The Trail's Our Thing

The Ecole Militaire from the Champ de Mars (photo by Kelly)

We mainly went to Les Invalides to see Napoleon's Tomb, but we could have spent all day there. It's a beautiful complex, founded by Louis XIV to house thousands of old and disabled formed soldiers. Most of the complex was built between 1671 and 1676. The most distinctive building is the Church of Saint-Louis with its large gold dome.

The Church of Saint-Louis at Les Invalides

We walked around the gardens (more beautiful flowers) and got our tickets for the museums. Kelly was free here too.

Beautiful gardens at Les Invalides (photo by Kelly)

There are several museums at Les Invalides: the Musée de l'Armée, the Musée des Plans-Reliefs, and the Musée de l'Ordre de la Libération. We're interested in World War II, the occupation and liberation of France, and the resistance, so we decided to visit the Musée de l'Ordre de la Libération, which was extremely interesting with an incredible amount of detail. One room was dedicated to General de Gaulle, and included almost all of his military decorations. There was a separate area upstairs focused on the deportation of the French to concentration camps. This is something that interests us too, but the pictures on the stairway were horrifying (stacks of naked dead bodies at the concentration camps), and we decided to save that for another trip. Instead we went on to the church.

Napoleon's tomb is in the crypt of the church, which is open up to the dome, so you can view the tomb from the same level or from above. The church also includes impressive tombs of many French military leaders and heroes as well as some of Napoleon's family members.

Napoleon's Tomb (photo by Kelly)

Napoleon's tomb is extremely impressive (I've never really seen anything quite like it), and his body is actually encased within SIX different coffins. His body was moved here 19 years after he died on the island of St. Helena where he had been exiled. The walls of the crypt are decorated with sculpted scenes of Napoleon's contributions to France. There's a part of the military museum that focuses on Napoleon, but it was closed for renovations. Some of his personal memorabilia was on display in the church.

We didn't have time to visit the military museum or the museum of plan-reliefs (large models of French towns and cities), though we would liked to see both of these. I definitely want to come back here another time.

We got disoriented leaving Les Invalides and walked a couple of blocks in the wrong direction. Not really a problem, as it's always interesting to see other areas of Paris. Finally we took the Metro over to the Champs d'Elysees, near the Grand Palais, and walked down to the Place de la Concorde. This was the place where we had stood to celebrate the millennium on January 1, 2000.

We celebrated the millennium right here! (photo by Kelly)

Fountain at the Place de la Concorde

We circled around the busy place, walked up to the Madeleine church and then down the Boulevard de la Madeleine. This is the part of Paris I know best, since I've stayed in the 1st arrondissement on four of my six visits. Kelly suggested we have lunch at the Madeleine 7, a cafe where we've eaten on three of our other trips. She had a chicken club sandwich and I had pork tenderloin (still eating bland food), and we enjoyed our meal and the ambiance.

Our next stop was one we hadn't planned. We wanted to be sure we knew where to catch the Roissybus tomorrow morning, so we continued down the street to the Opera House and found the bus stop. Once there, we decided to go ahead and see the inside of the magnificent Opera House. We've seen the Opera House from the outside many times, but we had never been inside. Somehow it has seemed easier to pay admissions on this trip there's only me who has to pay-- when we've traveled as a family including Charley, everything is always twice as expensive and sometimes we decide just not to go.

The opera house was designed by a young unknown architect, Charles Garnier, who won a design competition. The construction took 15 years and was completed in 1875. A major restoration of the exterior was completed in 2000. It's a truly wonderful building, inside and out, and I'm so glad I finally had a chance to see the inside.

Inside the Opera House (photo by Kelly)

We were able to wander around several areas in the Opera House-- the entrance hall, the grand staircase, the Grand Foyer (a hall of mirrors) and another reception room, and a small museum. Our brochure said we could visit the auditorium, though it might be closed for technical work. We didn't think we would get to see the auditorium, but just as we were about to leave, we saw a door open to one of the boxes and so we were able to peek inside the lavish auditorium with its tiers of seats facing the stage. Unfortunately, at the time of our visit most of the auditorium was draped in huge sheets of plastic. I'm not sure what was going on. But we did at least get a chance to have a look, especially at the beautiful ceiling painted by Marc Chagall in 1964. I would love to see a performance here.

The beautiful ceiling in the auditorium, painted by Marc Chagall (photo by Kelly)

The Grand Foyer at the Opera House (photo by Kelly)

Our next step was the Centre Pompidou, another "must see" on Kelly's list since she learned about it at her architecture camp. We walked from the Opera House, passing through the area where we had our apartment during our two week stay in 2004 and also by the little street where we spent our week in 1994. Kelly was doing the navigating, and again we got a bit off track, but that didn't worry me since I really do enjoy wandering.

We finally arrived at Les Halles, a large multi-level shopping and entertainment complex, built on the site of the old Paris market district. This is a different Paris... one we haven't visited before... and it was a busy day on this Saturday in August. We stopped in a couple of stores, and Kelly found a duffel bag for 10 euro that she's been looking at on Rue Mouffetard for 15 euro. She had an ice cream and we continued on to the Pompidou Centre.

The Pompidou Centre is a large modern structure (completed in 1977) that houses a variety of cultural activities: a library, a modern art museum, and an industrial design center. (Actually my in-house architecture specialist tells me that it is a "post-modern" building.) Kelly was excited to see the structure and some of the elements she had learned about at camp-- especially the color-coded piping: yellow for electricity, red for heating, blue for air, and green for water. The utilities are all visible outside the building. It's not my type of building, but it was... interesting. And definitely a contrast to the Opera House!

The Pompidou Centre

The plaza outside the center was very busy-- street performers, some sellers, people just lounging on the sloped concrete. Kelly took some photos of the exterior and then we went on inside. There was a strange art exhibit in the big atrium-- it really defies explanation... big bags on pulleys that fell to the ground. We looked around in the bookstore and decided not to pay to go to to the museum. We'd really just wanted to see the building.

Another Metro ride, this time to the Jussieu station. The walk back up to the hotel was quite interesting. We passed a small park and went through the fence to look. This turned out to be the site of a Roman arena-- called the Arènes de Lutèce-- which is one of the only Gallo-Roman ruins still remaining in Paris. This amphitheater was built in the first century AD and could once seat 15,000 people. Today there were groups of men playing petanque. I really like when you come upon something like this in Europe, totally unexpected.

Leaving the arena, we climbed a steep set of stairs bedecked with flowers to an attractive pedestrian street, where one house had a plaque that said it was once the home of Rene Descartes, the French philosopher. He lived there in the mid 1600's.

We really liked these stairs we discovered near the arena (photo by Kelly)

It had been a long day, and we covered a lot of territory. We rested in our room, started organizing our luggage for tomorrow's journey, and called Charley in Bonnieux. And then we went out one last time for dinner on Rue Mouffetard. Kelly finished up her shopping and bought a top in one of the small shops at the top of the street.

I'm a little embarrassed to say this, but our last real meal in France was.... Italian!