Le deuxième jour: Paris - La Grande Arche, Arc de Triomphe, Avenue des Champs-Élysées, et marché de Noël

It was a cloudless day in Paris today, and we decided to sightsee and save the museum visits for rainy days. We began the day in the neighborhood of the hotel. There are a lot of public art in
the district of La Défense and the main attractions are the esplanade and the Grande Arche, which you see here. The Grande Arche is the newest monument on the western end of the Axe historique.

We then took the Métro to the other arche - the Arc de Triomphe. It was chilly and windy, but we hiked up the 300+ steps and went atop the monument to get a good view of Paris. It was too hazy to see really far. Gabriel became interested about Napoleon and the history of the arch while we were browsing at the displays.

We had lunch at a cafe and Gabriel fell in love with croque -monsieur instantly. We strolled along Avenue des Champs-Élysées afterwards. My in-laws had their pilgrimage to the Louis Vuitton flagship store, as did thousands of other tourists who didn't have to finance their children's future education and were eager to claim back the 20% VAT on purchases over 175€ upon their departure from Europe.

Champs-Élysées turned into a marché de Noël (Christmas market) just east of Grand Palais, The Christmas market in Karlsruhe ended on the night of Dec. 23; stalls were dismantled and there was absolutely no trace of the market's aftermath by the early hours of Dec. 24. Not so in Paris. There were still stalls selling merchandises and food on both sides of the famous avenue 2 days after Christmas! But the atmosphere was inferior to the Christmas markets we had visited in Germany. There were no people hanging around, or chatting with friends while enjoying a mug of vin chaud (hot wine; glühwein in German). There was just a single file of stalls on each side of the avenue. If the Germans were to run this Christmas market, I am sure that there would be at least two files of stalls on each side of the avenue and ample of standing room next to the hot-wine stalls. To make matter worse, the vin chaud was served in a plastic disposable cup, not an environmentally friendly ceramic mug (but then, not too many people were drinking vin chaud). There was one giant Ferris wheel at the eastern end of the market at Place de la Concorde. This giant wheel complements nicely with the light on the trees lining Champs-Élysées.


As the kids were getting hungry, we went to Quartier latin (Latin Quarter) for a prix fixe dinner at a random restaurant serving cuisine française traditionnelle. We were not too impressed by the food though, and vowed to find a better brasserie soon.

Here is a shot of Cathédrale Notre Dame that we took after dinner. More pictures of our day in Paris can be found here.