It is the focal point of French celebrations, whether it is Bastille Day, World Cup wins, the final stage of the Tour de France, and, most importantly, the end of wars.
It is celebrated in movies and songs, theater and books. Started in 1667 as an extension of the Tuileries Garden, it soon became the place to be seen. In the 1700s the cafe culture came to the boulevard. From the 1920s to the 1960, it was elegance personified. High end stores, and people dressed up to stroll the boulevard.
Topped at one end by the Arc de Triomphe and finished at the bottom by the Place de la Concorde, it's an amazing place to stroll.
The roundabout which goes around the Arc de Triomphe is NOT closed even on that first Sunday (given the amount of traffic, a closure would snarl Paris even worse). But there is no way to turn on to the Champs-Elysees from the roundabout.
We grandly strolled down the celebrated boulevard like we owned the place (fact check: we do NOT actually own the Champs Elysees -- if we did I would have someone ghost write this blog, and it would be much more interesting, particularly since it would done in the style of Ernest Hemingway).
We followed the Rick Steves Champs Elysees walk. It's one of the finest aspects of his travel guides -- he points out interesting sidebars and things to see. Our first stop was at the building housing the Qatar Embassy (since I'm not a terrorist, I receive no funding from Qatar. As you can deduce from the previous sentence, Qatar is not on my list of places to see before I die).
The reason for the stop is that it is one of the few survivors of the many U-shaped buildings from Haussmann's original 1853 design -- it's the kind of building that makes you say, "more buildings need to look like that!).
The Embassy of Qatar.
A close-up of the Embassy's
cool balcony.
(Editor: Given your way with words, I'm surprised you didn't become an architecture critic. Writer: Oh, I'm pretty happy to criticize bad architecture! It's the modern art of buildings -- mostly crap.)
We didn't go in, but at 140 Champs-Elysees we admired the 1970s McDonald's, which shook France to its bones. Well, apparently not, as this store is one of the most profitable in the world, whilst France is home to more than one thousand McDonald's.
Just past it we stopped at a cafe for lunch. From there we strolled down the middle of the street for a while, past fancy stores and popular chains, some times veering over to one side of the street or the other, past flagship stores of famed French luxury goods such as Louis Vuitton.
At one point, we stumbled upon a plaque noting that the building was a hotel where Thomas Jefferson lived for nearly all the four years he was our Ambassador to France. Above the plaque was a sign that it was the office for "We Work" -- which, having watched the show "We Crashed" made us laugh. Jefferson lived the same place that Adam and Rebekah Neumann's former business is now located.
Manifesting Jefferson's
living quarters on the
Champs-Elysees
There was a crowd of people right next to the Jefferson plaque. Except they were waiting to go into the Paris Saint-Germain store, which is the powerhouse French soccer team. (Regular league soccer in European countries isn't very competitive -- it's the same one, two, or three rich teams that dominate.
For all its faults, MLB has had eight different teams win the last ten World Series, and another six teams lose those ten Series. The Stanley Cup has been won by eight different teams in the last ten years (although no Canadian team has won since 1993 -- 31 winners ago!). The Super Bowl has been won by seven different teams in the last ten years (and they've got a salary cap). The NBA has been won by -- oh, nobody cares!
PSG has won seven of the last ten French league championships. Manchester City has won six of the last seven Premier league championships. Italy's Serie A has only had four different champs in the last ten years. You have to go back to 2003-04 to find a Spanish champion not from Barcelona or Madrid (Valencia -- orange you glad you learned that trivia?). And in Germany, well Germany is in the NBA of European soccer -- nobody cares!
Anyhow, those looking to go into the PSG store didn't even notice they were standing next to the home of one of the most illustrious men in world history. (For those who criticize America's Founding Fathers because some owned slaves, you think we'd be better off under kings and queens still?)
(Editor: Wow, you are cranked up! Writer: I can see the end of the Paris blog from here!)
Anyhow, if you want to see the Jefferson plaque, it's at 92 Champs-Elysees. If you want to buy PSG souvenirs, that store is next door.
We walked past several of the more famous cafes, Fouquet's and Laduree restaurant/bakery. We went into one of the Shopping Arcades, realized it wasn't for us, and went back out.
Give Paris credit, the street
signs are easily readable.
From the middle of the once
a month pedestrian street.
A building gate.
One of four similar fountains
at the bottom of the
Champs-Elysee
An iconic statue of
Charles de Gaulle at
the bottom of the
iconic boulevard.
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