Day 16: Paris

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We finally spent some time getting into the history of France a bit and took a walking tour, with Sandemans New Europe of course... I sound like an advertisement for them, don't I? I must say that I love Paris but for some reason the history didn't seem to stick in my head as it did on the other tours, so unlike my other entries there won't be much history talk. This must be because everything is so spread out, yet nothing is very tall, so other than sites like the Obelisk and the Eiffel Tower, everything else seems somewhat dulled in comparison. I will say that for the first time on the trip I have found a place where the history doesn't seem to be overrun by the modern. Paris has a way of making the old and new work together, only in a way that Paris could do. Maybe it's because the history itself is so opulent, the new opulence just seems to blend right in. It's a city of monuments and is organized in such a way that they'll never lose their prestige, they won't be polluted by modern architecture creeping up on them. They say the grand avenue, Champs Elysees, lines up every major monument in the city, with the Arc de Triomphe, the Obelisk and the Arc at the Louvre, however the Louvre itself is situated slightly to one side. There's talk of taking the glass pyramid down because they say it's on the path of access and is ruining the line of sight to the monument outside the city. All things considered this is not possible because not only is it not on the line, but there are many other buildings that also impede your sight. A fun fact we learned on the tour: on AIDS Awareness day they draped an enormous condom over the Obelisk, apparently it even had a reservoir tip; not something you'd see in the US!

The tour ended around 3 and we headed back towards the apartment to eat and getting ready to go out on the pub crawl (ran out of energy the last couple days, so we still hadn't made it out). From what I remember, we met some rowdy South Africans, a Californian, and a guy from Wisconsin, went to four bars and had a great time. It took us a while to get home, because the Metro closes at 2am, and all the taxis seemed to be taken, but not to worry, we simply moved farther up the one way street found an empty one that took us home. Two thumbs up!

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Photos

The New Bridge
The faces seen on the bridge are all different and are said to have been modeled after King Henry's friends at a party when they were all drunk

King Henry
This statue was made from two Napolean statues that had been melted down

Napolean's Mark
Notice the N in the middle of the picture... this was Napolean's signature

The Grand Obelisk
This monument is the oldest in France, and was made over 3000 years ago in ancient Egypt