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Published: August 19th 2007
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After a splendid four days in the north of Spain and seeing one major festival- San Fermin- it was time to go to Paris for 5 days and also see Bastille Day- a day when French Pride bubbles like champagne. This was Claudia's & Santo's first trip to Paris- and they were looking forward to the trip
We arrived very early on the 13th of July to London and had to cross the whole city to head towards the other airport for our flight to Paris- We arrived late on the 13th July to Paris ready for an early start the next day to join Paris to celebrate Bastille day or "la Fête Nationale" commemorating the 1790 Fête de la Fédération, this was the storming of the Bastille seen as a symbol of the uprising of the modern French "nation" and of the reconciliation of all the French inside the constitutional monarchy before the First Republic, during the French Revolution. A significant day!
We arrived fairly early (9.30am) by the Champs Elysee to watch the programmed parade- the girls (clauds and Cris) each with their own bit of red white and blue! as most others- Unfortuantely we did not
Bastille Day Commences!
First Glimpse over the Arch de Triumph have front row seats as it was already filled with people.
Now Let me tell you- the French know how to throw a party to celebrate national pride- none of this 50 canoes in the harbour (OK they are yachts- so what?) and fireworks at 9pm and thats it!
Paris gets dressed in red, white and blue for the Bastille Day Celebrations- All government buildings (and it feels like all of paris is made up of government buildings!) have massive flags hanging from the buildings!
Paris starts celebrating at 11.00am when the president gets escorted the length of the Champs Elysee by French cuirassier on horseback (cavalry) waving his hand to the public (think Queens wave). The French cuirassier look very impressive in their uniforms.
Then the airforce announce the commencement of proceedings with a series of jets flying in formation spraying the red, white and blue bands of colour- and then the remainder of the airforce continue flying over the Champs Elysee in formation including helicopters, B52's and I think I even saw paper planes!
Finally French soldiers from all different regiments & divisions parade in their formal uniforms- this takes 5 hours!!!!!!! There are also
invited nations to join in on the parade- this year it was Germany and Belgium! All nations howeverdo send diplomats to the event- we saw the aussie car wit its two small flags off the bonet- naturally enough it was a HolFord car!
Once the parade is finished- as it was a nice day most people went to the river Seine- we bought a wine, cheese and crackers and enjoy the jovial atmosphere- near the Notre Damme. Finally there was fire works and a concert by Nelly Furtado (which we didn't see but Clauds and Santo did!).
The day is one long intensive day with a strong sense of nationalism, pride and significance! It was an enjoyable day!
The next few days were spent walking the streets of Paris and seeing some of the significant sights we had not seen in our previous trips to Paris including Sacre Couer and seeing other architectural delights like the Arabic Museum by Jean Nouvel; went to the Louvre tosee the Arabic arts exhibition which we missed on our last visit and generally meandered the streets which is what you do in Paris!!!
Cris & I decided on the fourth
day to head off towards Ronchamp- a small French country town near the border with Switzerland- to see the Notre Dame du Haut a small chapel completed in 1954by Le Corbusier a very famous modernist architect. To get to Ronchamp was an absolute pain in the $#%@ (neck)! It is a tiny town that has two trains that go to the town per day- yes it is very isolated- It took 4 hours to get their from Paris......but it was worth it.
The town- much like most parts of country France- has very friendly people and culinary delights- particularly when it is fromage and sweets we are talking about- we made sure we had plenty of these- as it was the only way to keep Cris motivated as exceptional architecture was not enough for her!
The trip out of Ronchamp was via taxi to the nearest large town- Lure- to catch our train back to Paris- because one of the two trains out of Ronchamp was expected quite late at night meaning we would miss our train back to Paris- an expensive day! but well worth it!
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Chris
non-member comment
Ah, ciel de paris
Bonjour ! Je suis heureux que vous avez eu un tel bon temps à Paris. Je choisirais du fromage par-dessus l'architecture aussi, Cristina. C'est si bon de vous voir dans les photographies, regardant si bien et heureux.