Paris - The Arc de Triomphe - 7me

Plate LXVIII - The Arc de Ttriomphe…

I believe that two images most strongly define Paris in the eyes of the world - the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe.

Perhaps through having seen in my schooldays those fractured, aging 1945 newreels of the victorious Charles de Gaulle entering a newly liberated city; or perhaps because of a lifelong fascination with Napoleon and his military prowess - this was the one particular sight I had waited for so many years to see.

For whatever reason, to me this is Paris, and Paris is the Arc de Triomphe. Prepared for disappointment by previous visits to many other celebrated world sights and landmarks, which always seem smaller than their reputation would have you expect, could the Arc de Triomphe be all that I needed it to be?

Having arranged these images by arrondissements they are not in the sequence I visited them. After time at La Défense I had taken the RER from Nanterre to Etoile. Rising through this underground mystery, that was still so new to me, to the midway Metro station and then not sure which exit to take, I fortuitously selected the escalators that rise to the very foot of this magnificent landmark. The hairs on my arms began to rise as I caught my first glimpse of the stonework carvings that decorate the Arc. Little by little, more and more was revealed – seemingly as if in slow motion. And then … there it was!

A giant Tricolore suspended in the centre of the arch greeted my arrival in Paris.

I was here at last, and I was most definitely NOT disappointed.