports around the outside walls and later additions continued as such.
At the end of the 18th century, during the French Revolution, many of the treasures of the cathedral were either destroyed or plundered. The statues of biblical kings of Judea (erroneously thought to be kings of France) were beheaded. Many of the heads were found during a 1977 excavation nearby and are on display at the Musée de Cluny. Only the great bells avoided being melted down, and the cathedral was dedicated first to the Cult of Reason, and to the Cult of the Supreme Being. The church interior was used as a warehouse for the storage of forage and food.
Statue dedicated to Charlemagne in the courtyard of Notre Dame.
Archeological excavation under the cathedral, some dating to the Romans.
The Palais du Justice and Conciergerie
The Conciergerie (French: La Conciergerie) is a former royal palace and prison in Paris, located on the west of the Île de la Cité, near the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. It is part of the larger complex known as the Palais de Justice, which is still used for judicial purposes. Hundreds of prisoners during the French Revolution were executed on the guillotines at La Conciergerie. It was here that Marie Antoinette was held prior to her execution.
Entrance to the Palais du Justice.
Inside the Conciergerie.
The cell of Marie Antoinette.
Eiffel Tower
The Parisian landmark is the tallest structure in Paris and one of the most recognized structures in the world and is named after its designer, engineer Gustave Eiffel. 6,719,200 people visited the tower in 2006 and more than 200,000,000 since its construction. This makes the tower the most visited paid monument in the world per year. Including the 24 m (79 ft) antenna, the structure is 324 m (1,063 ft) high (since 2000), which is equivalent to about 81 levels in a conventional building.
When the tower was completed in 1889 it replaced the Washington Monument as the world's tallest structure - a title it retained until 1930 when New York City's Chrysler Building (319 m — 1,047 ft tall) was completed. The tower is now the fifth-tallest structure in France and the tallest structure in Paris, with the second-tallest being the Tour Montparnasse (210 m — 689 ft), although that will soon be surpassed by Tour AXA (225.11 m — 738.36 ft).
The structure of the Eiffel Tower weighs 7,300 tons. Depending on the ambient temperature the top of the tower may shift away from the sun by up to 18 cm (7 in) due to thermal expansion of the metal on the side facing the sun. The tower also sways 6-7 cm (2-3 in) in the wind.
The first and second levels are accessible by stairs and lifts. A ticket booth at the south tower base sells tickets to use the stairs which begin at that location. At the first platform the stairs continue up from the east tower and the third level summit is only accessible by lift. Once you are on the first or second platform the stairs are open for anyone to ascend or descend regardless of whether you have purchased a lift ticket or stair ticket. The actual count of stairs includes 9 steps to the ticket booth at the base, 328 steps to the first level, 340 steps to the second level and 18 steps to the lift platform on the second level. When exiting the lift at the third level 15 more steps exist to ascend to the upper observation platform. The step count is printed periodically on the side of the stairs to give an indication of progress. The majority of the ascent allows for an unhindered view of the area directly beneath and around the tower except during brief stretches of the stairway that are enclosed.
Maintenance of the tower includes applying 50 to 60 tons of three graded tones of paint every seven years to protect it from rust. On occasion the color of the paint is changed — the tower is currently painted a shade of brownish-grey. However, the tower is actually painted three different colors in order to make it look the same color to an observer on the ground with the colors changing from dark to light from top to bottom. On the first floor there are interactive consoles hosting a poll for the color to use for a future session of painting. The co-architects of the Eiffel Tower are Emile Nouguier, Maurice Koechlin and Stephen Sauvestre.
