Running in the Parisian Passages with Michelle and Susan

Susan and Michelle - The river Seine near the Tuileries garden, in front of the Orsay Museum

9:03 AM - Susan and Michelle are two New-York road-runners (NY - USA). Michelle prepares at present the Marathon of Chicago. After a first visit of Paris last year, their choice was for a little bit different route.

We started near the Seine on the left bank. Look on the photo above, the new "emmarchement" in front of the Orsay Museum, "emmarchement" which is a part of the new banks of the Seine (very much enjoyed by runners).

Having crossed the pedestrian footbridge Léopold-Sédar-Senghor, run in the Garden of the Tuileries and admired the place Vendôme, we were able to cross our first covered passage, the long passage Choiseul:

Michelle, Susan - Passage Choiseul

Not far from there, it is with pleasure that we met the beautiful "salle Favart", National Theater of the "Opéra Comique" :

Michelle and Susan - Opéra Comique

It is the third "Salle Favart" built in 1898, both previous ones having burned.

Second covered passage on our route, the Passage of the Panoramas, the oldest passage of Paris (we had already spoken about it here) :

Susan, Michelle - "Passage des Panoramas"

Just in front of the "Passage des Panoramas" is the Passage Jouffroy where a curious medieval character welcomes you:

Susan and Michelle with a character of the Grévin Museum

It is about one of the numerous wax characters of the Grévin Museum, the Parisian counterpart of Madam Tussauds of London. The entrance of the museum is situated in the Grand boulevards and the exit in the Passage Jouffroy.

A little later, we found an old acquaintance, the Statue of Liberty (well, a Parisian younger sister...):

Susan, Michelle - The Statue of Liberty in the museum of "Arts et Métiers"

To know more about the Parisian statues of Liberty, click here.

We continued our road and again crossed magnificent passages:

"Passage du Grand Cerf"

"Galerie Vero-Dodat"

"Galerie Vivienne"

These Parisian passages were approximately 150 in the middle of the 19th century, there are less than thirty nowadays. Our running allowed us to cross nine of them, among the most beautiful:

We ended the tour by crossing the beautiful garden of the "Palais Royal", isolated from the Parisian street by its long galleries of arcades,

Michelle, Susan - Garden of the "Palais Royal"

participated in the work of art constituted by the Columns of Buren ("Les deux plateaux" of the Artist Daniel Buren),

On the columns of Buren in the "Palais Royal"

and made a small break in front of the Louvre before crossing again the Seine to join the Left bank.

Susan and Michelle - The Louvre museum

Look on the Louvre Pyramid the sign of the Third Paradise, bound to The temporary exhibition of Michelangelo Pistoletto.

Merci Susan, merci Michelle !

The route of the tour :

"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:

Place des Vosges with Anne and Niels

Anne et Niels - Place des Vosges

8:08 AM - It was a great pleasure to meet Anne and Niels from Denmark again. We had run together during a rather cold March, two tours in Paris, for the greater part on the left bank.

This time, in this warm day of August, we chose the right bank and followed the plan of the ancient Paris surrounding wall of King Louis XIII, path which constitutes largely what we name "Les Grand boulevards".

To join the Grand boulevards, we went through some of the numerous covered passages of Paris, in particular the "passage des Panoramas":

Anne and Niels - Passage des Panoramas

Deserted passage on a Sunday morning and thus usable by the runners!
The passage of the Panoramas is one of oldest covered passages of Paris, created in 1799 and doubtless inspired by the oriental souks... The name "panoramas" comes because the main entry was framed by two towers where were exposed panoramic landscapes representing big cities, panoramas.


On the Grand boulevards, we admired two big triumphal arches commissioned by king Louis XIV: the "Porte Saint-Martin" (1674) and the "Porte Saint-Denis" (1672).
Both arcs were built to the glory of Louis XIV and of his victories and replaced the fortified doors become useless, Charles V's wall being replaced by the Boulevard.

Anne et Niels - Porte Saint Denis

We then left the Boulevard to find the "Place des Vosges":

Anne et Niels - Place des Vosges

Look closer at the Louis XIII's statue. To replace the former bronze statue, melted during the Revolution, the sculptors chose the marble, indeed much heavier...
The statue threatening to collapse in its center, it was decided to place a trunk under the horse's belly. It gives a very strange look to this equipage, slowed down in its center by a tree trunk!

Merci Anne et Niels !

The route of the tour :

A big Running Tour of 18 miles (29 km) with Alina, one thousand discoveries in Paris!

Alina - Running in the "Jardin des Plantes" (Garden of the Plants)

9:05 AM - Alina, from New York, in the midst of preparations for a marathon, wished to visit Paris but fully respecting her training plan. 
This day, a long run was planned: we ran 18 miles (29 kilometers)... Ideal to see Paris!

Paris is vast and rich in interesting places.
What do we see in Paris by running on a long distance?

Water: the Ourcq Canal, the Saint Martin Canal, the "Bassin de l'Arsenal", the river Seine...

The river Seine

squares: the "Place de la République", the "Place des Vosges", the "Place de la Bastille", the "Place de la Contrescarpe", the "Place de l'Alma", the "Place de la Concorde", ...

"Place de la Concorde"

museums: the National Museum of Natural History, the Army Museum (Invalides), the Rodin Museum, the Guimet Museum, the Galleria Palace, the Palace of Tokyo, the Museum of Modern Art, the "Petit" and "Grand Palais", the "Jeu de Paume", the "Orangerie", the Louvre, the Grévin Museum, the Orsay Museum...

bridges: the Bridge of Austerlitz, the Bridge of Carrousel, the Royal Bridge, the Bridge of "la Concorde", the Alexandre III Bridge, the Bir Hakeim Bridge, the Bridge of "l'Alma", the Bridge of Arts...

the "Pont des Arts" (in the background, the Museum of the Louvre)

famous boulevards and avenues, numerous statues, splendid monuments, secular churches, beautiful covered passages...

parks and gardens: the "Buttes Chaumont", the garden of Luxembourg, the "Champ de Mars", the gardens of the Trocadéro, the "cours de La Reine", the garden of the Tuileries, the garden of the Plants where we greeted some animals:

Alina and the Stegosaurus of the garden of the Plants

Alina and the Mammoth of the garden of the Plants

and of course the "Tour Eiffel"!

Paris is beautiful and has so many amazing aspects!

Merci Alina !

The route of the big tour:

London came to run with Paris ! ................................... With Hope from City Jogging Tours of London

Hope de City Jogging Tour of London with Paris Running Tour - Louvre Pyramid

10:35 AM - Hope from London (United Kingdom) is the creator of City Jogging Tours of London, one of the first "Sightjogging Tours" in the world.

What is better than a visit of Paris while running to share our running tour guides experiences?

We thus left Montmartre to make a beautiful stroll...

Hope - Montmartre, in the background, the whole of Paris!

...by coming down to the South and by way of nice Parisian covered passages...

Hope - Passage Jouffroy - Galerie Vivienne

...by being amazed by the famous padlocks on the "Pont des Arts", more and more numerous...

Hope - "Pont des Arts" - In the distance, the Orsay Museum and the Eiffel tower

...by making a break in the garden of the Tuileries...

Hope - Tuileries Garden

...by crossing the "Champs- Elysées"...

Hope - Champs Elysées - Far off, the Arc of Triumph

...to greet Winston Churchill...

Hope - Winston Churchill, near the "Petit Palais"

... And finally join the Eiffel Tower and the Ecole Militaire (Military school).

City Jogging Tours of London and Paris Running Tour

If you pass by London, go run a Jogging Tour with Hope and her team! A wonderful stroll in London!
One day, Paris will be happy to go running with London...
Merci Hope !

The route of the tour:

In front of the rotunda of La Villette with Felicity

Felicity - Rotunda of la Villette

7:51 AM - Do you remember Felicity from Melbourne, Australia ? (See the post here.)
Two years ago, we ran along the river Seine. This time, our route led us to the North East of Paris, since Montmartre up to the Ourcq canal, then to the Saint-Martin canal and to the Grand boulevards.

First of all, we followed the former plan of the Wall of the Farmers Generals. 
Paris grew as an onion, protected successively by various surrounding walls (as for example, Philippe Auguste's surrounding wall, see the post here). All these walls had a protective function except one: the Wall of the Farmers Generals.

The different city walls of Paris

The Wall of the Farmers Generals served to collect the tax on all the goods entering Paris (the "Octroi"). Its construction began before the Revolution in 1784, it was destroyed in 1860.
At the time, we thus entered Paris by passages, barriers. Most of these barriers contained buildings called "bureaux d'octroi" ("offices of granting"). 61 "bureaux d'octroi" were created by the architect Nicolas Ledoux.
There remains of these constructions among which the beautiful rotundas of the Parc Monceau and of the Villette. We can see the Rotunda of the Villette at the beginning of this article.

We then followed the Saint-Martin canal, which construction was decided by Napoleon the 1st.

Felicity - Saint-Martin Canal

A little later, we joined the Grand boulevards and admired the Arc de Triomphe of the Saint-Denis gate, arc created by king Louis XIV, arc dedicated to the consecration of his glory (" Ludovico Magno "!). You will find the history of this Arc de Triomphe and the Grand boulevards in an article of the blog=> here.

Felicity - "Porte Saint-Denis"

Finally, back to Montmartre, we crossed the Moulin Rouge.

Felicity - The "Moulin Rouge"

Contrary to the "Moulin de la Galette" (see the picture here), the "Moulin Rouge" was never a real windmill, but from the beginning, a cabaret, this famous cabaret which saw the birth of the "French cancan" and which is always in service.

Merci Felicity !

The route of the tour :