Champs-Élysées

The Champs-Élysées begins at the Place de la Concorde, making this our first destination. To get there from the Musée d'Orsay, we continued following the Seine to the west, until we reached the building used by the National Assembly (the lower house of the French parliament), called the Palais Bourbon (first built in 1728, portico added under Napoleon in 1808). At this point there is a bridge that crosses the Seine and leads directly to the Place de la Concorde. We crossed this bridge, cleverly called the Pont de la Concorde, and walked over to where there was a nice view of the square.

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The Place de la Concorde, the largest square in Paris, was originally laid out in 1755, when it was named the Place Louis XV in honor of the king. During the French Revolution, a statue of the king was removed from the center of the square and replaced with a guillotine, which was used to execute Louis XVI, his wife Marie Antoinette and many many others between 1793 and 1795. During this time, known as the Reign of Terror, the square was called the Place de la Révolution. But in 1795 things became more moderate, and the guillotine was removed. Around this time the square was renamed the Place de la Concorde in a spirit of reconciliation toward those still alive to be reconciled with. In 1836 a 3300-year-old Egyptian obelisk, a gift from Egypt which once stood at the Temple of Luxor, was set up in the middle of the square. This obelisk stands 75 feet high and is covered with hieroglyphics glorifying Ramses II. Flanking the obelisk are two 19th-Century fountains, designed by Jacques-Ignace Hittorff, allegorically depicting the rivers and the seas. Also set up in the center of the square during our visit was a canopy and seating, as the finish of the Tour de France bicycle race was scheduled for the following day, and it always ends along the Champs-Élysées.

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Obelisk
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The Avenue des Champs-Élysées is a wide, perfectly straight street that runs for 1.2 miles between the Place de la Concorde and the Arc de Triomphe. An imaginary line continuing southeast from the end of the street passes through the Place de la Concorde and the Jardin des Tuileries, and ends up in the courtyard of the Louvre. The Champs-Élysées (French for "Elysian fields", though no fields are in evidence, Elysian or otherwise) has absurdly wide sidewalks and is largely famous for the high-end shops lining them. But rules are made to be broken, and less patrician stores have been moving in of late, and there is even a McDonald's near the northwest end. We also visited a Renault dealership which had a weird grassy car on display. There is a Champs-Élysées web site, on which you can find the complete list of shops. Near the southeast end of the street there aren’t many shops – instead there are parks and exhibition halls. And a lot of Tour de France seating, during our visit.

Avenue des Champs-Élysées
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Grand Palais Entrance
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Bob and Grassy Renault
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But Nella was intent on visiting one shop in particular. Nella is prodigiously talented in the kitchen, and one of the things she’s been experimenting with over the past few years is French macaroons – not the coconutty American cookies, but the crispy but delicate meringue cookie-like things also known as les macarons. Possibly the world center of les macarons, and the inventor of them in their modern form, is a Paris shop called Ladurée, and they have a tea room/restaurant on the Champs-Élysées at the corner of Rue Lincoln. We dropped in and were amazed at the variety of colors and flavors of macarons, as well as the many other mouth-watering pastries on display. We took a few pictures, until we were informed that photography was forbidden. You can find more pictures and info at their web site, if you're so inclined. Discouraged from photography, we bought a box of selected macarons to go. We greedily opened the box back out on the street and tasted a couple. They were awfully good. But Nella’s are getting there…

Inside Ladurée
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Nella and Ladurée
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Ladurée Macarons
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Eventually we ran out of Champs-Élysées and found ourselves staring at the Arc de Triomphe. It wasn’t dark yet and we had nothing better to do, so we made this our next destination.