Paris
1 September 2011
We had a lovely few days in Paris last
week: I worked out that I hadn’t been there for 25 years so it felt like
visiting for the first time. We had glorious weather and made very good use of
open-top bus tours and boat trips on the Seine to explore all the main tourist
attractions. We went to Notre Dame, visited
the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa, travelled down the Champs-Élysées from the
Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe and ended up at the Eiffel Tower,
though we opted not to join the massive queues to climb the tower. Instead we
travelled South to Montparnasse for the views from the top of the Tour
Montparnasse – an ugly skyscraper which has the advantage that its views
include the Eiffel Tower (and don’t include the Tour Montparnasse!). Paris is a
very beautiful city: unusually most of the architecture dates from the same
period – the 1860s when the whole central area was substantially rebuilt by
Baron Haussmann. This gives Paris a very uniform look and the skyline is very
flat, without the usual collection of skyscrapers, the highest of which tend to
signify the main ‘downtown’ area of most big cities. Although he was
responsible for the quintessential Parisian tree-lined boulevards, Haussmann
didn’t create many green open spaces. There are a few parks: we particularly
liked the Jardins du Luxembourg. We also travelled North to Montmartre and saw
the Moulin Rouge and Sacre Coeur. We loved the art deco Metro signs and the
masses of wrought iron railings lining each floor of buildings along the main
boulevards. We had a great time discovering Paris and certainly plan to return
well before another 25 years have elapsed.
Labels: Holidays
posted by Robin Simpson @ 4:22 pm
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