Photo 1: NOT the Arc de Triomphe!
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To complete our required tour of all the major
icons, we then proceeded over to the Arc de Triomphe. There is a great traffic circle
around this landmark and the only way to get there is to go back down to the underground
Metro station and walk across to the other side, up the stairs to the underground
passageway, and back down through another tunnel over to the "island".
Unfortunately at the time we were there they were having some sort of great parade. Nobody
that we asked seemed to know what it was about. There were lots of marching groups going
up the street and ending at the Arch. It reminded me very much of the closing scenes of
the film Day of the Condor. Because of this special event, we were not allowed
over to the island to see the Arch up close. The
picture to the left is NOT the Arc de Triomphe, but it appears to be a smaller, compact
version. As you can see, it is situated right across from the Louvre at the east entrance
to the Tuelleries Gardens.
That night we went down to the theatre in the hostel and
watched the first half of some American racing movie dubbed into French. Then one of the
employees looked through the window and discovered that they were not showing the schedule
feature. Even though the majority of us voted to continue what we were watching, she
stopped it in mid scene and ran "Muriel's Wedding" in English (or actually in
Australian to be precise!) |