Bank holiday

Here's one left over from yesterday. I am already publishing way, way too many photos and yesterday's five gravesite photos left me no room for this one taken on the way to the cemetery. This is the tennis player at the Opera Metro stop, some large building or another in the background.Today is a bank holiday in France which means that in addition to all of us, the regular tourist crowd of foreigners, the city is also overrun with French tourists. Too many people.

Even so, there were three excursions from the home base. This was taken on the before breakfast tour (also known as the look around can you believe it no other tourists walk). This is the Arc d'Triomphe du Carrousel. It is on the grounds of the Louvre. The arch lines up perfectly with the Arc d'Triomphe on the Champs Elysee (visible in the far background of the picture) and also with the Grand Arch at La Defense, more on that later.Here is the I.M. Pei pyramid entrance to the Louvre with the rising sun visible on the main building of the museum in the background. Also visible is that famous tower.On our second expedition we went looking for Arena Lutece. Arena Lutece is French for Roman arena. This arena was used by the Romans when Paris was part of the Roman Empire. The arena was used for sport and drama from the 1st through the 3rd centuries. It fell into disuse after the barbarians sacked Rome and was eventually lost. It was rediscovered by accident when the area was excavated for other purposes in the 1870s. The arena was restored. Here is the 1st century Arena Lutece.We visited the Cluny museum of the middle ages, (officially known as Musée National du Moyen Âge). The highlight for me was the 2nd century Roman baths but also included are these heads of the Kings of Judah from Notre Dame.When the mob sacked the city's palaces and churches during the Revolution they mistakenly believed that the 28 kings of Judah on the frieze above the entrance of Notre Dame were kings of France. The mob in its frenzy knocked the heads off the statues. A church worker gathered up the heads and buried them in his yard.

And there they stayed for 200 years until an excavation in the 1970s, again for other purposes, unearthed the heads and a few other relics. The church had long since been restored including restoration of the heads of the kings of Judah. The original heads were cleaned up and put on display at the Cluny.

Our third expedition took us to La Defense. Paris has preserved the old part of the city by, in part, allowing modern development only in an area away from the old core of the city. Today we went over there. It smells like bidness.

A centerpiece of the modern business district is the Grand Arch. It lines up with the Arc d'Triomphe and the Arc d'Triomphe du Carrousel. Here is what it looks like up close.It is Paris, so there is art. I don't know what that thumb is doing but I am pretty sure it is a thumb.Here is a shot from the top of the steps under the Grand Arch looking back towards the Arc d'Triomphe.So the post comes full circle from a shot of the Arc d'Triomphe taken from the next arch to the west to a shot of that famous arch taken from the next arch to the east.