Paris Day 2 – The Louvre, Jardin Des Tuileries, Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, and Tour Eiffel

Our second day in Paris was our first full day, and we sure packed it in.  It was Saturday, and we slept in a little longer than we would have liked and were still getting used to the time difference.

It was our first day purchasing metro tickets, and leading up to the trip, I had been studying French.  When I went to buy the tickets, I was hoping to get two, four-day metro tickets.  Instead, I got four, one-way tickets.  I wasn’t saying day right.  It was funny when we tried to use our tickets on the return trip that they didn’t work; we had the other set.  The next day, I was able to ask correctly for a three-day ticket for two people.

Living in the 18th district of Montmartre, we walked down the street and hopped on the station at Jules Joffrin and hunted for an entrance to the number 4 metro.  It was hard to find, but we finally got on the metro.   We got off at Les Halles which was a big shopping area.  We should have gone one more stop because it was a little bit of a walk to our destination, the Louvre museum.

Below is the outside of the Louvre.

There were a couple inner courts that we walked through, and reached the famous glass pyramids. We put the camera on one of the walls and tried to take a picture of both of us together, but I couldn’t figure out how to get the flash to come on because we were in the shade. Note to self, review how to work the camera before leaving. Also, we found out that it’s best to use the flash during the day as a fill flash and to stay away from using the flash at night. Using the flash at night makes it so you can’t see anything in the background of the picture.

Inside the Louvre below. The famous winged statue is up and behind Angie.

We headed first to the Mona Lisa, and luckily, there were signs pointing everywhere telling us how to get there. After seeing the Mona Lisa, we got lost about a dozen times because the museum is so huge and has different wings across the courtyards. We had a hard time figuring out how to get over to Napoleon’s apartments which were in the Louvre. The Louvre used to be a giant palace.

The Louvre itself was a museum piece. Just look at the ceiling in one of the rooms (pictured below).

The Louvre has had quite the history dating back almost 1,000 years.  From Wikipedia:

 

The Louvre Museum (French: Musée du Louvre), located in Paris, France, is the world’s most visited art museum, a historic monument, and a national museum of France. It is a central landmark, located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the neighbourhood of the 1st arrondissement.

The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace (Palais du Louvre), which began as a fortress in the 12th century under Philip II; remnants of which are still visible. In the 14th century Charles V converted the building into a residence and in 1546 Francis I renovated the site in French Renaissance style. The 460-metre (1,509 ft) Grande Galerie, used today to display paintings, was begun by Henry IV in 1594. Under the Bourbon dynasty the building increased in size and was renovated frequently by a string of architects. The Grand Louvre Project added the Pyramid and La Pyramide Inversée, finished in 1989 and 1993 respectively.

The museum officially opened to the public on 10 August 1793, during the French Revolution; the exhibitions’ core were primarily drawn from appropriated Church property and royal collections. Holdings increased under Napoleon and the museum was renamed the Musée Napoléon. After his defeat at Waterloo, many works seized by Napoleon’s armies were returned to their original owners. The collection was augmented through the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings grew steadily through donations and gifts since the Third Republic, although growth slowed during the World Wars.

The collection is divided among eight curatorial departments: Egyptian Antiquities; Paintings; Decorative Arts; Islamic Art; Near Eastern Antiquities; Prints and Drawings; Sculpture; and Greek, Etruscan, and Roman antiquities. Roughly 35,000 pieces are displayed, exhibited over 60,000 square metres (650,000 sq ft). The broad collection spans from the 6th century BCE to the 19th century.

In 1190, Philip Augustus constructed a fortress built on the location of the future Louvre; remnants are still visible in the crypt. It is unknown if this was the first building on that spot, but it is likely that Philip modified an existing tower. Likewise, the Louvre’s etymology is uncertain: the name may be in reference to the structure’s status as the largest in 12th century Paris (French L’Å’uvre, masterpiece), its location in a forest (French rouvre, oak), or a reference to a wolf hunting den (via Latin: lupus, lower Empire: lupara).

The Louvre was renovated and extended frequently through the Middle Ages. In 1358 Charles V built an encircling wall and converted the Louvre into a residence. King Francis I acquired what would become the nucleus of the Louvre’s holdings, and purchased Italian masterpieces for his baths. Among the king’s collection was the Mona Lisa, completed by Leonardo da Vinci, likely after he moved to France in 1516.    (Source:  Louvre. (2008, September 28). In  Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:20, September 28, 2008, from  http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Louvre&oldid=241589900)

The crowd waiting to see the Mona Lisa. Can you spot Angie?

Well folks, there she is, the Mona Lisa by Davinci. The Mona Lisa looked so small compared with the ginormous paintings we saw in the Louvre.

How could we not take a moment to learn about the Mona Lisa?  Well, we didn’t before we left on the trip.  I wondered about why the painting was so important.

From Wikipedia:

Mona Lisa (also known as La Gioconda) is a 16th century portrait painted in oil on a poplar panel by Leonardo da Vinci during the Italian Renaissance. The work is owned by the French government and hangs in the Musée du Louvre in Paris, France with the title Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo.

The painting is a half-length portrait and depicts a woman whose expression is often described as enigmatic. The ambiguity of the sitter’s expression, the monumentality of the half-figure composition, and the subtle modeling of forms and atmospheric illusionism were novel qualities that have contributed to the painting’s continuing fascination. Few other works of art have been subject to as much scrutiny, study, mythologizing and parody.

Leonardo da Vinci began painting the Mona Lisa in 1503 (during the Italian Renaissance) and, according to Vasari, “after he had lingered over it four years, left it unfinished….” He is thought to have continued to work on it for three years after he moved to France and to have finished it shortly before he died in 1519.  Leonardo took the painting from Italy to France in 1516 when King François I invited the painter to work at the Clos Lucé near the king’s castle in Amboise. Most likely through the heirs of Leonardo’s assistant Salai, the king bought the painting for 4,000 écus and kept it at Fontainebleau, where it remained until given to Louis XIV. Louis XIV moved the painting to the Palace of Versailles. After the French Revolution, it was moved to the Louvre. Napoleon I had it moved to his bedroom in the Tuileries Palace; later it was returned to the Louvre. During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) it was moved from the Louvre to a hiding place elsewhere in France.

Mona Lisa was not well known until the mid-19th century when artists of the emerging Symbolist movement began to appreciate it, and associated it with their ideas about feminine mystique. Critic Walter Pater, in his 1867 essay on Leonardo, expressed this view by describing the figure in the painting as a kind of mythic embodiment of eternal femininity, who is “older than the rocks among which she sits” and who “has been dead many times and learned the secrets of the grave.”

Mona Lisa is named for Lisa del Giocondo, a member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany and the wife of wealthy Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo. The painting was commissioned for their new home and to celebrate the birth of their second son, Andrea.

The sitter’s identity was ascertained at the University of Heidelberg in 2005 by a library expert who discovered a 1503 margin note written by Agostino Vespucci.  (Source:  Mona Lisa. (2008, September 23). In  Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:30, September 28, 2008, from  http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mona_Lisa&oldid=240495873)

 

There were quite a few paintings of Napoleon.  Of course the Louvre used to be his residence, at least part of it.  I thought as we were there that the portraits were their television of the day to convey images and “immortalize” the subject.  Visitors seeing the gigantic portraits must have been somewhat intimidated or at least impressed.

Below the Louvre were the foundations of a giant medieval castle. It was torn down and the Louvre built in its place.

This is what the castle used to look like.

The crowns of the Kings of France.  We thought the one in the background was of Charlemagne, but we’re not sure.  The plaques were all in French.  After touring the Louvre, we saw you could rent headsets that would tell you about the things you were seeing in the museum.

Angie really wanted to see the “apartments” of Napoleon.  They were pretty neat, but hard to get to Napoleon had some very ornate living arrangements.

Below is Angie within the glass pyramid.

Exiting the Louvre, with the pyramids to our backs, we saw the entrance to the Jardin Des Tuileries park. The park was the first park we visited and we sat and enjoyed lunch there. We brought our own food from the states to save on money because food is expensive in Paris.

Above is the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel.  After exiting the courtyard housing the glass pyramids at the Louvre, the Arc is visible.  The larger and more famous Arc de Triomphe is located in a straight line all the way down the street (a long way down the street) from this one.

We saw this arc and wondered what it commemorated.  From Wikipedia:

The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel is a triumphal arch in Paris, France. It is located on the Place du Carrousel, just to the west of the Louvre.

Designed by Charles Percier and Pierre Léonard Fontatine, the arch was made between 1806-1808 by the Emperor Napoleon I on the model of the Arch of Septimius Severus in Rome. It was commissioned to commemorate France’s military victories in 1805. It was originally surmounted by the famous horses of Saint Mark’s Cathedral in Venice, captured by Napoleon, but these were returned to Venice in 1815. They were replaced by a quadriga sculpted by Baron François Joseph Bosio, depicting Peace riding in a triumphal chariot led by gilded Victories on both sides. The composition commemorates the Restoration of the Bourbons following Napoleon’s downfall.  (Source:  Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. (2008, September 23). In  Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:49, September 28, 2008, from  http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arc_de_Triomphe_du_Carrousel&oldid=240423948)

After hours of walking the Louvre, we sat down and at lunch in the Tuileries Park.  It was nice and peaceful.  The main walkway of the park was a fine-powered, white dirt.  When the wind would blow, the dust would be picked up into the air.

The park is a very big park. We walked the length of it and saw the Arc de Triomphe in the distance, and decided to walk to it. Little did we know how far away it was.

We saw many things on our trip that we thought, “Mmm, we’ll have to look that up when we get home.”  There were many buildings and statues that we wanted to learn the history of.  Before we left, I printed histories of some of the major places were were going.  While in Paris, we wanted to see the place where the guillotine was used during the revolution.  Little did we know, we saw it our first full day there.  The large Obelisk pictured above marks the location.

The Obelisk itself is quite amazing.  We walked right by it but really had no idea what it meant or why it was there.  Little did we know… From Wikipedia:

The Place de la Concorde is one of the major squares in Paris, France. It is located in the city’s eighth arrondissement, at the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées.

During the French Revolution the statue of King Louis was torn down and the area renamed “Place de la Révolution”. In a grim reminder to the nobility of a gruesome past, when the “Place de Grève” was a site where the nobility and members of the bourgeoisie were entertained watching convicted criminals being dismembered alive, the new revolutionary government erected the guillotine there. The first notable to be executed at the Place de la Révolution was King Louis XVI, on January 21, 1793. Other important people guillotined there, often in front of cheering crowds, were Queen Marie Antoinette, Madame Élisabeth, Charlotte Corday, Madame du Barry, Danton, Desmoulins, Lavoisier, Robespierre and Louis de Saint-Just.

The guillotine was most active during the “Reign of Terror”, in the summer of 1794, when in a single month more than 1,300 people were executed. A year later, when the revolution was taking a more moderate course, the guillotine was removed from the square and its name was changed in token of national reconciliation.

The center of the Place is occupied by a giant Egyptian obelisk decorated with hieroglyphics exalting the reign of the pharaoh Ramses II. It is one of two the Egyptian government gave to the French in the nineteenth century. The other one stayed in Egypt, too difficult and heavy to move to France with the technology at that time. In the 90′s, President Mitterand gave the second obelisk back to the Egyptians.

The obelisk once marked the entrance to the Luxor Temple. The viceroy of Egypt, Mehemet Ali, offered the 3,300-year-old Luxor Obelisk to France in 1831. The obelisk arrived in Paris on December 21, 1833. Three years later, on October 25, 1836, King Louis-Philippe had it placed in the centre of Place de la Concorde, where a guillotine used to stand during the Revolution.

The red granite column rises 23 metres (75 ft) high, including the base, and weighs over 250 metric tons (280 short tons). Given the technical limitations of the day, transporting it was no easy feat — on the pedestal are drawn diagrams explaining the machinery that were used for the transportation. The obelisk is flanked on both sides by fountains constructed at the time of its erection on the Place.

Missing its original cap, believed stolen in the 6th century BC, the government of France added a gold-leafed pyramid cap to the top of the obelisk in 1998.  (Source:  Place de la Concorde. (2008, September 25). In  Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:09, September 28, 2008, from  http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Place_de_la_Concorde&oldid=240982858)

Passing the obelisk, and a few parks, we walked through modern Paris and passed the expensive shopping stores.  We saw a Disney Store and a Gap along the walk.  I don’t recall the others that we saw, but the certainly looked like you’d spend a fortune in there on clothes.  I’m glad we stayed in the artisan district away from all the shops.

After a very long walk along the Champs Elysees, we still had a ways to go. Note that those are people on top of the Arc.

At the Arc, it was pretty windy, and there were lots of people there. Being a Saturday, it was pretty crowded and the walk to the Arc was crowded.  We noticed a metro station right close to the Arc.  We thought, next time, we’ll just take the metro.

The Arc itself is massive, and it is the center of a giant round about where cars drive around from a number of intersecting streets.  To get to the Arc, you walk under the street and then back up.  The history of the Arc de Tromphe is pretty interesting.  From Wikipedia:

The Arc de Triomphe is a monument in Paris, France that stands in the centre of the Place Charles de Gaulle, also known as the Place de l’Étoile. It is at the western end of the Champs-Élysées. The triumphal arch honors those who fought for France, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars. On the inside and the top of the arc there are all of the names of generals and wars fought. Underneath is the tomb of the unknown soldier from World War I.

The Arc de Triomphe is one of the most famous monuments in Paris. It was commissioned in 1806 after the victory at Austerlitz by Emperor Napoleon at the peak of his fortunes. Laying the foundations alone took two years, and in 1810 when Napoleon entered Paris from the west with his bride Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria, he had a wooden mock-up of the completed arch constructed. The architect Jean Chalgrin died in 1811, and the work was taken over by Huyon. During the Restoration, construction was halted and would not be completed until the reign of King Louis-Philippe, in 1833–36 when the architects on site were Goust, then Huyot, under the direction of Héricart de Thury. Napoleon’s body passed under it on 15 December 1840 on its way to its second and final resting place at Les Invalides. (Source:  Arc de Triomphe. (2008, September 26). In  Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 18:59, September 28, 2008, from  http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arc_de_Triomphe&oldid=241091861)

We were pretty tired at this point in the day, but since we found a metro station and were actually quite close to the Eiffel Tower, we decided to go over there.  It was later in the afternoon, and the metro let us off not too far from the tower.  It was neat to walk up to the tower.

We decided to walk along the River Seine on our way. The river was really beautiful and new to us to see a river in the middle of a large city.

As we approached the Tour Eiffel, we saw how incredibly massive the structure is.  From Wikipedia:

Named after its designer, engineer Gustave Eiffel, the Eiffel Tower is the tallest building in Paris.[1] More than 200,000,000 have visited the tower since its construction in 1889,[2] including 6,719,200  in 2006,[3] making it the most visited paid monument in the world.[4][5] Including the 24 m (79 ft) antenna, the structure is 325 m (1,063 ft) high (since 2000), which is equivalent to about 81 levels in a conventional building.

The structure was built between 1887 and 1889 as the entrance arch for the Exposition Universelle, a World’s Fair marking the centennial celebration of the French Revolution. Eiffel originally planned to build the tower in Barcelona, for the Universal Exposition of 1888, but those responsible at the Barcelona city hall thought it was a strange and expensive construction, which did not fit into the design of the city. After the refusal of the Consistory of Barcelona, Eiffel submitted his draft to those responsible for the Universal Exhibition in Paris, where he would build his tower a year later, in 1889. The tower was inaugurated on March 31, 1889, and opened on May 6. Three hundred workers joined together 18,038 pieces of puddled iron (a very pure form of structural iron), using two and a half million rivets, in a structural design by Maurice Koechlin.

Eiffel had a permit for the tower to stand for 20 years, meaning it would have had to be dismantled in 1909, when its ownership would revert to the City of Paris. The City had planned to tear it down (part of the original contest rules for designing a tower was that it could be easily demolished) but as the tower proved valuable for communication purposes, it was allowed to remain after the expiration of the permit. The military used it to dispatch Parisian taxis to the front line during the First Battle of the Marne, and it therefore became a victory statue of that battle.

Upon the Nazi occupation of Paris in 1940, the lift cables were cut by the French so that Adolf Hitler would have to climb the steps to the summit. The parts to repair them were allegedly impossible to obtain because of the war. In 1940 German soldiers had to climb to the top to hoist the swastika, but the flag was so large it blew away just a few hours later, and it was replaced by a smaller one. When visiting Paris, Hitler chose to stay on the ground. It was said that Hitler conquered France, but did not conquer the Eiffel Tower. A Frenchman scaled the tower during the German occupation to hang the French flag. In August 1944, when the Allies were nearing Paris, Hitler ordered General Dietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris, to demolish the tower along with the rest of the city. Von Choltitz disobeyed the order. The lifts of the Tower were working normally within hours of the Liberation of Paris.

At the start of the French Presidency of the European Union in the second half of 2008, the twelve golden stars of the European Flag were mounted on the base, and whole tower bathed in blue light.(Source: Eiffel Tower. (2008, September 26). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 04:51, September 29, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eiffel_Tower&oldid=241181503)

Pictures of the Eiffel Tower at night cannot be published without a license. Here’s a picture before the lights came on.  It was funny to see folks trying to sell  souvenirs there that weren’t supposed to be there or weren’t licensed.  We saw the police chase a couple away.  After we had been to the top of tower and back, we sat on a park bench.  Just as I was about to put a cracker into my mouth, a police office shown his flashlight on my and on the person behind us.  The police (which were almost always in groups of three) thought that the guy behind us on the bench was more interesting.  I think he was the boss of the guys trying to sell souvenirs illegally.  They asked him a bunch of questions, but I guess weren’t able to find an “souvenirs” on him.  Just before the police arrived, two of the salesmen sat down and talked with the man.  All three were Indian.  It was pretty funny to see.

When the lights did come on, the tower was blue and had stars on the front perhaps because France is at the head of the European Union this year.

We waited in line forever to get to the top of tower. We got in line when it was still day, and reached the top when it was dark. Giant elevators took us to the top. We took a large elevator to the first floor and then a smaller one to the top.

It was pretty cold at the top and windy. However, there was a glass enclosed floor at the top that wasn’t so cold. We went up the stairs from that floor to get some better pictures.

The tower had blue spotlights circling like a light house. You can see the beam in the picture above. The view was gorgeous. It was hard to get pictures and stay still up there because it was so cold. The best pictures came out without using the flash on the camera, so if we moved just a little while the shutter was open, the picture became blurry.

Above is a picture from the Eiffel Tower of the Arc de Triomphe. We had a good lens on the camera that let us zoom in real close.

We could see the Sacre Couer church located in Montmartre where we were staying. Below is the Arc again.

We could see Notre Dame (in the center of the picture below). The city truly was amazing, and we can see why it is called “The City of Lights”.

I wanted to get a shot of the Louvre at night, and we got one from the Eiffel Tower. You can see the glass pyramid from the tower.

We had a long day, and saw a ton. We got back on the metro and it was probably about 10:30 pm. I snapped a shot of the empty metro station. Even late at night, we felt safe in the city.

Related Paris Posts:

Paris Day 1 – The Trip and Arrival

Paris Day 2 – The Louvre, Jardin Des Tuileries, Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, and Tour Eiffel

Paris Day 3 – Notre Dame, Palais du Luxembourg

Paris Day 4 – Bastille, Opera House, Victor Hugo’s Home, Jardin des Plantes, City of Lights

Paris Day 5 – Outside the Louvre and Return by Train

Paris, France Video