Paris : Arc De Triomphe!

Paris : Arc De Triomphe!

Sunday (16th Sept) & HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY!! Today, Steve and I had a sleep in and of course the Birthday BOY, truely deserved one!! *chuckles* A lazy Sunday, I think it was well around lunch time when we finally ventured out for the day... but the day also blessed us with a glorious day with delicious sunshine... After a yummy lunch near to our hotel room, Steve and I set out on foot to explore Paris in more detail.

In our trip planning, we had booked another hotel room close to Gare De Lyon on our final night in Paris before travelling to Cannes from that station. We thought we would be clever and have a test run and fuse the Metro to travel from Gare De Nord to Gare De Lyon. From Gare De Lyon set into our second day in Paris at a leisurely pace and stopped at Jardin Des Plantes. On arrival I took the camera out to take a photo of the interesting looking Dragon figure and realised the memory card was missing! BUGGER - someone had left it inside the laptop .. and forgotten to put it back. MMmmm LUCKY we had a small backup one, so we shoved it into the camera and limited ourselves to ABSOLUTELY necessary photograph taking! The garden is also the home of the Musee National D'Historie Naturalle (The Museum of Natural History). To be honest having visited the one in London as well as the Museum of Natural History in Oxford we kind of eluded to visit this particular one! Maybe when we visit again we'll pop in..

But I digress... after spending some time in the park, Steve and I enjoyed some more of the Parisian sunshine and visited Place Du Panthèon. The Panthèon is HUGE, unmissable really.. we were kind walking along a street and I just noticed the Dome protruding from in between other buildings, so we veered in its direction to check out what that THING was! Turns out lucky we did, because this place is of utter cosmic importance! My attention was slightly turned for a moment to a church called "Sainte Etienne -Du-Mont", I was mainly drawn to its architecture. This church contains the Shrine of St Geneviève's remains, the Patron Saint of Paris as well as containing the tombs of Blaise Pascal (a French Mathematician and Physicist) & Jean Racine (French Dramatist.) Interesting?!

From Saint Etienne Du-Mont, Steve and I headed for the Panthèon meaning Greek "All the Gods". What a structure... the dome part of it actually reminded me of St Paul's Cathedral in London. Anyway, the Panthèon is located on the top of Montagne Sainte Geneviève and it looks out all over Paris. The original architect Jacques Germain Soufflot died before his original bright Gothic design could be completed. The building was finished by Jean-Baptiste Rondelet in 1789 at the start of the French Revolution. The building itself is 110m long, 84m wide and 83m high. It is designed in the shape of a Greek Cross and has HUGE Corinthian Columns.

In 1851, a physicist Lèon Foucault demonstrated the rotation of the earth in an experiment in the Panthèon. He constructed a 67m Foucault Pendulum underneath the central dome . This pendulum was returned from the National Conservatory of Arts & Crafts in 1995 and now makes its home in the Panthèon where it was originally constructed. The Panthèon also supports a large Crypt , the inscription on the entrance reads "AUX GRANDS HOMMES LA PATRIE RECONNAISSANTE" . Translated this means, "To Great Men, the GRATEFUL HOMELAND". Important people buried in the Necropolis are Marie Curie - Sklodowska, Pierre Curie, Victor Hugo, Louis Braille, Voltaire and Alexandre Dumas. Like I said before, unfortunately we left the large memory card for the camera behind and it was at this point I ran out of room and had to sacrifice a few pictures in order to take some more of the exterior of the Panthèon. After our visit to this great historical site, Steve and I headed back to our hotel room to retrieve that memory card, have a nap, change and get beautiful (and Steve handsome) for our planned dinner for the evening.

Nap time was refreshing, and Steve and I ventured out (all dressed up and stuff..) for his birthday dinner. We thought that we would be clever and catch the Mètro to the Champs Elysees to save ourselves some walking on foot. We intended to dine on the Champs Elysees and then walk to the Eiffel Tower... anyway.. something happened...I am sure I told the ticket man we wanted to go to Champ Elysees.. and the point of interchange onto a different Mètro line, our ticket wouldn't let us through the gate. So here we were at Chatelet De Halle stranded trying to get to Chatelet so we could train it the rest of the way...OKAY change of plan. We got onto other line and managed to get ourselves to Invalidès...and our tickets still wouldn't let us out of the gate. We ended up having to almost jump the barriers to get out.. LOL. Invalidès was pretty close to the Champs Elysees so we just kind of walked the rest of the way.

It was kind of surreal standing at the bottom of the Champs Elysees looking up towards the Arc De Triomphe. Steve and I wandered down towards this monolithic construction, looking for somewhere to eat... you WOULD think that we would have chosen a traditional french restaurant RIGHT? Errr no... instead we opted for the other renaissance country of cuisine - ITALY! No guessing to what I ordered - Carbonara.. Mmmm yum. Steve ended up getting a four cheeses pizza.... and between the both of us.. (well Steve mainly) we polished off a bottle of red... cheery and relaxed. Steve and I headed towards the Arc De Triomphe just to see what all the fuss was about.

The Arc De Triomphe, stands in Place Charles De Gaulle and it honours those who fought for France - particularly during the Napoleonic Wars. It stands at 51m tall and 45m wide and was completed in 1936. Underneath is also lies the tomb of the unknown soldier since 1920. The idea was to bury his remains in the Panthèon, but after a a public letter writing campaign it was decided to bury his remains underneath the Arc instead with an eternal flame burning beneath it. It might interest you to know that this eternal flame was extinguished when a a drunken fan of the Mexican Football team urinated on it in 1998. He was charged with public intoxication ;o)

After spending some time admiring the Grand Arc of Triomph and Napoleon's obsession with power, Steve and I enjoyed a late evening stroll to the Eiffel Tower. I should mention that, that particular evening we were blessed with the most spectacular weather. After a gorgeously sunny day, the evening was balmy and comfortable and there were many people outside enjoying al fresco dinners and checking out Paris' most important locations. Steve and I arrived at the Trocadèro site of the Palais De Chaillot , this area is the PRIME viewing location of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. As we arrived, we were greeted by the smell of Crèpes (from a food stand nearby) and a number of men trying to sell little glowing ornaments of the tower to us.. but we were also privileged to be welcomed by the Eiffel Tower itself and its special lighting display. Looking at my watch I realised it was midnight (and way past MY bedtime!), we sat down at the Trocadèro and absorbed the atmosphere around us. It was at the moment, I pinched myself (and Steve) just for fun, just to make sure that we weren't dreaming, that it was truly the Eiffel Tower we were looking at... What a way to spend your 30th Birthday uh? Happy Birthday baby!

By then my feet were aching... (who ever thought wearing heels was a great idea?)... and it was time to head back to the hotel room...being in no condition to walk, we thought that we would catch a Taxi from the Champs Elysee back to our hotel room at Gare de Nord... Turned out not to be an expensive ride home at Ɛ8 (Euro's)... What a perfect Day!

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