(c) Patricia Barry 2007 Paris – A, B, C Prepared and photographed by Patricia Barry © 2006

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 An ABC guide to Paris  This is all about Paris and Parisian things!  The well-known and the little known. Click below to go to a particular page. Enjoy! AA B C D E F G H I J K L M BCDEFGHIJKLM ABCDEFGHIJKLM NN O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z OPQRSTUVWXYZ NOPQRSTUVWXYZ

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 A – Arc de Triomphe  The Emperor Napoleon wanted a special arch to celebrate the victories of his “Grande Armée”.  It took 30 years to build, so Napoleon never saw it.  The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is located below it.  The names of his officers are carved into the roof arch.  There are sculptures of his most famous battles on the exterior.

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 B – Beaubourg  This is the name Parisians give to the Pompidou Centre  It is the Museum of Modern Art – and one of the biggest in the world.  It was built in 1977, and is named after the President who was a fan of modern art and who commissioned it – Georges Pompidou.  It is an “inside-out” building with all its infrastructure on the outside in colour coded pipes.  Yellow = electricity, green = water, blue = air conditioning and heating, and brown = access ways for people.

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 C – Place de la Concorde.  This was where executions took place using the guillotine during the Revolution. King Louis XVI and his Queen, Marie Antoinette lost their heads here.  The obelisk is more than 3000 years old and comes from the Temple of Amon, of Luxor in Egypt. It was a gift to France from the Egyptian government in  The tip of the obelisk is covered in gold and the story of how it was conveyed to France is sculpted on its plinth in gold.

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 D – La Défense  Named from the fierce defence put up by the Parisians here against the Prussians during the Franco- Prussian war in  It is the modern CBD of Paris and opened in covering some 2 million m2, with hundreds of thousands accessing the area each day.

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 La Défense  It’s a big multi-level station with RER, metro and railway systems, a, big shopping centre called “Quatre Temps”, a hypermarket and hundreds of shops You can access the roof of its huge towersYou can access the roof of its huge towers See the huge sculpture of the thumb! It’s the end of the royal triumphal way.

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 E – La Tour Eiffel.  Eiffel designed this for the World Expo of 1889 celebrating the centenary of the Revolution.  Eiffel was also involved in designing the Statue of Liberty  The tower was the tallest building in the world when it was first built. The Parisians hated it and wanted it demolished.  In huge wind gusts, the top can move up to 7 cm!

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 F – Franco Prussian War 1870  The Prussian Army advanced deep into France and laid siege to Paris in 1870  The city was shelled and starved – the only way in or out was by hot air balloon.  Micro film was invented to enable important documents to be ferried out in the hot air balloons.  It was the first time war had been carried into the air.

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 G – Gargoyles  Climb the bell tower of Notre Dame to see the gargoyles  It was originally thought that they were built to scare away demons.  Their design ranges from birds to beasts, but none of them exist in real life, thankfully!

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 H – Baron Haussmann  Haussmann was responsible for the modern layout of Paris.  For 15 years from1853, he cleared the slums and designed and oversaw the construction of some of the most beautiful boulevards, avenues and streets in Paris.  He designed the arrondissements – the numbered suburbs, that spiral concentrically from the first (located in the area of the royal palace of Le Louvre) to the 20 th.

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 I – Les Invalides  This is the military museum of France.  The tomb of Napoleon lays under the dome.  In the past, it was the military hospital for wounded veterans – hence its name.  The dome is covered in 12 kilos of gold!

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 J – le Jardin du Luxembourg  Paris has many public gardens like le Jardin du Luxembourg.  You are not allowed to walk on the grass.  Parisians love to walk, eat their lunch and sail their toy boats on the ponds in these parks.  Le Jardin du Luxembourg houses the French Senate.

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 K – le kilomètre zéro  Notre Dame still marks the centre of Paris  Outside in the square, is the “Kilometre 0”, from which all the distances in France are measured. This was put into place by André Michelin, the founder of the tyre company.

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 L – le Louvre  The biggest museum in the world  Started life as the Royal palace for the Kings of France before Versailles was built  Enter through the famous pyramid to see La Joconde (the Mona Lisa), the Venus de Milo, Hammurabi’s code and thousands of other treasures.

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 M – le Métro  No place in Paris is further than 400m from a Métro station.  Trains travel under ground and overground.  There are 16 Métro lines and nearly 300 stations  A billion journeys a year are undertaken by the Métro.

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 N – Notre Dame de Paris  The centre of Paris  800 years old, took nearly 200 years to build  It became a Temple of Reason during the French Revolution.  The Cathedral fell into decay after the Revolution, and was only rescued from demolition because of Hugo’s story “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”.

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 O – Le Musée d’Orsay  Originally a train station but the platforms were too short, so fell into disuse  The home to late 19 th century art, the Impressionists and sculpture  Here you can see works by Van Gogh, Degas, Renoir, Monet, Rodin and Toulouse Lautrec.

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 P – Les ponts de Paris.  There are 36 bridges that cross the River Seine. Here are two of them.  At the top, Pont Alexandre III (named after the Tsar of Russia), considered by many to be the most beautiful bridge in Paris  Below, Pont Neuf (New Bridge) – in fact the oldest bridge and the first to be built of stone.

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 Q – Les quais de Paris  On the riverside quays of Paris are “Les Bouquinistes”  These are sellers of books; old, modern, new, second-hand, rare….. Lots of bargains!  They have been setting up shop here for 400 years..mostly because they don’t have enough money to open up a book shop!

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 R – Rue de Rivoli  This is where you will find the Louvre and it leads to the most “exclusive” street in Paris, with its designer stores and the Ritz hotel.  In the centre is the Place Vendôme, with its column built by Napoleon. It is constructed from cannons captured from his enemies in victorious battles.  At the top is a statue of Napoleon.

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 S – Sacré Coeur  Started in 1870, completed in  Situated on the top of Montmartre – one of the only hills in Paris which was home to the artist community in the late 1800s.  Behind is the Place du Tertre, where the artists still congregate today – the most pick pocketed place in Paris!

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 T – Toulouse-Lautrec  His sketches and posters mean “Paris” for many people  Childhood accidents caused him to remain a dwarf.  Rejected by mainstream society, he found comfort in the café concerts – like the Moulin Rouge.  He had a new, fresh approach to graphic art which revolutionised poster drawing. This is one of his most famous showing the dancer “La Golue” performing the shocking “CanCan”.

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 eUro-Disney  A favourite theme park for Europeans, although it was initially unpopular with many French people because of its “American” culture.  About one hour’s travelling time out of Paris.  It shares common rides and themes with Disney parks in the USA

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 V - Versailles  Built in the 1600s by Louis XIV, the Sun King. His sun symbol may be found everywhere in the Palace.  The biggest palace in Europe.  Housed 30,000 people and was the symbol of the King’s absolute power.  The Hall of Mirrors is the most famous room of the Palace  Visit the little village and farm where Queen Marie Antoinette used to play at being a farmer’s wife.

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 W – Winter in Paris  Skating rinks are put into place – outside the Hotel de Ville, and even on the Eiffel Tower!  In the Summer, sand and palms are trucked into central Paris to create a “plage” or beach by the River Seine!

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 X – Xtra information  Right Bank (Rive droite) and Left Bank (Rive Gauche) – defined by the flow of the Seine, from East to West. The Eiffel Tower and the Latin Quarter are Rive Gauche. The Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe are Rive Droite.  The Musée de Cluny is built on top of a Roman Villa and you can visit the Roman bath-house! It is the medieval museum for France.  The Conciergerie was the Prison for those destined to be guillotined. It housed King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette and their children. You can visit the cells.  The catacombs are the spooky tour, with millions of tastefully arranged skeletons in a hundred kilometres of subterranean passages – don’t get lost! Entry is near Metro Denfert Rochereau.  The sewers – made famous by Hugo in his book, Les Miserables – are a fine working example of 19 th century infrastructure. Entry is from a quai on the River Seine near Les Invalides.  Chatelet near the Hotel de Ville is the world’s largest Metro station covering twelve levels.

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 Y – did YOU know…?  The word in French for “garbage bin” is “la poubelle”. This word comes from its inventor, a Monsieur Poubelle who was a Paris city councillor during the time of Haussmann’s clean up of the city.  Haussmann had installed sewers, but what to do with all the rubbish that people just threw into the street?  Poubelle organised a metal bin for each household and started a weekly collection system. The bin was called a “Poubelle” after him!

(c) Patricia Barry 2007 Z - Zoo  The Kings of France had a zoo which was disbanded during the Revolution.  After the Revolution, the Zoo was restarted. The first giraffes in Europe were kept here, after walking all the way from Marseille where they were disembarked from their African voyage.  Sadly to say, all the animals were eaten by the starving Parisians during the Siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian war. The picture shows the sale of the last meat at this time.