Aux Champs Elysées

At the end of every summer, Paris imports tons of sand and palm trees from the south of France and turns the banks of the Seine near Notre Dame into a boardwalk/faux beach area, called Paris Plages.  The several-week long event just began, so yesterday we spent the afternoon basking in the sun by the river, reading and listening to a bagpiper playing for money on the bridge above.  It felt just like the beach…well, except for the fact that getting in the water was the absolute last thing we would want to do there.

Paris Plages along the Seine

Paris Plages along the Seine

Today, for Carrie’s last day, we spent the early afternoon at the Palais de Tokyo, a modern art museum whose permanent exhibition is gratuit (free, aka. my favorite word to see here).  After that we walked along the famous Champs Elysées, from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde (concorde means peace, despite the fact that it’s where the public executions at the guillotine once were).  Though the Champs Elysées is not as glamorous as it used to be apparently, it’s still pretty posh, with the Louis Vuitton flagship store, Cartier, and so on (although McDonald’s made it in there too, somehow).

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2 Responses to Aux Champs Elysées

  1. Kathryn says:

    oh my god- i remember singing that song “aux champs elysees” in ms hanlon’s class…..good times.

  2. Lisa Knight says:

    Ca va, Hannah? Je vais tres bien, et tu? Seriously wonderful writing and photos. I’m mad I’m just now being able to sit still and look at them! What an awe-inspiring trip. The only places in common I’ve visited are Paris and Nice. I liked Nice, but I hated my tour guide! She had the worst nasal voice! Did you get to see the Sacre Coeur in Paris? What about the Louvre?