Another good night's sleep, solving the HOT problem by urging the doona to live only on one side of its bag.
Day overcast, as predicted. Breakfast crappy again, stole more food and after Skyping badly with Sue, off.
Today it's the Arc de Triomphe, and it's quite a walk, about 5 km. The walk is pleasant, the boulevards are open and to start, even tho I am late, the foot traffic not too bad.
The Arc hoves into sight and I have to work how to get to it.
Pedestrians don't try to cross the Arc de Triomphe roundabout. Eventually I find the underpass.
In fact hire cars aren't insured for damage on the RHS of the vehicle, if the accident occurs at the Arc roundabout!
Find the underpass and join the ubiquitous queue to get tickets to climb the Arc.
It's not too long, and soon I am round and round up the spiral staircase and at the top.
Whilst not quite as expansive as the Eiffel, the Arc certainly gives you the feel of how Paris laid out with radiating spokes of Avenues, with the main one, the Champs Elycees, connecting the Arc to the Place de la Concorde and right down to the Tuileries and the Louvre.
Back the other way the Avenue des Grand Armees extends to the "new" Grand Arch and the Defence Departments.
The bas relief are, in the usual style excellent, and hard to capture in pixels. They certainly went in for Roman allegory, and more tits and bums.
From the Arc it's down the Champs.
There seems to be a rash of lost gold rings in Paris. Four times now I have been walking, minding my own business, when someone coming the other way bends over and produces a gold ring, that they have just found off the footpath. The first one had me, I must confess, and I congratulated them on their luck, then I realised a con was in progress. Just out of the hotel, it happened this morning, she wasn't very good and neither was the guy on the Champs. I have learned to just wave them away with a Gallic "non". Next will be a polite Australian "Fuck off" but I haven't had to resort to that yet.
I hit the Grand and Petite Palais, there's nothing on that appeals, so I circuit round the Place de la Concorde the site of the guillotine during the French Revolution. In the centre is the Luxor Obelisk, that used to guard Ramses II tomb at Luxor (plagiarised from Wikipedia).
The Madeleine Church was just a hop away, so that duly inspected, I had lunch, watching all the devout come and go, double cross themselves as they left, and studiously avoid the beggar at the gates to the church.
The one thing Paris doesn't do well is have information booths, or offices, you know, the big blue "i" sign. I finally found one and sat there some time, sparing my feet, and booked a tour of Versailles. I have been told, miss the Moulin Rouge, it's only tits and bums, but don't miss Versailles.
As I've had quite a surfeit of T&B, the palace got the nod. Tomorrow.
It's still just after 1.00PM, too early to head home, so what to do, what to do?
I see a sign "George Pompidou Centre" so off I head.
The centre houses mostly modern and contemporary art,much of it by quite famoous artists like Dali, Picasso, the Cubists, but none from Fidel Castro, Dadaists and early Surrealists.
There is a Matisse exhibition on "Pairs and Series" that seem to be all the paintings Matisse did two of. Again leaving me quite unsatisfied.
Alas no Courbet!
Must confess, much of it left me rather unimpressed, however the Art Spiegelman Co-Mix was rather fun. Art is a cartoonist, probably best known for cartoons he did for Mad magazine and Playboy. That was more to my liking.
I headed home, albeit the hotel, via Rue St Denis and others, overshooting my target, yet making it to my eating place for a beer.
Greeted with a hand shake was a nice touch, so I head back there for tea after a shower etc.
It's still a solitary life and I'm rather pleased it's coming to an end.
Picasa Web Albums
Day overcast, as predicted. Breakfast crappy again, stole more food and after Skyping badly with Sue, off.
Today it's the Arc de Triomphe, and it's quite a walk, about 5 km. The walk is pleasant, the boulevards are open and to start, even tho I am late, the foot traffic not too bad.
The Arc hoves into sight and I have to work how to get to it.
Pedestrians don't try to cross the Arc de Triomphe roundabout. Eventually I find the underpass.
In fact hire cars aren't insured for damage on the RHS of the vehicle, if the accident occurs at the Arc roundabout!
Find the underpass and join the ubiquitous queue to get tickets to climb the Arc.
It's not too long, and soon I am round and round up the spiral staircase and at the top.
Whilst not quite as expansive as the Eiffel, the Arc certainly gives you the feel of how Paris laid out with radiating spokes of Avenues, with the main one, the Champs Elycees, connecting the Arc to the Place de la Concorde and right down to the Tuileries and the Louvre.
Back the other way the Avenue des Grand Armees extends to the "new" Grand Arch and the Defence Departments.
The bas relief are, in the usual style excellent, and hard to capture in pixels. They certainly went in for Roman allegory, and more tits and bums.
From the Arc it's down the Champs.
There seems to be a rash of lost gold rings in Paris. Four times now I have been walking, minding my own business, when someone coming the other way bends over and produces a gold ring, that they have just found off the footpath. The first one had me, I must confess, and I congratulated them on their luck, then I realised a con was in progress. Just out of the hotel, it happened this morning, she wasn't very good and neither was the guy on the Champs. I have learned to just wave them away with a Gallic "non". Next will be a polite Australian "Fuck off" but I haven't had to resort to that yet.
I hit the Grand and Petite Palais, there's nothing on that appeals, so I circuit round the Place de la Concorde the site of the guillotine during the French Revolution. In the centre is the Luxor Obelisk, that used to guard Ramses II tomb at Luxor (plagiarised from Wikipedia).
The Madeleine Church was just a hop away, so that duly inspected, I had lunch, watching all the devout come and go, double cross themselves as they left, and studiously avoid the beggar at the gates to the church.
The one thing Paris doesn't do well is have information booths, or offices, you know, the big blue "i" sign. I finally found one and sat there some time, sparing my feet, and booked a tour of Versailles. I have been told, miss the Moulin Rouge, it's only tits and bums, but don't miss Versailles.
As I've had quite a surfeit of T&B, the palace got the nod. Tomorrow.
It's still just after 1.00PM, too early to head home, so what to do, what to do?
I see a sign "George Pompidou Centre" so off I head.
The centre houses mostly modern and contemporary art,much of it by quite famoous artists like Dali, Picasso, the Cubists, but none from Fidel Castro, Dadaists and early Surrealists.
There is a Matisse exhibition on "Pairs and Series" that seem to be all the paintings Matisse did two of. Again leaving me quite unsatisfied.
Alas no Courbet!
Must confess, much of it left me rather unimpressed, however the Art Spiegelman Co-Mix was rather fun. Art is a cartoonist, probably best known for cartoons he did for Mad magazine and Playboy. That was more to my liking.
I headed home, albeit the hotel, via Rue St Denis and others, overshooting my target, yet making it to my eating place for a beer.
Greeted with a hand shake was a nice touch, so I head back there for tea after a shower etc.
It's still a solitary life and I'm rather pleased it's coming to an end.
Picasa Web Albums
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