European Travelog: D2E4 - an Arch and a Tower

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 resumed in 1823 and it was finally completed in 1836.

The Arc stands at the intersection of 12 avenues, at the western end of Champs-Élysées.

We approach the arch from Av. des Champs-Élysées, go around the arch and an underground subway takes us to the bottom of the arch. There's a long line waiting to buy tickets to take the elevator to to the top of the arch, but we decide to skip it.

We look up and there is a magnificent view of the roof, fifty meters above our heads.

Between 1833 and 1836, four sculpted groups were added to the Arc de Triomphe.

On the North-East pillar, stands The Triumph of Napoleon. He dressed in antique style, a sword against him and crowned by a Victory. In the background on the right, a kneeling man with bound hands presents a prisoner at the feet of his victor. On the left, the allegory of a city also kneels before its conqueror who presents a protective hand. Behind her, the Muse of History engraves the triumphs of the Emperor on a tablet. A winged angel overhangs the scene, sounding the trumpet and brandishing a standard on a palm tree background, a tree evoking Napoleon's expedition to Egypt.

This sculpted group depicts the conscription of 1792, when nearly 200,000 men ordered by the Legislative Assembly organized the defense of France in the face of foreign armies aligned against the revolutionaries. On the top is Liberty, in the form of a winged woman crying out in the face of enemy invasion. She invites the people to fight by brandishing her sword. Underneath this figure, a bearded warrior is dragging a naked young man by the shoulder, while waving his helmet as a sign of departure and rallying.

This group symbolizes the nation's resistance to the invasion of foreign forces (Russia and Austria) aligned against Napoleon in 1814. A naked warrior, standing with his right hand armed with a sword, is about to leave to defend his country. To his right, an old man tries to hold him back. To his left, his wife, holding their child in her arms, is also trying to convince him to stay. The bearded rider without armor falls from his mount, as if struck by lightning, symbolizing the sacrifice of a patriot for his country. Overlooking them is the Génie de l'Avenir, wings spread and flame on the forehead dictating the duty of resistance of the soldier.

The last sculpture group - the relief of Peace - constitutes the logical continuation of the sculpted group of The Resistance. After the Treaty of Paris of 1815, peace returned to France, despite an attempt by Napoleon to regain power during the Hundred Days. The soldier in the center puts his sword in its scabbard, the war is over. The plow, the bull and the ploughman symbolise the return to a flourishing agriculture. The mother and the child represent the family and the return of education. All the basic activities of a prosperous nation are united. Minerva, helmeted head and spear in hand, dominates the group as goddess of victory and inspirer of the arts and works of peace.

660 names are engraved on the Arc de Triomphe. Most of them were generals of the First French Republic (1792–1804) and the First French Empire (1804–1815). The names of those generals killed in battle are underlined.

The walls also have the names of 128 battles fought during the first French Republic and Napoleon’s Empire.

The 30 shields near the top of Arc de Triomphe bear the name of a major French military victory. The victories represented on the shields date from the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars between 1792 and 1815.

A lot of history as passed under this Arch - in 1840, Napoleon's remains were passed under the Arc. Following the Allied victory in World War I, the French Army marched under the Arc de Triomphe on 14 July 1919, followed by another march in June 1945 after the victory in World War II.

In 1920, an unknown soldier, killed during the First World War, was buried under the Arc. He was among the 1.4 million Frenchmen who were killed in the war that raged across the face of Europe. The memorial flame, called the Flame of Remembrance, lit for the first time on 11 November 1923, still burns.

And under all this history, a group of youngsters remain immersed in their mobile devices and we leave after the mandatory selfie under the Arc de Triomphe.

After the arch, it's on to probably the most photographed monument in Paris, the Eiffel Tower. We walk to the nearby Charles de Gaulle – Étoile Metro and take the 5 minute metro ride to Bir-Hakeim

Metro station from where it is a short walk to the Eiffel Tower. The pavement is lined with people hawking all sorts of memorabilia featuring the Eiffel Tower - key chains, pendants and globes.

Constructed as part of the 1889 World's Fair, it was widely panned when initially constructed but has now become an iconic part of the Parisian landscape. With a height of 330 meters and a square base of 125 m side, it was a radical proposal since prior to it's construction, no structure had ever been constructed to a height of even 200 m.

A petition against it's construction said: "We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection ... of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower ... To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its barbaric bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre, the Dome of les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, all of our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly dream. And for twenty years ... we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal."

2 years, 7,300 tonnes of iron, 18,038 pieces and 2.5 million rivets later, the tower came up.

Gustave Eiffel engraved on the tower the names of 72 French scientists, engineers and mathematicians in recognition of their contributions to the building of the tower. There are names I recall from school and college days, including Gay-Lusaac, Schneider, Le Chatelier, Becquerel, Carnot and Coloumb.

As we get closer, its impossible to capture the size of the tower in a single picture.

We walk anti-clockwise around the tower, capturing photos that try to freeze all that matter into a few million pixels. All around us are people clicking selfies, videos and family photos.

The western side of the tower, in anticipation of the upcoming 2024 Olympic Games, sports the Olympic rings.

The Parisian sunset in summer is at 10:45 PM, so at 9 PM it's still bright and the the tower is not illuminated with it's night time lighting. We've had a long day and decide it's going to be too long for us to wait for the lights to come on and head back to our hotel.

We halt for dinner at a vegan restaurant and as we walk back to the hotel, past the Louvre, we get a glimpse of the illuminated tower.