La Seine and Its Bridges: Oldest Bridge in Paris

The Pont Neuf was commissioned by Henry III in 1576.
Despite its name, which translates as New Bridge, it is now the oldest bridge in Paris.

Henry III was in tears when he laid the foundation stone for the bridge in May 1578.
This was because he had just returned from funeral services for two close friends who had been killed in duels. So, at first, the bridge was refered to as the "Bridge of Tears".
This was soon replaced with the name Pont Neuf because in its construction, Henry broke with tradition whereby all Parisian bridges had houses on them from one end to the other. No houses were to be built on this bridge.

Before the construction was finished Henry III was assassinated and the bridge was completed in 1604 by his successor Henry IV.

When Henry IV was assassinated in 1610 the Grand Duke of Tuscany presented his widow, Marie de Medicis, with a bronze horse as a memorial. The boat that transported the horse to France sank off the coast of Sardinia in 1613 and the horse went down with the ship. A year later it would be found and set on to Paris. It would be placed on the Pont Neuf rider-less for twenty-one years.
In 1635 Louis XIII had a statue make of his father Henry IV and placed him on the horse. This it would sit for the next 157 years.
In 1792, in the third year of the French Revolution, the Paris mobs took down the horse and the riding king. They smashed them both to bits. Most would go off to be melted down while the rest went into the Seine.
The Pont Neuf would remain without a statue until the return of the monarchy in 1814.

Louis XVIII then ordered a replica of the horse and Henry IV cast in bronze, using part of the melted down statue of Napoléon that had been on top of the Vendome column.
The caster was happy for the work, but also was a Bonapartist.
He is said to have placed a small statue of Napoléon in the right arm of Henry IV's right arm. In the belly of the horse he placed papers containing songs and celebrations from the Napoléonic era.

Directions: Connects the streets of Rue Dauphine and Rue du Pont-Neuf, cutting across Ile de la Cite where Ste. Chapelle and Notre Dame are located.

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La Seine and Its Bridges: Oldest Bridge in Paris

Arc de Triomphe, Paris

From the Place de la Concorde you can already see the famous Champs Elysées with its Arc de Triomphe. I didn't walk all the way to the arch this time though, as I have been here before. So for now (until a next visit to Paris), you have to do it with this distance shot of the arch. If you haven't been to the Arc de Triomphe before, I can really recommend in going here and especially climbing to the top. The views over Paris from the Arc de Triomphe are wonderful and in my opinion even better then the views from the Eiffel Tower.

The Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile is the world's largest triumphal arch with its 51 meters in height and is 45 meters width. The structure was inspired by the Roman Arch of Titus; designed by Jean François Thérèse Chalgrin. It was commissioned by Napoleon to commemorate France's military victories in 1805.

Admission to the little museum inside the Arc de Triomphe including a visit to the rooftop is 6.10€. The Arc de Triomphe is open daily 9:30 a.m. - 6:30 p.m and in winter (Oct. 1 - March 31) daily 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Closed on public holidays.

Phone: 01-55-37-73-77

Directions: Métro stop & RER: Charles de Gaulle - Etoile

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Arc de Triomphe, Paris

Montmartre / Sacré Coeur: Sacre Coeur

This basilica sits on hill that can be viewed most of Paris’ other monuments. It’s very Byzantine (although referred to as Neo-Romanesque) in style with its elongated white domes. The white stone called Chateau-Landon whitens with age, thus making it more beautiful as time goes on. If you look at my Intro picture, taken from the top of Notre Dame, you can see the Basilica dazzling white on the distant hill of Montmartre. It has a 19-ton bell that can be heard for some distance. The statues you see on it’s facade are the bronze equestrian statues of St. Joan of Arc and St. Louis with a statue of Christ with his hands raised in blessing. The interior is beautifully decorated with mosaics and a lovely figure of the Virgin and Child. It’s built on the site where Saint Denis was beheaded in the 3rd. Century. Like many of the other Christian sites, druids worshiped on this very spot and a site for early Christian churches. The St. Pierre de Montmartre, a 6th century Parisian church, still sits next to the Basilica. The Sacre Coeur was started in 1875, but wasn’t consecrated until after WWI in 1914.The Basilica is an important place for pilgrimages and welcomed by the Benedictine nuns of the Sacred Heart.

Although the Sacre Coeur isn’t considered architecturally beautiful, it’s a very imposing and important landmark of Paris.

Metro line 2 or 12 : Abbesses (then
take hill tram), Anvers (then take hill tram), Barbes-Rochechouart, Chateau-Rouge, Lamarck-Caulaincourt.
Bus: 30, 31, 80, 85 and Montmartrobus
(from Métro Jules Joffrin or Pigalle)

Opening hours
Basilica open from 6am to 11pm
Dôme : open from 9ham to 5h30pm (7pm in summer)

Fees
Free for the basilica.
Dome: 5 euros
Crypt: Free

Address: Parvis du Sacré Coeur , 75018 Paris

Phone: 33 (0)1 53 41 89 09.

Directions: Montmartre

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Montmartre / Sacré Coeur: Sacre Coeur

Notre Dame de Paris: Most crowded church in Europe

Notre-Dame hits all records of tourist crowds. The crowd is even tighter than in Rome's San Pietro Basilica where there is more space for the visitors.
At Notre-Dame there are 14 millions visitors per year, an average of 40.000 every day. The tourists influx is non-stop from opening at 8 h to closing at 18.45 h (19.15 Saturdays and Sundays), all the year.
Visitors enter by the right door. There is lining up but in absence of security check the movement is not slow.
Inside, the tourist stream moves anti clockwise around the nave and choir towards the exit by the door on the left side of the frontage.
Notre-Dame is dark inside even when there is sunshine outside; be careful not to stumble on other tourists.
Don't halt to look more close at things; the flux should not be stopped. New visitors are lining up outside and pushing to get inside.
Even when there is a celebration, things are not really quiet but the nave is lighted up.

If you want to avoid these tourist crowds you are better on by a visit in the winter. I visited again Notre-Dame begin December and there was no lining up outside and relatively few persons inside.

To attend services, visitors can take any seat in the nave (or in the choir).
Hereafter the hours for the services:

Weekdays, Monday to Saturday noon
8h00 Mass in the choir
9h00 Mass in the choir, not in July and August.
12h00 Mass at the main altar
17h45 Vespers service broadcast live on KTO-Catholic Television
18h15 Mass at the main altar

Saturday:
17h45 First Sunday Vespers services
18h30 Sunday mass at the main altar

Sundays (all services held at the main altar):
8h30 Mass
9h30 Lauds service
10h00 Gregorian mass at the cathedral chapter
11h30 International mass
12h45 Mass
17h45 Vespers service
18h30 Mass usually by the archbishop, broadcast live.

Directions: Métro: Cité; RER: Châtelet-Les Halles, Saint Michel-Notre Dame

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Notre Dame de Paris: Most crowded church in Europe

Louvre: Tapestries "The Hunts of Maximilian"

When you are in the Richelieu wing on the first floor which shows the decorative arts from the Middle Ages to the 19th c. you must visit the large room 19 of the Renaissance section.

Here are hanging 12 of the most beautiful tapestries in the world called the "Hunts of Maximilian". Archduke Maximilian of Habsbourg, later emperor of Austria was the brother of Emperor Charles V (Charles Quint born in Gent, Belgium) who in that time had his palace in Brussels. He liked to go hunting in the forest of Soignes (still existing) just outside Brussels. The 12 large (about 5 x 7 m) tapestries show scenes of hunting at the 12 months of the year.

The picturesque, realistic and detailed landscapes show, in the back ground, the still existing abbey of Rouge Cloître, the village of La Hulpe and the town hall of Brussels.

The inspiration is from the Italian renaissance, the technical mastery is that of the painter and cartoon designer Bernard van Orley and the weavers from Brussels (ref. my tip on Brussels tapestries at the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Cinquantenaire, Brussels).
They were manufactured between 1531 and 1533 probably by Guillaume Dermoyen.
The "lissiers" tapestry weavers used two type of weaving loom: the horizontal loom called "basse lisse" and the vertical one "haute lisse". In both case the weavers worked on the back side. It has been calculated that one "lissier" would weave about 1 square meter in one month!

Although ordered by the Habsbourg, in the 16th c. they belonged to the French Ducs de Guise, then Mazarin and King Louis XIV. These tapestries contain gold wire but fortunately escaped the destructions of the French revolutionaries.
The French Manufacture des Gobelins made a number of copies of the original tapestries around 1700.

These 12 marvellous tapestries are very well presented in the large room 19.
It is sad that so few visitors of the museum stop here to really look at them.

Address: Wing Richelieu, 1st floor, room 19

Directions: Métro: Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre

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Louvre: Tapestries "The Hunts of Maximilian"

Tour Eiffel - Bad and good years

Believe me it was not my intention to write the 945th tip about la Tour Eiffel but when I came out of the Musée de la Marine at the Trocadero I could not avoid the best view on the Eiffel Tower.

I just realized standing on the esplanade between the Palais de Chaillot that I had never been to the top. I have been more than a dozen times on the Champ de Mars and each time the queues discouraged me. I like to stand at the bottom of the tower and look up to the biggest "Mecano" structure in the world.


As on the day before I had visited the Invalides Army museum and the WW II department with documents of the German occupation, I realised that it was from that Trocadero Esplanade at the exact place where tourists are now viewing the Tour Eiffel that on Sunday June 23, 1940 around 8 am, Adolf Hitler was standing there to view the Tour Eiffel and the occupied Paris. (He would never come back to Paris).

These 4 years were the worst for France and the Tour Eiffel.
They ended with the liberation of Paris by the French 2e Division Blindée under command of general Leclerc on August 25, 1944 and the famous discourse of General De Gaulle:
"Paris outragé ! Paris brisé ! Paris martyrisé ! mais Paris libéré !"

There was fierce fighting at the Champ de Mars when a platoon of Spahis from the 2e DB attacked the Ecole Militaire where 250 Germans resisted during 4 hours against the French troops.
At 12.30 h on August 25, 1944 the French flag was put again on the top of the Tour Eiffel by 6 Sapeurs-Pompiers from the fire brigade of Paris. It took them 25 minutes to climb the 1665 steps under the fire of the German soldiers.

The good years for tourism at the tour Eiffel were back with more than 6.7 millions entries in 2006!

Recently I read in the French press that the access to the Tour Eiffel will be improved in order to reduce the queuing.
It is also the intention to have visitors spend more money once in the tower by offering more catering possibilities. Somebody at the management realised that the prices of the upper restaurant are not for budget travellers!

Directions: You can't miss it!!!

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Tour Eiffel - Bad and good years