Day 311: Paris, Day 1--L'Arc de Triomphe

Our major accomplishment of the day was going to L'Arc de Triomphe, which is fairly close to us, so we walked there. When we came upon the monument, we noticed that it is surrounded by a HUGE traffic circle. Crossing the street to get there was impossible, but we noticed a sign leading us underground. So we went through this passageway underground to get to the other side. We got to take a close look at the details, including all the names on the monument, who were French soldiers. According to Wikipedia, there are 660 names there. We also saw sculptures there of Napoleon and La Marseillaise, which shows a winged woman leading soldiers into battle. There's also a tomb of an unknown soldier there, with flowers surrounding the tomb and a flame (which gets relit every day at 6:30 pm). We decided to brave the walk up to the top of the monument, so we bought tickets (12 euros) to do so. Oh man, what a walk!  About 250 stops to the top. We had to stop and catch our breath--twice. But we had a beautiful view once we got there: we even saw the Eiffel Tower!  After looking around a bit, we checked out the gift shop a couple floors down, and then completed our sortie (exit). We went back through the same passageway that we used to get there, and we got back to our original side of the street.

Then we decided to seek out something to eat. We ended up at a place called Le Vin Coeur. It was okay overall: the burgers were decent, but nothing to brag about, but I did like their chocolate mousse. It was very dark and rich. I noticed that most everyone ate outside in 95 degree heat, which I thought was odd. They put a fan on us for awhile, but then removed it away from our direction early in the meal. Our primary waiter was pretty good for the most part and seemed to understand my French. So the rumor about horrible service in France was at least partially proven untrue for me. However, the meal was VERY expensive, so we will have to eat more cheaply tomorrow.

It's supposed to be 97 degrees tomorrow here, but we're going to try to go to The Louvre. Hope it works out!

A replaced portion of the victory goddess

L'Arc de Triomphe

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Paris