Second 1/2 day:Modern Paris from 19th to
20th Century
The tour will start over again at the
Opera at the 6th red
bus stop
By crossing the rue de
la Paix the bus goes through la place Vendôme,
known for the Ritz hotel on the left, the grand jeweller Boucheron ,
Cartier and the colonne Vendôme
an order set up by Napoleon the
1st.In 1805,the day after Austerlitz that the Museum director
:Vivant Denon, offered the Emperor the set up, with the
canons(guns) taken from the Austrians a commemorative column from the
campaign dedicated to the grand Army. Apart from possible traffical
problems, you won’t have any time to admire(once on the) 42
meters of bronze that are surmounted by the Emperor’s statue.
From
the Cordue place, you will walk up the famous Avenue des
Champs Elysées. This avenue is probably among the
world’s most beautiful and longest urban view : 7km long, it
starts at L’arc de Triomphe of Carroussel
and goes through the Tuileries garden. L’obélisque de
Louxor(the Louxor obelisk) was punctuated at
Cordue, the Champs Elysées continue it until The (Triumphal
Arc)l’Arc de Triomphe de
L’Etoile. It goes past the Grande
Armée
avenue, the Général de Gaule avenue, it even
crosses the
Seine at the Neuilly bridge and ends with the Defence avenue at l’Arche de Défense.
The
red busses will drive you to L’arc de Triomphe de
l’Etoile, 7th red
bus stop.
We advise you to stop at l’Arc
de Triomphe.
Done by Jean François Chalgrin, it is a monument filled with
symboles. It is Napoleon the 1st who wanted it to be built in memory of
the Grand Army and all of his Napoleonian victories are on this
Triumphal Arc(Arc de Triumphe). In the memory of all the lost soldiers
of the heartbreaking first World War who dies for France an unknown
soldier rests since 1921. L’arc de Triomphe still
rings with its
nation’s joy when the war stopped in 1918 and 1944. It is a
place
of pilgrimage, it is a place of tribute to the nation and
it’s
lost children,who died for their homeland.It is also, with the four
high relifs to which the volontary departure of the famous Marseillaise de Rude,
the powerfull expression which shows just how attatched the French
people are to their Republic. It is finally a great
observation
spot from where one can easily appreciate the view from the Cordue
place to the Grande Arche de la Défense.With
a bit of
luck, you might even be able to watch the sun setting itself
in
the Arc de triomphe’s axe, once or twice a year during the
Spring
and Autumn equinoxes.
If you are not too tired after
this and
that you still have some time left, you could go down the Champs
Elysées an join the 8th red
bus stop
at the same level
as the Grand palace. Apart from the avenue, you can also
admire
the prestigious buildings occupied by some well known ensigns :
The Publicis building(1975)who is most recent at 131, the
Parisian Tourism Office at 127, the Lido,one
of the
world’s most famous Cabarets at 116, not to mention
Mr.Fouquet’s famous café at 99, Guerlain at 68,
Virgin Megastore at 56-60, as the remarkable hotel
de la Païva at n°25 and the hotel
numbered 15(one of Figaro’s old headquarters).
From
the 8th red
bus stop,
the red busses will drive you to Trocadéro, by
passing infront of the grand Palace and the Palace of
Discovery(palais
de la découverte) recently restored, you will once again
cross
the Seine with the Alexandre III bridge,
you will then have
a glimpse of the Invalide’s dome covered with gold and then
you
will re-cross the quais rive gauche,
you will rejoin the Tocradéro where we advise you to get off
at the 9th red
bus stop.
Built
for the 1937’s universal exposition,the Tocadéro
Palace, shelters museums and aquariums.
The esplanade baptised
Place des droits de l’homme
offers a magnificent overview on Paris, the
Eiffel tower and the champs de Mars who are in front of it.
At
this point of our journey, we offer you once again a new alternative :
you can either visist the Eiffel
Tower, Paris’ most international
monument or, you can continue your road to visit the Invalides and the
Rodin museum.
To get to the Eiffel Tower, one can
simply walk across the bridge or re-take the red bus and get off at the
1st red
bus stop.
Formation
Engineer, Eiffel founded and developped his company who was specialised
in metalic framework, of which the Eiffel Tower is living proof. The
project of making a 300meter tall tower was created for the universal
exposition of 1989. After a few satirical tracts or other
articles published during the whole of 1886,the work had barely started
when the 14th February 1887, artists protested. The battery assemblage
started July the 1st,1887 and ended 21 months later. The
first
half on the 20th Century in Europe was pronounced by the Industrial
Revolution, in which the metalic expansion played a very impotant role.
Built in iron, the Tower is protected from oxydation by many covers of
paint, as a pledge of it’s perenity.
Through her
constant artificail lightings, the Tower has always inherited
the
most innovative lighting system. In 1981, the society in charge of
running the Eiffel Tower started the biggest part on the Tower, since
they started building...”
http://www.tour-eiffel.fr
If
you prefer to continue your visit with the Invalides and the Rodin
museum, then we advise you to re-take the red bus at the 9th red
bus stop.You
will cross the Seine,go past the Eiffel Tower’s foot that you
will bypass so that you can go down to the 2nd stop : Av
Joseph Bouvard.
Unless you’d rather admire the numerous “modern
styled” hotels of the Bourdonnais Avenue, you can walk back
up
the Champs de Mars gardens to Military school( a new occasion to
take a photo of the Eiffel Tower), then join the
Tourville
avenue, so that you can closely admire the Invalides’ blazing
golden dome and finally go back up the Invalides Boulevard
until the rue de Varennes
to find the Rodin Museum.Most of the
incredible sculptor’s work
is in the garden of a certain Hotel. If it wasn’t for the
Invalides’ dome’s
omnipresence ,his neighbour, you’d
think that you are at thousand miles from Paris.