Coping with the heat in hot Paree, part II

 

Paris after dark as seen from the Eiffel Tower 

It was a bright and warm sixth day of July as the three of us headed into the depths of the Paris Metro system for another day of sightseeing in the City of Light. This poster for Passion Japan: The Immervise Exhibition caught my eye as we navigated through the warren of tunnels beneath the streets, but we weren't in France to explore Japanese culture. However, later this autumn...:

We reemerged aboveground to come face to face with the Arc de Triomphe, that shameless French copy of President Trump's monumental inspiration. This symbol of French patriotism was commissioned by Napoleon in 1805 after his victory at the Battle of Austerlitz. It wasn't finished until 1836, by which time the emperor was long gone and the monarchy had been restored:

Thanks again to my foresight to buy tickets online (insert self-congratulatory pat on the back) we were able to bypass the queue waiting in the already hot sun and go inside to climb the 200 steps leading up to the museum:

If I can decipher this with my high school-level French then so can you:

An additional 40 steps led to the observation deck. From 50 meters (164 feet) up we had a 360° view of our surroundings, which included a couple of landmarks that we would visit later that day. This view in this direction was a reminder that France has the 7th largest economy in the world:

Back at ground level I paid my respects at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, interred here in 1921 in honor of the 1.3 million French soldiers who were killed in the First World War:

The Appeal of June 18, when Charles de Gaulle gave a speech over the radio waves urging the French people to continue the fight against the Nazis:

On November 11, 1940 thousands of French university students defied Nazi bans to march down the Champs Élysées to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Needles to say, the German occupiers responded with violence against the marchers, beating and arresting many:

Our timed entry at the Arc de Triomphe was at 10:30, meaning it was lunchtime when we were done at the monument. My wife looked online and found a Taiwanese restaurant, so we rode the Metro to Saint-Paul:

I will admit I had my doubts at first about Chez Ajia. We were welcomed by a young white man, the interior had none of the faux Asian decor commonplace in Chinese eateries in Europe, and the clientele was overwhelmingly of the Caucasian persuasion. The menu items didn't seem very "authentically" Formosan:

The food, however, turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Instead of failed attempts at replicating Taiwanese street food, we enjoyed some delicious examples of fusion done right:

After some discussion we three reached a decision on where to go following lunch. The Basilique du Sacré-Coer is perched atop the highest point in Paris, overlooking Montmartre. Shu-E elected to stay at the base of the hill, enjoying a beer in a cafe, while Amber and I trudged up in the heat to reach the basilica, designed in a grand Roman-Byzantine style and completed in 1919:

The views inside were worth the trek:

Yes, that's a statue of a kneeling Joan of Arc:

An entry ticket (admission into the basilica itself is free) and 300 steps take visitors up to the dome for breathtaking views of the city (according to the guidebooks), but my daughter and I agreed the vista that presents itself just outside the entrance to the church was good enough to forgo the observation deck:

The family unit then returned to our hotel in the late afternoon to relax in air-conditioned comfort and watch some World Cup highlights on TV. For dinner that evening Amber and I ventured out to a small eatery nearby where I made an attempt at healthy eating by ordering a Parisian salad (for those playing at home, please note Shu-E often skips dinner):

The reason for spending so much time in our lodgings rather than explore more of the French capital is that we had an evening appointment at Paris' most iconic sight. When I was making the trip preparations and went to the website to book our tickets, the only time slot available for this day was at 22:30. And so we left our hotel between 21:30 and 22:00 to travel via subway to the Eiffel Tower. Standing proudly at a height of 330 meters/1083 feet Gustave Eiffel's contribution to the 1889 World's Fair is probably the first image that comes to mind for most people when their thoughts turn to Paris: 

 

Our tickets were for the top floor at 276 meters/906 feet. Unfortunately for reasons unexplained the summit was closed that evening, so we could only go as high as the second floor at 115 meters/378 feet (not to worry, I was refunded the amount of the tickets that would have taken us to the top). Even at the lower altitude, the views of Paris in the darkening hours were as impressive as a visitor would expect:

Proposing marriage at the Eiffel Tower is a popular activity, and during the time we were on the second floor we heard several rounds of cheers and applause, suggesting some requests were successful. For the descent back down to the ground, my wife opted for a return trip on a crowded elevator, but my daughter and I took the stairs, just as we had several years earlier at Tōkyo Tōwer 東京タワー (a replica of the Parisian original). The walk down took around ten minutes: 

Reunited:

Tuesday, our last full day in Paris. We took a train to Versailles, but didn't realize ours would branch off onto a spur line just before reaching what was supposed to be our stop. Not to worry, as a short taxi ride deposited us outside the Château de Versailles, France's most famous palace.  Sprawling over 900  hectares/2224 acres this former hunting lodge was transformed by Louis XIV into a huge chateau fit for a king. It served as the seat of royal power beginning in 1682, until the 1789 revolution led to the imprisonment and eventual executions of Louis XVI and Marie Antonette: 

We began our visit at the Royal Chapel, completed in 1710:

From there it was on to the royal apartments, a vast network of long corridors leading to overly ornate bedrooms and other living spaces. It was a sight we've come across several times in our European travels, but the sheer size and scale of the Palace of Versailles (along with the throngs of visitors) can lead to exhaustion. Shu-E took time to study the paintings in Marie Leszczyńska's "Chinese Chamber", and was surprised at how many of the figures portrayed within them were very Western in appearance: 

Even a traveler as jaded as your humble scribe had to be impressed with the Galerie de Glaces (Hall of Mirrors), a grande Baroque gallery that demonstrated the power of Louis XIV, and helps explain why the revolution came along 74 years after the monarch's death. The Wikipedia article has all the vital information and statistics that I can't be bothered to replicate here: 

The Coronation of Napoleon, a huge 1807 painting by Jacques Louis-David that depicts the moment during the 1804 ceremony in Notre Dame when Napoleon crowned Empress Joséphine rather than allowing the Pope to place the crown on Napoleon's head:

 

With the lunch hour approaching we decided to get ahead of the crowd by taking a break in the Restaurant Angelina:

I didn't have a single glass of wine during our time in France:

For the main course I had the restaurant's "exclusive dish", the Vol-au-vent soleil, a combination of French chicken fillet, puff pastry, carrot duo, mushrooms, black rice, and poultry cream with truffle oil, while making sure to save room for their famous Mont-Blanc meringue. This lunch for three was probably the most expensive meal for which I've ever been billed, but it was worth every euro:

Having lunch when we did was a wise decision, based on the long line of diners we passed as we exited the restaurant following our leisurely meal (and we did take our time). Next we visited the Gallery of Battles. There, 33 battles ranging from Tolbiac in 496 to Wagram in 1809 are depicted in monumental paintings:

This painting of the Seige of Yorktown served as a reminder that without French help the American Revolution might have ended a failure: 

Following the Gallery of Battles were the Empire Rooms, former apartments of royal princes that were redesigned in the 1830s as another gallery. The subject of this painting is Napoleon's entry into Alexandria in 1798 during the Egyptian Campaign: 

Another highlight of a visit to Versailles would be to explore the formal gardens, the Grand Canal and the Triannon palaces, and we would have done just that on a cool day. But on this afternoon the thermometer was reading 33°C/91°F,  which limited the time spent outdoors: 

Trying to cool down in the late afternoon before taking the train back into central Paris:

Once again in our hotel, with the Tour de France on the TV in the lobby:

The original plan had been to go on an evening boat tour along the Seine, but at this point all of us were spent from the day at Versailles combined with the brutal heat wave affecting western Europe. And so for our final evening we returned to the Brasserie le Square, the same restaurant where we had dinner on our first evening in Paris, thus ending where we had started, dining wise:

 

The joy that comes with concluding a meal with a caramel crêpe:

The Novotel Suites Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, which served as our Parisian home away from home for the five nights we stayed in the French capital:

The next day we were driven to Charles de Gaulle Airport to catch an Air France flight to Dublin. A last look at French territory before crossing the English Channel:

And so our all-too-brief stay in Paris came to an end, a visit that barely scratched the proverbial surface of one of the world's greatest metropolitan areas. What can I add to the millions of words written about the City of Light, with its architecture, culture, history, galleries and so forth? Had I been fortunate enough to have been posted in Paris, I could imagine myself visiting various corners of the city on weekends and holidays. And then there's the rest of France, which we had to shun due to time limitations and the desire to visit one of my ancestral homelands. I had approached Paris with some trepidation based on the stereotypes I've heard again and again about the city and its denizens, but not a single one of those was encountered during our stay. As I approach the day when I'll be riding off into the sunset I doubt I'll have the time to return and to broaden my limited French horizons. But for anyone who might ask, I would recommend making time to visit Gay Paree.