We thought today would be uneventful – just another day in Paris. We were wrong; but I digress. Let’s start from the beginning.
It was not a pretty day – cold, cloudy and rainy. We left the hotel around 12noon is search of sustenance. We walked down the Rue de Seine and, before we knew it, we were standing at The Louvre – one of the oldest and largest museums in the world.
To say this place is huge is an understatement. It contains more than 30,000 works of art including the Mona Lisa, Victory of Samothrace, and Venus de Milo among others. It has a long history – built in 1190 – and opened as France’s first public museum in 1793. In 1993, an American architect named I.M. Pei transformed the entrance to the Louvre by adding a 71-foot-high glass pyramid in the central courtyard (as seen in the movie The DaVinci Code). This is now the entrance to the museum.
We were caught up in the incredible beauty of this place that we didn’t realize that we had not had any food yet! As we left the main entrance of the museum, we found a small food cart and bought a couple of sandwiches. We sat down next to one of the gardens to enjoy our food…and share it with some of the birds.
After lunch, we walked down the Avenue des Champs-Elysees. This was once the place for prominent Parisians to parade on foot, carriage or horse for hundreds of years. It suffered a lot after World War II but, in the 1990’s, underwent a 240 million franc “facelift.” It has had it’s fair share of tragic moments (like the Nazi march into Paris) and historic ones (Charles de Gaulle’s 1944 victory parade).
We walked up the Avenue for what seemed like miles, ducking in and out of shops along the way to get out of the rain…and stopping for some coffee at Starbucks. The avenue leads up to the Arc de Triomphe – a monument to honor Napoleon’s soldiers.
According to an official website,
The Arc de Triomphe, a great national symbol, has been the seat of major events like the return of the Emperor’s ashes in 1840 or the burial of the Unknown Soldier in 1921. In the middle of an imaginary line going from the Louvre to the Grande Arche de la Défense, it is today a link between the old Paris and the contemporary Paris.
From the Arc, we walked down Avenue Kleber toward our final destination for the day – the Eiffel Tower. We had seen it several times looming in the background, an impressive structure and engineering marvel. At the end of Avenue Kleber, we ended up standing in front of the Trocadero where, from the terrace of Palais de Chaillot, you have a most spectacular view of the Eiffel Tower!
This is where things started to turn. As we left the terrace of the Palais, we walked down the stairs toward the base of the Eiffel Tower. There were carousels and candy stands, ice cream and crepes. There were lots of people but we’ve beat the tourist season so the line was very short. We bought our tickets and walked almost immediately into the elevators to take us to the second observation platform. We exited the elevator and walked around the observation deck. The views were awesome!
Suddenly, we heard someone shouting in a very loud voice. We turned – with our cameras on – to see a young many who had scaled the security fence attempting to jump off the Eiffel Tower. This is no easy task and requires some planning! Anyway, the “shouting dude” grabbed onto the guy that was (apparently) attempting to jump. Several other guys assisted in pulling him down (much to his displeasure) and Security carried him away. It was shocking, sad, and disturbing.
Cindy and I exited the Tower shortly after this incident, caught the 82 Bus back to Luxembourg Gardens, stopped at McDonalds and came back to our hotel for the night.