Day 17 "Victory belongs to the most persevering"- Napoleon Bonaparte

Before spending time in wintery Paris it is unlikely that we would have ever thought that a day spent walking outside in temperatures as low as five degrees was pleasant. But as the sun struggled to appear we enjoyed a long walk, which began at the Louvre and continued through the Jardin des Tuileries and then along Rue d’ Royale past some very fancy shops. This led us to La Madeline a grand neoclassical temple originally built to commemorate Napoleon’s glorious armies but later dedicated to the glory of God and to honour the mother of Jesus. Because of its original purpose it is a very unusual church – but none the less magnificent. After a good look around we detoured to the Palace Vendome, laid out in 1702, but most recently famous as being the home of the Paris Ritz. Originally in its centre was a monument to Louis XIV, however that monument was destroyed during the French revolution and Napoleon replaced it with a 44 metre high column, made from 1200 melted down cannons and erected to celebrate his own great victories. We then walked back to the Seine and crossed over a delightful new pedestrian bridge called Passerelle Leopold-Sedar-Senghor, and then on past the Palais-Bourbon (the home of the French National Assembly) and the Les Invalides (now the home of the French Military Museum) and finally around to the Dome Church and Napoleon’s tomb. Napoleon lies under the magnificent golden dome encased in six coffins, which fit inside each other like a Russian doll. Quite a stroll!

During our stroll we were very touristy and enjoyed a birds eye view from the Roude de Paris, the 60 metre temporary ferris wheel, which is itself a visitor to Paris. Although a much bigger ferris wheel had been erected in Paris in 1900 (it was torn down) this wheel was first erected for the New Millennium celebrations in 1999, but was removed after some time and the ferris wheel now tours the world. It often comes back to Paris for the Christmas/New Year celebrations. It is so temporary that it isn’t even secured to the ground but instead is held down with a water ballast of 40,000 litres. The whole wheel can be dismantled in 60 hours. The view from the top was very revealing. Paris is a complex city, as layers of history can sometimes confuse modern explorers, such as us, and we often don’t always understand how it all fits together. From the air the view was not only spectacular but also very helpful –in our gondola there were many ‘Ah ha!’ moments as we observed Paris clearly laid out before us on this beautiful winter’s day.