Tuileries

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