Saturday in Paris

Early on the morning of Saturday 2 December 2006 we hopped on the train from Zug to Zurich, and there we changed to the train that would take us all the way to Paris. From Zurich the railway line winds its way south-west to Neuchatel and along the edge of the huge Lake Neuchatel before crossing the border between Switzerland and France just before reaching Pontarlier. Officials came and checked our passports as we travelled along.

We reached Portalier just before 10:00 am, a thick fog blanketing the countryside and trees eerily looming up out of the mist. The route continued in the same general direction through Frasne and Andelot, then changing to a north-westerly direction to Dijon, the historical capital of the province of Burgundy.

For the next two hours the train sped through open, flat countryside, passing farmlands and the occasional very small village. The villages were all assembled along the same pattern: a small cluster of buildings with a steepled church as the centrepiece. Each village had a very neat graveyard with trimmed cypresses, neat paving between the graves, gravestones in excellent repair and flowers on every grave.

And so we arrived in the bustling city of Paris shortly after an early lunch on the train. After checking in at the four-star Hotel de Castaglione on the famous rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore, we walked the short distance to the Place de la Concorde.

Cleopatra's Needle at the Place de la Concorde.

The Place was designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel in 1755 as a moat-skirted octagon between the Champs-Élysées to the west and the Tuileries Gardens to the east. The center of the Place is occupied by a giant Egyptian obelisk decorated with hieroglyphics exalting the reign of the pharaoh Ramses II. It is one of three Cleopatra's Needles, the other two residing in New York and London.

The obelisk once marked the entrance to the Luxor Temple. The viceroy of Egypt, Mehemet Ali, offered the 3,300-year-old Luxor Obelisk to France in 1831. Three years later King Louis-Philippe had it placed in the centre of Place de la Concorde, where a guillotine used to stand during the Revolution.

The red granite column rises 23 metres high, including the base, and weighs over 250 tonnes. Given the technical limitations of the day, transporting it was no easy feat. On the pedestal are drawn diagrams explaining the machinery that were used for the transportation.

Fountain at Place de la Concorde.

The obelisk is flanked on both sides by fountains constructed at the time of its erection on the Place.

Lamp standard.

Everything around us was just fascinating – even the lamp standards are splendid!

Fame.

From the Place de la Concorde we entered the Tuileries Garden (French Jardin des Tuileries), which stretches for 1 km to the Place du Carrousel. Entrance is through an imposing gate with pillars bearing the equestrian statues of Mercury (on the right) and Fame (on the left), both by Coysevox. This statue is Fame, photographed from the inside of the gate, looking out towards the Place de la Concorde.

Tuileries Garden

When the large empty space between the northern and southern wings of the Louvre now familiar to modern visitors was revealed in 1883, for the first time the Louvre courtyard opened into an unbroken Axe Historique. The Tuileries Garden is surrounded by the Louvre (to the east), the Seine (to the south), the Place de la Concorde (to the west) and the Rue de Rivoli (to the north). Further to the north lies the Place Vendôme. The Tuileries Garden covers about 25 hectares and still closely follows a design laid out by landscape architect Andre Le Notre in 1664. His spacious formal garden plan drew out the perspective from the reflecting pools one to the other in an unbroken vista along a central axis.

Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel

Entrance to the Place du Carrousel is through the magnificent Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. Designed by Charles Percier and Pierre Léonard Fontaine, the arch was made between 1806-1808 by the Emperor Napoleon I on the model of the Arch of Septimius Severus in Rome. It was commissioned to commemorate France's military victories in 1805. It was originally surmounted by the famous horses of Saint Mark's Cathedral in Venice, captured by Napoleon, but these were returned there in 1815. They were replaced by a quadriga sculpted by Baron François Joseph Bosio, depicting Peace riding in a triumphal chariot, led by gilded Victories on either side; the composition commemorates the Restoration of the Bourbons following Napoleon's downfall.

The Louvre is situated next to the Jardin des Tuileries, but since it was already late in the day we decided to return on Sunday for an extended visit to the museum and art galleries.

Joan of Arc.

On the way back to the hotel we walked via the rue de Rivoli to the Place des Pyramides, where there is a gilded statue of Joan of Arc situated close to where she was wounded at the Saint-Honoré Gate in her unsuccessful attack on the English-held Paris on 8 September 1429.

That night we had dinner at our hotel – nice, but expensive. In fact, everything at this hotel was rather expensive. In Italy we could get internet access for 1.50 Euros per hour. At the Hotel Castaglione it cost 14 Euros per hour.