Today
we went for a walk in the
Jardin
des Tuileries.
We
caught a glimpse of it when visiting the Louvre yesterday.
It's
a quintessential French garden, with verdant lawns,
manicured
rows of trees, and gravel paths,
designed by André Le
Nôtre for Louis XIV.
After
the king moved his court to Versailles in 1682,
the
Tuileries became the place for stylish Parisians to stroll.
Ironically,
the name derives from the decidedly
unstylish
factories which once occupied this area:
they
produced tuiles, or roof tiles, fired in kilns called tuileries.
The glass
pyramid is in The Louvre courtyard.
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We
began at the Louvre end, at the Arc du Carrousel,
a
stone-and-marble arch ordered by Napoléon to showcase
the
bronze horses he stole from St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice.
The
horses were eventually returned and replaced here with
a
statue of a quadriga, a four-horse chariot.
The
garden serves as a beautiful setting for a walk.
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Laid
out before you is a vista of must-see monuments,
with
the Louvre at one end and the Place de la Concorde at the other.
The
Eiffel Tower is visible on the Seine side.
You
can
see the following things all lined up perfectly in the distance:
the arch
shape of the Arc du Carroussel,
the
Egyptian obelisk
at
the Place de la Concorde,
and the
Arc de Triomphe in the distance!
It
was very hot...more than 30°C.
There
were carts serving drinks and ice creams,
and cafés with terraces all
along the way.
There
is plenty of seating and
lots of places to just sit and relax
in
the shade.There are two large fountains and
a
lot of people were sitting around it and enjoying the sun.
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On
the Place de la Concorde end,
twin
buildings bookend the garden.
On
the Seine side, the former royal greenhouse
is
now the exceptional Musée de l'Orangerie,
home
to the largest display of Monet's lovely Water Lilies series.
On
the opposite side is the Jeu de Paume,
which
has some of the city's best temporary photography exhibits.
The
Luxor obelisk
is
23 metres high and decorated with hieroglyphics
that
exalt the reign of the pharaoh Rameses II
and
also marks the place where
the
guillotine stood
during the French Revolution!
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From there
we walked along the Champs-Elysées.
The
grand tree lined boulevard has sprawling sidewalks,
pastel macarons in
grand cafés and concept cars in glimmering showrooms.
This
is my third visit to Paris and I do think
it is a mere shadow
of
what it used to be. Many of the high end cafes and stores have given
way
to a generally commercial atmosphere with enormous
hub-stores
such as Sephora, Gap, Virgin and even McDonalds!
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The
Arc de Triomphe overlooks the Champs-Elysées.
It
is the biggest arch in the world and was commissioned by Napoleon in
1806 to celebrate his victory at Austerlitz.
Beneath
the Arc is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
The
eternal flame burns in memory of the dead
who
were never identified in both world wars.
The
Arc sits at the meeting point of twelve straight avenues,
including
the Champs-Elysées, so you might be able to imagine
how
CRAZY The
traffic on the roundabout at the base is.
There
are no lines and it has rules all its own.
Traffic
entering the roundabout has the right of way,
and
your guess is as good as mine about
how
to get off at the street you want to be on.
We’ve
even heard that insurance companies automatically
split
the blame for accidents around the Arc de Triomphe 50/50
no
matter who is at fault. It does make for good, albeit tense,
sightseeing!
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This
afternoon we set off to do this Island
Walk
I
found in my planning for this trip. It covers ground we've both been
to
before but some new spots as well.
Île
de la Cité was the first part of Paris to be settled.
Solemn
and museum-like, it is the city's religious and judicial center,
with
a Gothic crown jewel in Notre Dame. After all the historic grandeur,
Île Saint-Louis, linked to Île de la Cité by a tiny bridge, offers
a welcome respite, with its grid of narrow streets parading a lively
mix of fine food shops,
arty
boutiques, and top restaurants.
The
walk starts at the (1) Pont Neuf
("New Bridge")
which,
despite
is name, is the oldest bridge in Paris,
celebrating
its 400th birthday in 2007.
This
photo was taken from the bridge looking back to the Eiffel Tower.
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From
there the walk took us down Quai de L'Horloge
to
the (2) Conciergerie.
This 700-year-old former royal palace
housed
a notorious prison during the French Revolution and
became
the last address before the guillotine for
Marie-Antoinette
and some 2,700 others.
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Next
stop, the 13th-century (3)
Sainte-Chapelle
rising beside
the
Palais de Justice. The queue was so long we decided to give it a
miss.
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Marché
aux Fleurs
has been selling its flowers for some 200 years.
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The
sublime medieval masterpiece, (5)
Notre Dame Cathedral
was
our next stop. Again, the queues to go in were enormous.
Last
visit was at the same time of the year and we just wandered in.
There
was a wait of 1½ hours to do the bell tower tour )
&
there are no skip the queue or prepaid tickets available!
We
headed around back of the cathedral for the famous flying
buttresses.
The
(6)
Memorial of the Deportation was
closed
on
my previous visits and was again today.
From
there we cross over the bridge to Île Saint-Louis
and
walked up the buzzing main drag, Rue St-Louis en l'Île.
Artisanal
cheese shop (7)
La Ferme Saint-Aubin was
on the left.
On
the right, (8)
Mon Vieil Ami
is the acclaimed Alsatian bistro of
Strasbourg
superchef Antoine Westermann.
At
the next corner we reached our final destination and reward, the
beloved half-century-old ice cream parlour (9)
Berthillon
I
had an ice cream there on my first visit to Paris with Mum
in
2005 and have special memories of us eating our ice creams
overlooking the Seine. Dad, Mum, Andrew and I did the same on our
last visit.
This
time there was an enormous queue and we didn't want to wait
in
the sun, so we headed home for our own little happy Hour.
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My favourite photo taken last night.
Today
we walked 21.8 k's
