Day 4--Place de la Concorde



From the Arc de Triomphe we crossed back through the underground tunnel and decided to take a walk down the Champs Elysees before heading to the Place de la Concorde. The Champs Elysees is probably the largest street in Paris, and the widest street (besides a freeway) that I had ever seen. I would guess it had four lanes going in each direction and entire avenue was lined by trees, but what really made it so wide was the fact that the sidewalks on either side were nearly as broad as the lanes for the cars, just making it look huge. The street is lined with all kinds of shops and restaurants and it just seemed like a swanky fun place to be. We stepped into a few stores to look around and just enjoy ourselves. The after work crowd was out in force so the sidewalks and streets were packed with cars and people. It's how I always imagined New York City to be like, but I wouldn't know since I've never been there. We walked about halfway down the Champs Elysees from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde and then decided to hop on the Metro for the rest of the way.

The sun was going down and I was afraid my pictures would not turn out, but some of them did and they look quite nice, too. This one was taken near the place where the Metro station is and you can see a view of the obelisk that stands in the Place de la Concorde, a lamp post, and the Eiffel Tower lit up for the night.

Here's another view closer to the obelisk and also with the Eiffel Tower. The Place de la Concorde is in the middle of another crazy traffic round-a-bout, but we had to actually cross the street to get into the middle. Since there was a light and a crosswalk this wasn't as dangerous as I thought it might be.



The Place de la Concorde is the location were Louis the XVI and over a thousand others were beheaded during the French Revolution. There now is this 3300 year old Egyptian olelisk, and it looks pretty impressive lit up at night.

This is a close up view of the bottom portion of the obelisk. The engraving are gold plated on white stone, although I have no idea what they say or mean.

From the Place de la Corcorde you can see all the way down the Champs Elysees back to the Arc do Triomphe. I was amazed this picture turned out as well as it did and it gives you an idea of the view I saw.

On our last day in Paris we came back to the Place de la Corcorde to get some better photos while the sun was up, but I didn't put these on a separte page to make it easier to see all the like-themed pictures in one place. This is the daytime view of the lamp post, the obelisk, and the Eiffel Tower. I like the night one better.

This photo is a close up shot of the lamp post, one of several in the plaza. I liked the detail on it, you just don't see stuff like that very often in the United States

One photo that did turn out better during the day was this close up view up the side of the obelisk, the night time one was underexposed from lack of light. You can see the Egyptian engravings all the way up the side to the very top.

The plaza also featured several fountains, like this one which I am sitting by, but none of them were on.



After visiting the Place de la Concorde on that first evening we had had enough sightseeing for one day. On our way back to the hotel was stopped to eat a large and delicious crepe for dinner and then could barely keep our eyes open until 10:00pm when we crashed for the night.