Tuesday : St. Denis, Invalides, Arc de Triomphe

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Geo: 48.8566, 2.35097

Tuesday, June 3rd:
Another busy day for us! Left the apt 9-9:30 and took the metro to the north part of the city, St. Denis, probably not part of Paris technically as it used to be its own town... everything seems grown together to a visitor... anyway I loved this Basilica. It was full of the people we had studied in our history class this year plus some others. A short list includes Dagobert, Charles Martel, Pepin the Short, M. Antoinette, Louis 16th, Louis 14th (I think), Henry 2nd, Catherine De Medici, St. Denis...... amazing to see their tombs and how they decorated them with symbols that characterized their power and lives. I think it was towards the end of school for the French kids and we kept running into school groups taking their French History field trips. We strolled through the outdoor market of St. Denis, Dad bought some sunglasses and Mom a little card wallet, interesting to see the locals shopping and us trying to make sure we left with everything we came with :-)... We had taken the 8 to Invalides then the 13 all the way to St. Denis Basilique stop, when you get off the metro go straight then take a left and there is the church. The market was along that route, can't miss it!
Back to the metro we go and retrace our steps and get off at the La Tour Maubourg stop and Hotel Des Invalides was right there, this is pretty much in our neighborhood now. We could have stayed here all day! This was built by Louis 14th (I think..) to house and help the wounded vets of his time. I guess there is still a part that does that, we didn't see it, but we visited the part that is turned into a war museum. Wow, lots of stuff from the middle ages up through WW2, not sure if there is more, we definitely didn't see everything. On the same grounds is the Dome church where Napoleon and some others are buried. Interesting how so many references to Rome were used. Paris as the "new Rome", being portrayed as Caesar, togas, eagles, facies (axe with sticks wrapped together), over and over the symbolism used was in reference to ancient Rome. You could really get into the historical meaning behind all of this, very interesting...

From there we basically went across the street to the Rodin Museum, o.k. now don't blast me for the following. I know to many of you I will come across as an uneducated hick, straight off the hay wagon, etc....but now I can say I've been but don't need to repeat the experience. Mr. Rodin had quite the imagination, that is all I'll say since I know some of the younger audience are reading this.... I did like a few of his works and he was actually quite talented and showed it in his earlier more "realistic" phase, of course, the "Gates of Hell" were something to see and contemplate. Definitely had talent, I would disagree on how well he used it... but again, am opening myself up for some nasty comments.. an age old question popped into my head as I was viewing his "art" does art follow life or life art?? hmmm.. we can all come to our own conclusions... depends on your world view I think.

Well, we walked back in the rain to our apt. I bought a sandwich for dinner and a baguette for the morrow. We had dinner in the apt then I went to the Arc de Triomphe. Took the 8 to Concord then the 1 to the Arc. Amazing and wonderful view, since it was drizzling I had the top almost to myself, at the most, there were 10-15 people there. Did a quick tour of the inner floor where they have a display on the construction (after no wait for the elevator to take me up!) then climbed the 45-50 steps the rest of the way to the top. :-) Even though it was hazy I could see Sacre Cour, La Defense, Louvre, the top of Notre Dame, Montparnasse Tower, La Tour Eiffel! At 9 the Eiffel "twinkled", it's lights dancing all over it.Fun to see and a fantastic view of it from up there! I had a couple of people take my picture which was very nice. I loved seeing how the streets went off at angles from the big traffic circle below. Interesting to see the buses navigate through the traffic, the only way to see a big city, in my opinion, is public transportation! Love it!!. Left the Arc about 9:15 ish and got back to the apt about 9:45 unwound and off to bed for me! Tomorrow Normandy!

14,208 steps + some for me

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Photos

La Tour Eiffel in background, on top of Arc
taken from top of Arc by some new found friends

taken in front of Arc
another picture taken by nice people for me!

top of Arc
you can see there aren't too many people up here with me!