Day 33 - Saturday, May 26th - Arc de Triomphe & the Champs-Elyées

Another beautiful day in Paris!  A perfect day for our trip to the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysées.  A short metro ride brings us to our destination and the Paris I had in my mind's eye.  I had a preconceived notion of what Paris would look like and until today, I hadn't seen it.  But this was it!  The wide streets of the Champs Elysées and the elegant shops, now I'm happy.

We toured the Arc de Triomphe by walking to the top of it, all 284 steps up!  The Arc de Triomphe was commissioned by Napoleon to commemorate his victory at the battle of Austerlitz.  At the base of the Ach is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (from WWI).

Afterward, we strolled the Champs Elysées over to the Place de la Concorde which is Paris' largest square.  On the square is a 3,300 year old  Egyptian obelisk, a gift to France by Egypt in 1829.  It originally was at the entrance to the Luxor Temple and is decorated with hieroglyphics praising the reign of Ramses II.  The Place de la Concorde is most famous, though, as the spot on which King Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were guillotined along with 1200 other people during the French Revolution.

From there we walked over to the Orangerie Museum, an Impressionist museum with huge 360 degree paintings by Claude Monet of his famous water lilies (sorry they didn't allow us to take pictures).  Then on to the Orsay Museum for some more Impressionist paintings and some beautiful statuary.  The Orsay Museum was formerly the Orsay railway station which was built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900.  The building is quite beautiful and a work of art of its own.

Our photo for the day would have to be of the four of us in front of the Arc de Triomphe.  It's not often we have an opportunity to have a photo of us all, but when another tourist asked Terry to take a picture of him and his family, he was more than willing to reciprocate.

The Four Musketeers at the Arc de Triomphe.