A and E in Paris - Part 2

Breakfast in Paris with Ken!

So this day was our, "stroll down the Champs-Elysees and buy things," day. In an attempt to walk toward the Arc de Triomphe, we actually walked the opposite direction. We ended up at Place de la Concorde just before the Louvre. Here we saw what Eve kept calling, "that pencil looking thing."
Which turned out to be an Obelisk that Napoleon had stolen, um... saved, during one of his campaigns. (That's the Eiffel Tower in the background)
The view down the Champs-Elysees from the Obelisk to the Arc.
En route to the Arc de Triomphe, we stopped at the most swanky Hagen-Daas stores/restaurants I've ever seen! We ate what turned out to be $67 of ice cream! Hahahaha.... We didn't eat that much, it was just really expensive.

We finally made it to the other end of the boulevard.
(A total of 1.3 miles - good things since we had to work off that ice cream.)

Arc de Triomphe (take notice of the sky in this picture)


The French and EU flags that hung in the archway.The tomb of the Unknown Soldier
Every night they have a ceremony to reignite the eternal flame (even though it's ETERNAL).


The work on the Arc itself is simply magnificent. I took a million photos, but I won't bore you with them.

Zoom in if you can... the "angel", France, has a face that is so intense. Ken and I also liked the fact that the guy in front is all prepared for battle, except he seems to have forgotten his pants.When you buy your ticket to enter the Arc, they don't tell you *how* you are going to ascend. Of course, since it was built in the early 1800's, one might assume that there are stairs. Well, there are stairs, 248 of them. The number of stairs isn't the problem. The fact that they are spiral, without a landing from bottom to top is what poses a problem. I had to stop, not only to breathe, but to keep from getting hideously dizzy. When we finally reached the top, after the small gallery, we went outside.

Here are some photos from the top of the Arc de Triomphe!
(Notice the sky...?)

From the time we left the bottom, climbed the stairs, and looked at the gallery, it went from blue and slightly cloudy to DOWNPOUR. Go figure.
This day, we walked the length of the Champs-Elysees, twice.

This, was taken the next night. This shows the Eiffel Tower (in twinkle mode) and the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. (The smaller arc, also commisioned by Napoleon, located adjacent to the Louvre.)