Paris

Paris: Day Last is just some photos of the river and the streets

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I had some time to fill in before leaving for the airport, so I went for a walk down to the river.

Here I walked past a boat cruise on the same side of the river as me, so I hopped on!

Unfortunately, while the cruise was good, the weather was not.

They went down to the tower, then came back up past the starting point, going along one side of the Île de la Cité and down the other.

Unfortunately, the weather continued to deteriorate.  I’m not complaining. When I arrived in the city, it was dark and raining steadily. But the days that followed were sunny but mild. Perfect weather for walking around and taking photos! There wasn’t any significant rain until the morning of departure. So really not complaining, but noting why there are not many photos.

And many of the photos I did take have little splotches all over them (from rain on the lens). These are the better ones:

After the cruise, I continued my walk and took some random photos of things in the streets.

The [Pantheon] was built between 1758 and 1790, from designs by Jacques-Germain Soufflot, at the behest of King Louis XV of France; the king intended it as a church dedicated to Saint Genevieve, Paris’s patron saint, whose relics were to be housed in the church. Neither Soufflot nor Louis XV lived to see the church completed. By the time the construction was finished, the French Revolution had started; the National Constituent Assembly voted in 1791 to transform the Church of Saint Genevieve into a mausoleum for the remains of distinguished French citizens, modelled on the Pantheon in Rome which had been used in this way since the 16th century. The first panthéonisé was Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, although his remains were removed from the building a few years later. The Panthéon was twice restored to church usage in the course of the 19th century—although Soufflot’s remains were transferred inside it in 1829—until the French Third Republic finally decreed the building’s exclusive use as a mausoleum in 1881. The placement of Victor Hugo’s remains in the crypt in 1885 was its first entombment in over fifty years.
Wikipedia

Church of Saint-Séverin

And one last look back over the city.

Paris: Day 4 is not in Paris

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This is the Chateau de Fontainebleau. It’s a former royal palace outside of Paris, like Versailles, but less crowded. (It gets like 1/30 as many visitors. It’s also less overblown-ridiculously decorated.)



Both near and far from Paris, Fontainebleau had everything to please Francis I. He was a humiliated king, returning from a trying period of imprisonment in Madrid (1525-1526), who set his sights on this prestigious medieval ruin and undertook its reconstruction. In 10 years, the project to redevelop a hunting castle evolved into an ambitious and monumental building site, establishing Fontainebleau as the king’s favourite ‘house’. On the foundations that retained the original plan, the master builders built a new dwelling with more light and extended a residence towards the west that was enriched with the best finery of the Renaissance.
Chateau de Fontainebleau

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Paris: Day 3 A lot of walking

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Today’s walk requires going to the other side of the Seine, and crossing Île de la Cité.

Île de la Cité is an island in the river Seine in the center of Paris. In the 4th century, it was the site of the fortress of the Roman governor. In 508, Clovis I, the first King of the Franks, established his palace on the island. In the 12th century, it became an important religious center, the home of Notre-Dame cathedral, and the royal chapel of Sainte-Chapelle, as well as the city’s first hospital, the Hôtel-Dieu. It is also the site of the city’s oldest surviving bridge, the Pont Neuf. With the departure of the French kings to the Louvre Palace, and then to the Palace of Versailles, the island became France’s judicial centre. In 1302, it hosted the first meeting of the Parliament of Paris and was later the site of the trials of aristocrats during the French Revolution.
Wikipedia

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Paris Interlude: Fragments of the Bastille

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The Bastille was a fortress in Paris, known formally as the Bastille Saint-Antoine. It played an important role in the internal conflicts of France and for most of its history was used as a state prison by the kings of France. . . . Although inmates were kept in relatively good conditions, criticism of the Bastille grew during the 18th century, fueled by autobiographies written by former prisoners. Reforms were implemented and prisoner numbers were considerably reduced. In 1789, the royal government’s financial crisis and the formation of the National Assembly gave rise to a swelling of republican sentiments among city-dwellers. On July 14, the Bastille was stormed by a revolutionary crowd, primarily residents of the faubourg Saint-Antoine who sought to commandeer the valuable gunpowder held within the fortress. Seven remaining prisoners were found and released and the Bastille’s governor, Bernard-René de Launay, was killed by the crowd. The Bastille was demolished by order of the Committee of the Hôtel de Ville. Souvenirs of the fortress were transported around France and displayed as icons of the overthrow of despotism. Over the next century, the site and historical legacy of the Bastille featured prominently in French revolutions, political protests and popular fiction, and it remained an important symbol for the French Republican movement.
Wikipedia

Very little remains today.

At the intersection of Boulevard Henri IV and Rue Saint-Antoine, the outline of the fortress is marked on the road.

Also on a platform in the Bastille Metro (underground) station.

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Paris: Day 2 Some familiar landmarks.

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I didn’t intend to visit the Louvre. It seemed it would be too busy/crowded to enjoy. However, my hotel was just 15 minutes walk away. So  I thought I’d go there first thing in the morning and see what the queue was like.

This place is huge. Once I was in there, I think it took me longer to find the actual entrance than it took to walk there. Anyway, there were queues. There was a green sign for visitors avec billets (with tickets) and about twenty people standing there. Then a second green sign forvisitors avec billets and even more people waiting. Then a orange sign for visitors sans billets (without tickets) and no one standing there. A man walked up, looked about, shrugged and walked in. I followed. There were about six people waiting to go through security (there are security points at most places) but it was moving fast. Once inside, there was no one else waiting for buy a ticket. So there I was in, and now avec un billet.

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Paris: Day 1

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This is Château de Vincennes, a 14th century castle. From the website:

A symbol of the modern French state. The building affirms the power of the monarchy: it guarded the capital, whilst at the same time protecting the kings against uprisings. It was at the heart of the French monarchy until 1682, when Louis XIV chose to settle in Versailles. The keep was used as a prison from the 16th up to the 19th century: Fouquet, the Marquis de Sade, and Mirabeau were held here. Under Napoleon I it was transformed into a barracks and arsenal, and the fortress protected Paris during invasions in the 19th century.

The onsite information is mostly about Charles V (the room is his main chamber). From Wikipedia:

The defeats of the French and the capture of the King by the English in the Hundred Years War, as well as uprisings of the Parisian merchants under Etienne Marcel (1357–58) and a rural upraising against the crown, the Jacquerie (1360), persuaded the new French King, Jean II of France and his son, the future Charles V, that they needed a more secure residence close to, but not in the center of Paris. The King ordered the construction of a fortress at Vincennes with high walls and towers surrounding a massive keep or central tower, 52 meters (172 feet) high. The work was started in about 1337, and by 1364 the three lower levels of the keep were finished. Charles V moved into the keep in 1367 or 1368, while construction was still underway. When it was completed in 1369–70, it was the tallest fortified structure in Europe.

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