Saturday, September 16, 2006
Exploring the Rues and crossing the Seine
So it was still relatively early when we made our way out of the hotel. The streets were very, very quiet. As we approached the junction near the hotel, we nearly jumped out of our skins when we almost bumped into a fully-uniformed policeman carrying an automatic weapon. We looked across the road and behold, there were two more, similarly-armed and patrolling (more like prowling) along a plain, nondescript building.
Then we saw the French flag and a sign that read “Ministère de l’Intérieur”.
Ah.
We walked past the equivalent of the Ministry of Home Affairs (no idea if it translates to interior ministry?) and turned onto Avenue de Marigny. We saw an early line of tourists forming along Avenue de Marigny, just by the Palais de l’Elysée. No desire to join queues this early in the morning, we kept our pace and soon, we’re at the Avenue des Champs Elysees (Champs Elysees for short). As it was soon to become apparent to us, names of Parisian streets mostly begin with “Rue…” or “Place…” or “Avenue…”. “Rue” is French for street.
Champs Elysees is quite a long road, very straight, stretching all the way from the Arc de Triomphe in the west right up to the obelisk at the Louvre approximately 2.5 - 3 kilometres eastwards. It’s recognisable as the scene of many celebrations of sporting victories (think France winning the World Cup, flags waving, streamers billowing, cars honking and flares erupting) as well as high-end fashion chic. That’s what we’ve come to associate it with, but we saw neither celebration nor chic today: for one thing we were right down the middle of the Avenue (the fun stuff is at either end) and it was too early on Saturday morning anyway.
We headed for the Seine, a waterway known to have inspired many painters including Claude Monet. It was a rather hazy morning, and this somehow made Paris seem draped in a somewhat dewey fabric. The temperature hovered around the early 20s (Celsius) so it was great for walking, though a little dehydrating. Crossing the Pont Alexandre III, we started our hunt for bottled water. But not before being distracted for about ten minutes by the dramatically-wrought, gilded and be-cherubimed bridge. I noticed that many 
monuments and statues in Paris, like many other European cities, were partly gilded in bright gold while the rest of the statue or structure remained stonily grey (or green, copper or algae perhaps). Ornate lanterns were held up by lofty lamp posts: these weren’t spared the glitz either. If all bridges in Paris were this ornate, the city must have spent billions in francs (as the currency then was) crossing the Seine. Later however we found out this was not the case!
We crossed over into the area known as the Left Bank, and were immediately greeted by an imposing sight in the distance - the Invalides. Its dome rose above a long grassy stretch, and it loomed from afar as though willing the visitor to its threshold. A quick consultation of our Time Out Paris guide revealed that the Invalides was built by King Louis XIV, as a military hospital complex with two churches, to ‘epitomise the offical grandeur of the Sun King as expression of royal and military power’. It supposedly is still part hospital, but is now the site of the Musée de l’Armée and Napoleon’s tomb!
Refocusing our perspective (after being visually held captive), imagine if you’ve had beautiful monuments and breathtaking architecture at your doorstep all your life. Great paintings and sculptures are literally part of your own growing up as it is part of Parisian history and even as it forms the fabric of French pride. How truly mind-blowing to commute daily across a bridge built from felled prison walls stormed by rebels during the Bastille revolution!
At this point, our hunger and semi-dehydration got the better of us so we put best foot forward with only the betterment of our present physical conditions in mind.