Girish's Blog

It's Sunday morning and we leave at 8:30 AM to our first destination  - the Parisian suburb of Montmartre which, according to Wikipedia, is primarily known for its artistic history, for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré-Cœur on its summit, and as a nightclub district. We board from the Metro station of Quatre-Septembre, named for the date of 4 September 1870, the date Napoleon III fell and the Third French Republic was proclaimed. The station is deserted, as expected, for a early Sunday morning trip. Montmartre is a 130m high hill and the walk towards Basilica of the Sacré-Cœur gets steeper as we get closer. Finally there is a long flight of steps leading to the church. We get a panoramic view of Paris from the top. Behind us rise the domes of the Basilica of the Sacré-Cœur. The plan to build a new Parisian church dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was first proposed on September 4, 1870, following the defeat of France and the capture of Emperor Napoleon III by the Prussian...

It's our first full day in Paris and so far we've strolled through the Tuileries Garden , walked along the banks of the Seine, viewed the renovation work going on at the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris , seen the birth of Impressionism and art from 1848 to 1914 at Musée d'Orsay. We exit the museum and head to a cafe for some refreshments before continuing again. Our next destination is the Arc de Triomphe. Arches to commemorate victories have been a tradition from the Roman times, with the one of the oldest ones, the Arch of Titus in Rome built in 85 CE still standing in Rome. Under the orders of Napoleon, work on the Arc de Triomphe began on 15 August 1806, Napoleon's 37th birthday, to commemorate the his victory at Austerlitz. After his victory at Austerlitz in 1805, the high point of the Grande Armée’s conquest of Europe, Napoleon told his soldiers: ‘You will return home through arches of triumph.’  Work was stopped in 1815 after the exile of Napoleon. Construction r...