"Place des Victoires" with Kristine

Kristine - Garden of the "Palais Royal"

10:05 AM - Kristine comes from New York. Very sports, she chose to take advantage of her stay in Paris to do a Running Tour and so combine sport and discovery of Paris.
We left Grand boulevards to join the Eiffel Tower.

At first, we ran in more intimate places as the garden of the Palais Royal (above) or the magnificent Parisian covered passages:

We often spoke about them in this blog but it is always a great pleasure to discover these passages again.

The second part of the route led us towards less "confidential" but great amazing places, as the banks of the Seine...

Kristine - Banks of the River Seine (right bank, at the level of the "Jardin des Tuileries")

... or of course, the Eiffel tower:

Kristine - Eiffel tower since the Avenue of the President Wilson

Along the way, we crossed the magnificent "Place des Victoires" with the Statue of king Louis XIV, the Sun King.

Kristine - Place des Victoires

This square, created in 1685, was named "Place des Victoires" in honor of the military victories of Louis XIV. Do you know that the place saw successively four different monuments:

• from 1686 till 1792, a standing statue of Louis XIV
• from 1792 till 1810, a wooden pyramid
• from 1810 till 1828, a statue of General Desaix
• and since 1828, the current statue, an equestrian statue of Louis XIV.

The first statue was melted in 1792 to make canons during the revolution. It represented King Louis XIV standing...

... on a base representing four overcome nations (Spain, the Empire, Brandenburg and Holland):

This base is visible in the Puget courtyard in the Louvre.
We can even see it without entering the Louvre since the passage which connects the street of Rivoli with the Louvre Pyramid (remember the photo 12 in this article: here).

Merci Kristine ! 

The route of the tour:

Prepare marathons by visiting Paris

Nicole and Dan with Paris Running Tour - Palais Royal - Photo Frédéric Poirier

8:04 AM - Nicole and Dan live in New York. They are two regular runners. Nicole participates regularly in competitions.
On holidays in Paris, Nicole prepares her next races: the Chicago marathon and, three weeks later, the New York marathon. 
Running so close marathons? Yes, with a non-exhausting good training, it is possible.

So what is better than a Paris Running Tour to combine regular training and discovery-visit of Paris?

Nicole and Dan - Avenue of New York in Paris

Little break avenue de New York. New York, one of Nicole's objectives. 
Is there also an avenue of Paris in New York? No, but there is an avenue of Paris in Chicago, Paris Avenue.

Let us run in the paths of the garden of the Trocadéro:

Dan and Nicole - Gardens of the Trocadéro - In the background, the "Palais de Chaillot"

then along the river Seine:

Dan and Nicole - Left Bank, "quai Branly" (Branly pier)

The perspectives are often very beautiful in Paris, it deserves some stops:

Dan and Nicole - "Champs Elysées" (Paris Marathon start!)

Nicole and Dan - The "Palais Royal"

Nicole and Dan - The garden of the "Palais Royal"

Merci Dan and Nicole !


Since then, Nicole realized a time of 3:31 in Chicago then, only three weeks later, 3:40 in New York. Fantastic!

Bravo Nicole! 


The route of the tour:

Zigzags from Nation to Trocadero, 11 miles by running in Paris with Anne

Anne - "Place des Vosges"

9:09 AM - Anne from Washington D.C. (USA) is a regular runner (look at her blog). In this first Monday of August, we had decided to cross Paris by running from east to west. We left a place near the square of "Nation" with the objective to reach "Palais de Chaillot" to take advantage of the beautiful view on the Eiffel Tower offered by the "Esplanade of the Trocadéro".
To go there by the shortest route? No, no, we chose to make a lot of zigzags to be able to appreciate Paris in all its magnificence. In the end, nearly 11 miles of an attractive tourist and sports route.

First photo stop: the "Place des Vosges". Very quiet this morning (photo above).
Read here the funny short story of the statue of Louis XIII situated in the center of the garden. 
Did you know that this Royal place was renamed "Place des Vosges" because this department in the east of France was the first one to pay the tax during the Revolution?

From "Place des Vosges", to join the street Saint Antoine, we took the magnificent shortcut offered by the Hotel of Sully:

Anne - "Hôtel de Sully"

Still in the "Marais" (right bank), we are going to penetrate the Philippe Auguste's Paris (by postern Saint-Paul). Indeed, king Philippe Auguste, at the end of the 12th century, before leaving for his third crusade, made build an important protective wall around Paris. Numerous parts of this surrounding wall are still visible nowadays. Below, the longest preserved portion of the wall.
Discover here another massive part of the wall, left bank this time, as well as plans representing Paris of this time.

Anne - Well of Phillippe Auguste - 12th century (Behind the wall, "Lycée" Charlemagne - High school)

Let us cross the Seine to visit the Island of "La Cité". Look (photo below) at the installations of "Paris-Plages" (Paris-beaches), right bank. Do you see the small red Eiffel Tower? We had spoken about it here and here.

Anne - "Paris-Plages"

Back right bank, surprise! A metro entrance (Palais-Royal station):

Anne - "Métro Palais-Royal" ("Le kiosque des Noctambules" - Jean-Michel Othoniel)

Compare this modern art subway entrance installed in 2000 with those created one hundred years earlier, representative of the "Art nouveau" movement: see here some examples of these metro entrances created in 1900. As a matter of fact, the other entrance of the same station, Palais-Royal, just in front of the Louvre, is typically "Art nouveau".

Zigzag, small detour on left bank, "Quai Anatole France". Just in the opposite, the garden of the Tuileries which we are quickly going to join...

Anne - "Quai Anatole France"

...crossing the footbridge Léopold-Sédar-Senghor, which gives us a beautiful view on, from left to right, the Louvre, Notre-Dame and the Orsay museum:

Anne - Footbridge Léopold-Sédar-Senghor

In the garden of the Tuileries, here is a new example of modern art that we meet, a tree in bronze!

Anne - "L'arbre des voyelles" (bronze molding installed in 1999 - Giusseppe Pepone)

After other numerous discoveries, we finish our running as expected, Esplanade of the Trocadéro:

Anne - "Esplanade du Trocadéro"

Objective reached!

Merci Anne !

The route of the tour :