Bolger Family Travels

Wednesday, April 23, 2025

A Handful Of Late Day Photos

Sacre Bleu? No -- Sacre Couer!

Exactly translated, Sacre Couer means "Sacred Heart."

(Editor: "Exactly translated"? Writer: How many times have you seen the phrase "roughly translated"? A lot right? Well I want readers to know this isn't some shoddy, half-*ssed translation. This is the real deal translation!)

Sacre Couer is an amazing church to visit. Because of the outside. We didn't even go inside because it was late afternoon and the place was packed. The steps up were jam-packed, and the line to get in was unreal.

So, Carol and I walked around the outside of the church a bit, and then headed down to the heart of Montmartre for a drink and calamari at a local cafe. We had earned it, as we had wandered all over Paris that day, from the American Founding Fathers tour on the Left Bank to the Arc d'Triomphe/Champs-Elysees/Place de la Concorde jaunt on the Right Bank and then to Sacre Couer, high on the Montmartre Hill.

According to Wikipedia, it is the second most visited tourist destination in Paris. I get why it is high on the list, but I also don't. The outside is amazing, and the view from the dome of all of Paris is amazing. Heck, even the view from the balcony by the top of the funicular is impressive.

But the inside of the basilica is underwhelming, as it was built from 1875 to 1914. The site is believed to be the site of the martyrdom of St. Denis (remember, he's the guy on the Notre Dame facade holding his beheaded head?)

Anyhow, it's a pleasant walk through the Parisian streets from the Metro, a fun ride up the funicular (weird, in 1984 I was happy to walk it!) Give this old guy credit, as Carol and I did walk down the stairs rather than ride the funicular down.

(Editor: I noticed you just referred to yourself as old, even though Carol is not even a year younger. Writer: I'm no fool.)

So let's get to the pictures and move along. . .the blog is nearly done.

People enjoying the sun, and

the view from on high. Plus

they are tired from climbing

the many, many stairs.

The style is Neo-Byzantine-

Romanesque, but you probably

instinctively knew that.

There aren't many pictures,

but I like them all. But I

like this one the best.

Tuesday, April 22, 2025

There's No Place Like Place de la Concorde

There are a lot of great plazas in European cities, including Plaza Catalunya in Barcelona, Plaza Mayor in Madrid, Plaza Mayor in Salamanca, Plaza de Espana in Seville, Piazza Navona in Rome, Piazza del Popolo in Rome, Piazza San Marco in Venice, Plaza Mayor in Segovia.

(Editor: The Spanish aren't exactly creative in naming their plazas. Writer: It's a major issue. Get it? Writer: There's no reason to criticize their language which they're proud of. And don't get foreign language speakers started on "to," "too," and "two.")

Place de la Concorde is the one of the great plazas. It's a main crossroads in Paris, and has an amazing history. It's one of the sites of where a guillotine beheaded many a Frenchman/woman.

There's a plaque where the guillotine did its bloody job by the 3,300 year old obelisk brought to Paris from Luxor. (Yes, that's a link to photos I took in at the Temple of Luxor in Egypt, not Las Vegas.) This Paris location is where King Louis XVI was beheaded. To honor those who had been whacked, his brother, Charles X, had this brought by boat north down the Nile, across the Mediterranean, up the Atlantic coast, and up the Seine. It took an amazing two years.

Also "made a foot shorter" here were a host of superstars from back in that day -- Marie-Antoinette, Georges Danton, and Robespierre, among others. By the way, since Robespierre was a leader in the Reign of Terror, it's kind of funny he who killed by the guillotine died by the guillotine. As John Madden once said on an NFL game I was watching, "Irony can be so ironic." No doubt Madden was thinking of Robespierre when he said it.

Back to the obelisk -- it's not just 3,300 years old (give or take a few years) it's 72 feet high, 220 tons of red granite that's covered in hieroglyphs.

There's also two massive fountains, the Fontaines des Mers et des Fleuves. Alas, they did not have water in them yet for the spring/summer when we were there. I guess the Paris authorities were worried they would freeze in the lows of 45-48 temperatures whilst we were there.

The fountains are amazing, but it would be nice if they had the water they are supposed to. The fountain of the Seas (Mers) pays homage to France's maritime trade and industry (now with exciting new tariffs!), the fountain of the Rivers (des Fleuves) notes the importance of the rivers to move crops. There are also Tritons and Neriads holding tight to dolphins.

(Between Rome and Paris, we did not have much luck with fountains on our last two trips.)

There Might Be More Photos Than There Should Be In This Post, But Place de la Concorde Is Pretty Cool

Better than average Obelisk,

better than average light post,

and better than a typical tower.

Monument to Strasbourg,

an absolutely amazing

city we visited during the

Christmas markets.

Look at how many people are

taking advantage of the first

Sunday pedestrian-only

Champs-Elysees.

King Louis XVI and many

others lost their heads here.

Remember, these were

carved 3,300 years ago.

Remember, this was created

more than 3,300 years ago.

One of the fountains. We

couldn't manifest water, but

that wasn't our job. Get

your act together, Paris!

The Hotel de la Marine (originally home

of the Navy Department) or Hotel

Crillon (originally, well, beats me).

The Grand & Petit Palais

All we did was walk past these palaces after the Champs-Elysees, but the Grand and Petit Palais are quite beautiful. They are on the Avenue Winston Churchill. which means the French gave Churchill a grander honor than he received from England. Anyhow, the Palais were both built as exhibition halls for the 1900 World's Fair.

The Grand Palais has temporary exhibits, and the Petit Palais has a collection of paintings by artists of renown like Monet, Pissarro, Cezanne, and other 19th century painters.

Neither called to us to go in at that point in the afternoon, so we just walked past and enjoyed the beauty of their buildings.

Statue of Sir Winston

Churchill. Nice of the

French to build it, and

nice of them to provide

shade for Mr. Churchill.

It's always great to get a picture of

the flag of the country we are

visiting snapping straight out in

the wind.

It's always great to get a picture of

a cool statue and the flag of the

country we are visiting snapping

straight out in the wind.

The Petit Palais

Feeling Like Champs On The Champs-Elysees

Somewhere during my prepping for the trip, I read that the Champs-Elysees is closed to cars on the first Sunday of the month, making it a particularly propitious time to stroll one of the most famous ~~streets~~ boulevards in the world.

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.

The embassy is on the Rue de Tilsitt, a quarter block off the Champs-Elysees. Alas, the law prohibiting the demolition of old building fronts didn't pass until 1985. Meanwhile, across the Champs-Elysees is the ugly gray, concrete-and-glass "Publicis" building that looks like all the other crap built in the 1960s and 1970s.

(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.

Not Just An Arch, But A Moving Memorial To French War Dead

Building on the Arc d'Triomphe (which strikes me as one of the coolest spelled names in the world) started in 1809. It has been the scene of many major world events:

Napoleon's 1840 funeral procession passed underneath;
The German victory parade in 1871;
The Victory Parade in July 1919 celebrating the end of World War I;
A French aviator, Charles Godefroy flew his biplane under the arch;
In 1940, the Nazis celebrated their victory in the Battle for France by goose-stepping past the Arc;
In August 1944, Charles de Gaulle led Allied troops under the arch as they celebrated the liberation of Paris, and, of course:
Glen Bolger in 2013 driving around the Arc d'Triomphe trying to find a way out of the roundabout, feeling like Clark Griswold in National Lampoon's European Vacation.

We have never really been to the Arc d'Triomphe before, except for seeing it at a distance. It's much more impressive than I had realized. It's not just a victory arch to Napoleon's conquests, but a living memorial to French war dead since the 1800s.

It's 165 feet high, and there are 284 steps to ascend to the top. We had thought about doing so, but one look at the line convinced us otherwise. That said, the Museum Pass (our had expired) or advanced ticket purchasers could skip the line, but we hadn't really planned ahead.

Even if you don't go to the top, wandering around the base and taking it all in is enough to make going there worthwhile.

After coming out of the Charles de Gaulle Etoile Metro stop, snap a picture. Then continue a few feet to stairs leading underground. That takes you under the world's largest roundabout to the world's largest arch. You pop up safely without having to cross the road, which is surely an invitation to getting run over.

On the arch, there's a relief sculpture of Napoleon as a toga-clad emperor.

John Belushi advertising toga parties

Napoleon quaffing

a beer at a toga

party. (My first

AI generated art).

(Any future AI

on here will be

ID'd as such.

It won't happen

often).

The arch is replete with reliefs. Inside the base of the arch there is a faded eagle, lists of French victories since the Revolution, a flower-lined Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (WWI), and plaques honoring different French military involvement, including French Indochina (aka Vietnam). Thanks for nothing.

The Metro stop is named Charles de Gaulle Etoile. The last word means "star," from the 12 boulevards that spread out from the Arc, part of Haussmann's plan for Paris. The most famous of which is the Champs-Elysees.

Before we move on to that, I would highly recommend going to the Arc de Triomphe. It's a neat, communal experience that provides added appreciation for the French military, and serves as a great way to honor what they've sacrificed.