France 2023

Today we visited the 4th arondissement, historically known as the "Marais" district.

Les Halles

The Westfield Forum des Halles is a massive five level terraced underground mall built from 2010 to 2016 as a modern replacement for the Forum des Halles mall which had been built in 1979. The previous mall had been widely reviled for its unattractive design and also for the destruction of the iconic 1850s glass and iron pavilions of the historic Paris food market.

Eglise Saint-Eustache

The Eglise Saint-Eustache is a Catholic parish church which was built from 1532 to 1632, replacing a smaller church which had been built at the same location in 1213. It notably holds one of the largest church organs in France, measuring 10 meters wide and 18 metres high with nearly 8,000 pipes in 135 ranks; this organ was used for the premiere performance of Berlioz's 1849 Te Deum.

Bourse de Commerce de Paris

The Bourse was built from 1763 to 1767 as a city-owned wheat storage and exchange facility adjacent to Les Halles market. The building was reassigned as a more general commodities exchange in 1885 and then substantially reconstructed in 1888, although retaining the cupola and double staircase of the prior building. It was sold to the Paris Chamber of Commerce for a nominal sum in 1949.

Medici Column

The last remnant of the Hôtel de Soissons which formerly occupied the place of the Bourse, the column was built in 1575 for the Florentine noblewoman Catherine de Médicis (Queen of France and subsequently Regent and close advisor for three sons who ruled as King of France) as an astrological observation platform. Legend has it that despite commissioning the construction of the grand Tuileries Palace, de Medici refused to live there after an astrological prediction that she would die "in St. Germain".

Maison Stohrer

The Maison Stohrer is the oldest patisserie in Paris, dating back to 1730.

Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges-Pompidou

The George Pompidou Center was built in 1969-1974 to house the Musée National d'Art Moderne, the Bibliothèque Publique d'Information, and the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique⁄Musique research center. The Center is about to be closed for a major renovation effort expected to last four years.z

Hôtel de Ville de Paris

Although each arondissement in Paris has its own mairie, since 1357 there has also been a grand Hôtel de Ville for the city as a whole, located in the 4th. The original building was burned by the Paris Commune in 1871 and subsequently rebuilt.

Musée Carnavalet

The Musée Carnavalet is the oldest of the fourteen Paris city museums, founded in 1866 as the historical museum of Paris. It occupies the Renaissance-era Hôtel Carnavalet, and was later expanded to also claim the adjacent 17th-century Hôtel Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau.

Place des Vosges

Originaly the Place Royale, the Place des Vosges was built from 1605 to 1612 as one of the first new residential squares in King Henri VI's urban planning.

Appartement de Victor Hugo

The "apartment" of Victor Hugo is actually a suite of seven rooms on the second floor of the Hôtel de Rohan (6 Place Royale) where he and his wife Adèle lived from 1832 to 1848. It is now one of the fourteen city museums of Paris.

Place de la Bastille

The Place de la Bastille is a large public square where the Bastille royal castle ⁄ prison was located from its construction in 1370 until its destruction at the beginning of the July Revolution in 1830.

Colonne de Juilliet

The July Column commemorates the Trois Glorieuses -- the three glorious days of the July Revolution in 1830. Reusing the circular base of the Elephant of the Bastille statue, the 47-metre-high bronze column bears the names of those who died during the REvolution and is topped by a gilded sculpture, the Génie de la Liberté.

A La Gloire
Des Citoyens Francais
Qui Sarmérent et Combattirent
Pour La Defense Des Libertés Publiques
Dans Le Memorables Journees
Des 27 28 29 Juillet 1830

Opéra Bastille

The Opéra Bastille was built in 1989 as part of the Grandes Opérations d'Architecture et d'Urbanisme city renewal project of President Francois Mitterand, and has since served as the primary venue of the Paris National Opera.

Today marks our first visit to the "Axe Historique" along the right bank of the Seine.

Palais Brongniart

The Palais Brongniart housed the Bourse (stock exchange) of Paris from its construction in 1808-1826 until 1987 when the advent of fully automated electronic trading made the physical facility obsolete.

Bibliothèque Nationale de France

The Bibliothèque Nationale de France dates back to the era of King Charles V, although it was not moved to its present location -- the former palace of Cardinal Mazarin, protege of the famous Richelieu and Prime Minister under Louis XIV -- until 1721. Mazarin bequeathed his library to the Collèe des Quatre-Nations upon his death, so it was removed from his palace but remained intact as a collection.

Palais-Royal

The Palais-Royal was built from 1633 to 1639 as the Palais-Cardinal, the estate of Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu. The Cardinal bequeathed it to King Louis XIII, who passed it down to King Louis XIV, who gifted it to his younger brother the Duc d'Orleans. It now houses the Ministry of Culture and two of France's four supreme courts: the Conseil d'État and the Constitutional Council.

Palais du Louvre

Cour Napoléon

The Cour Napoléon is the main courtyard of the Palais du Louvre, open to the east and surrounded on its other three sides by the aile Sully (west), the aile Richelieu (north), and the aile Denon (south). The aile Sully is the east face of the original palace building, while the ailes Richelieu and Denon were created in Napoleon III's expansion of the Palais du Louvre during the 1850s, connecting the "Old Louvre" to the Tuileries Palace. The most visible feature of the Cour Napoléon is the set of four glass pyramids which were built from 1984 to 1988 as part of President Francois Mitterand's "Grand Louvre" expansion project.

Place du Carrousel

The Place du Carrousel is a public square in the former location of the Tuileries Palace at the open end of the Louvre Palace. The Tuileries Palace was looted and heavily damaged during the Revolution of 1848 and then set on fire during the Paris Commune; its charred remains stood for eleven years before the National Assembly voted to have it permanently demolished.

Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel

The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel was built from 1806 to 1808 to commemorate Emperor Napoleon I's victories in the Wars of the Third and Fourth Coalitions. It was placed as a triumphal gateway in front of the east face of the Tuileries Palace, and now remains in the open Place du Carrousel. Standing 19 metres high by 23 metres high, it is roughly half the size of the other, more famous Arc de Triomphe which is located at the far end of the Champs Élysees.

Unfortunately, it has been undergoing much-needed restoration since 2022, and is presently all but hidden under extensive scaffolding.

Jardin des Tuileries

The Jardin des Tuileries is a large public garden formerly associated with the Tuileries Palace and opened to the public after the French Revolution.

Grand Bassin Rond

Parc André Citroën

The Parc André Citroën is a 14-hectare Paris city park built in 1992 on the site of the original 1919 Citroën automobile factory, which became defunct in 1975.

Ballon de Paris Generali

The Balloon de Paris Generali is an Aero30NG tethered helium balloon capable of carrying thirty passengers to an altitude of 150 to 300 metres. The name comes from its current corporate sponsor, the Italian insurance company Generali.

I was planning to make the balloon one of my first day activities in Paris, but it was not flying due to weather. The line when I went this evening was quite long, but definitely worth it for the aerial view of Paris.

Jardin des Métamorphoses

The Jardin des Métamorphoses is a "garden in movement" with a variety of wild grasses selected for a range of response to wind velocity.

Serial Gardens

The serial gardens are a set of six small, rectangular themed gardens with each one being named after a color (bleu, vert, orange, rouge, argente, and d'or) and being thematically associated with a metal (copper, tin, mercury, iron, silver, and gold), an astronomical body (Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Moon, and Sun), a form of water (rain, spring, creek, waterfall, river, evaporation), and a sense (scent, hearing, touch, taste, sight, and ESP).

Curiously, the plaques identifying the gardens do not mention the associated themes at all, only the names and a list of plants.

La Préfecture de Paris et d'Île-de-France

The préfecture for the Paris département and the Île-de-France région is located adjacent to the Parc André Citroën. However, by historical exception there is also a Préfecture de Police in Paris, which since 1667 has managed law enforcement, firefighting, and other government emergency services for the Paris, Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, and Val-de-Marne départements. As a result of this split in powers, Paris has historically been directly policed by the Sûreté Nationale and did not have its own police force until the Police Municipale de Paris was founded in 2021.

Le Bois de Boulogne

The Bois de Boulogne is a 850-hectare public park on the west side of Paris. It was originally a royal hunting reserve in the Forêt de Rouvray, but was almost totally destroyed by the encampments of 40,000 British and Russian soldiers during the War of the Sixth Coalition. In 1852, Emperor Napoleon III donated the land to the city of Paris and personally planned its restoration as a public park inspired by London's Hyde Park. The Bois includes two artifical lakes and eight lesser ponds connected by three winding streams, fed by a canal running from the Ourq River and a 586-meter-deep artesian well in Passy.

Lac Infériure

Lac Supérieur

Le Bois de Boulogne (Second Visit)

Hippodrome Auteuil

The Hippodrome Auteuil is a steeplechase horse racing course built in 1873. It hosted the equestrian events of the 1924 Paris Olympics, but those for the 2024 Paris Olympics will be held at the Château de Versailles instead.

Today -- our last full day in Paris -- we visit the Axe Historique once more.

Place de la Nation

La Place de la Nation is a large, circular public square formerly known as the Place du Trône because it was where Louis XIV and Maria Theresa set up temporary thrones to greet the public after making their ceremonial entrance to Paris after being married. During the French Revolution, it was renamed the Place du Trône Renversé and was the primary place of execution for those convicted at the Pavilion of Law. It was renamed the Place du Nation during the Third Republic, and has been a natural focal point for Parisian political protests ever since.

Place de la Cóncorde

The Place de la Cóncorde is the largest public square in Paris, located at the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées. The square was originally named the Place Louis XV since it was built to house a grand equestrian statue of King Louis XV. During the French Revolution, the square was re-named the Place de la Révolution and was the second most heavily used guillotine site during the French Revolution and the favored site for high profile executions, most notably those of King Louis XV, Queen Marie Antoinette, and the scientist Antoine Lavosier (for his role in the corrupt and hated Fermiers Généraux tax company).

Luxor Obelisk

The monumental Egyptian obelisk which dominates the Place de la Cóncorde is one of the two entrance markers of the Luxor Temple. Both obelisks were gifted to France in 1830 by Muhammmad Ali, the Wali of Ottoman Egypt, but only the smaller western obelisk was actually moved to Paris. The cost and difficulty of doing so proved so great that plans to bring the second were quietly set aside. After its journey to France, the obelisk was "temporarily" erected here as a sufficiently prestigious yet also politically neutral replacement for the statue of King Louis XV wich had been torn down during the Revolution, replaced during the Bourbon Restoration, and then torn down again during the July Revolution of 1830.

Champs-Élysées

The Champs-Élysées is the major boulevard of the axe historique, running for 1.91 kilometres from the Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile.

Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile

The Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile is a Neoclassical triumphal arch which was built from 1806 to 1836 in celebration of Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz, with construction halted during the Bourbon Restoration and then resumed under the July Monarchy. It is of similar design to its counterpart at the Place du Carrousel (both being modeled on the Arch of Constantine in Rome) but is roughly twice the size. The Arc was originally placed between the Barrière de l'Étoile gate houses of the Mur des Fermiers Généraux wall, but these wwere demolished with the rest of said wall around 1859. It was the largest triumphal arch in the world until 1938.

Tombe du Soldat Inconnu

The Tombe du Soldat Inconnu is the tomb of an unknown French soldier who died during WWI, as a symbolic commemoration of all the soldiers who have died for France. Along with the simultaneously established Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Westminster, England, it is the oldest unknown soldier memorial; the American Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington was established one year later. It was installed under the Arc de Triomphe in 1920, and is guarded by an eternal flame.

Ici
Repose
Un Soldat
Francais
Mort
Pour la Patrie
-
1914-1918

Square Lamartine

Le Square Lamartine is a small public square in the 16th arondissement. The north end of the square includes a 587-metre deep artisan well which was originally constructed in 1855 to supply water to the Bois de Boulogne. The well took six years to dig and initially produced 25,000 cubic metres of water per day, although in the modern day it does not exceed 350 cubic metres per day.