Running 25 km under the sun of Paris, with William

William - Sunrise from the bridge Alexandre III

6h55 - William comes from Dubuque, Iowa. Long distance runner, William chose to run 25 km (15.5 miles) to discover a lot of aspects of Paris.
We left early to see the rising sun, magnificent sun which accompanied us during the run and gave us beautiful images of Paris.

25 km allows to see full of beautiful Parisian places, in particular:

• The Alma bridge and its "zouave" - Remember this visit with Lotte, where we speak about the "Zouave" and the river Seine.

William - "Pont de l'Alma"

• The garden of the Trocadéro and the Eiffel tower

William - "Tour Eiffel"

• The "Invalides" - We also went there during this tour with Sharon. We had evoked the history of these cannons.
  Look, a small rabbit hardly hidden by the cannons came to greet us.

William - "Esplanade des Invalides" - On the right, a little rabbit from the Invalides

• The Arc of the Carrousel - The "Arc du Carrousel" comes to us from Napoleon the Ist (We had discussed it with Kristy) and the horses are copies of the horses stolen by Napoleon in Venice (their story had been told during the tour with Ingrid). Carrousel? A merry-go-round? Actually, this name is connected to an equestrian show which took place at the time of the king Louis XV.

William - "Arc du Carrousel"

• The French National Museum of Natural History ("Muséum Naturel d'Histoire Naturelle") whose head office is in Paris, here in the magnificent Garden of the Plantes ("Jardin des plantes").

William - "Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle" - "Jardin des Plantes"

• The Square of the "Hôtel de Ville" of Paris (The City hall of Paris). Look at the drawing at the ground. We can see a ship. It is the Paris coat of arms. If there is a place where to see the symbol of Paris, it is here, at the "Mairie de Paris", the Paris city hall!
  To know more about it about this blazon, read the explanations which we left to describe the running tour with Emily. 

William - "Hôtel de Ville de Paris"

• The famous bookshop "Shakespeare and Company", the Mecca of the Anglo-Saxon culture in Paris, in particular, a meeting place for the American and Anglo-Saxon writers as Woody Allen evokes it in the movie "Midnight in Paris" (see the photo of the movie where we see the character interpreted by Owen Wilson in front of the bookshop):

William - Shakespeare and Company - Wallace fountain

• The magnificent banks of the Seine:

William - Saint-Michel bridge - To the left: the island of "La Cité" with Notre-Dame, to the right: the left bank of the river Seine

Merci William ! 

The route of the tour:

Meeting the American writers in Paris with Mary, Susan and Sonia

Mary, Susan, Sonia - "Esplanade des Invalides"

Thursday 26 June - 7:00 AM, Saturday 28 June - 7:33 AM - Mary, Susan and Sonia from Denver (USA) chose to discover Paris while running with Paris Running Tour.

We ran two mornings mainly on the left bank of the Seine.
Left bank! Bank of Paris particularly appreciated by intellectuals and artists, especially in the 1920s, 30 and 50 ...
Many American writers have lived and wrote there (remember the Woody Allen film "Midnigth in Paris" where the hero played by Owen Wilson returns to the past to find Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and many others). 

Many places still bear witness to their presence, as this plate reveals that Edith Wharton lived in this building of the rue de Varenne:

Susan, Mary and Sonia - "53 rue de Varenne"

Edith Wharton was the first writer from the United States to come to live in France as indicated. "My years of Paris life were spent entirely in the rue de Varenne - rich years, crowded and happy years" as she wrote.

A little further, continuing our run street of Varenne, it is a French artist that we will meet this time, Auguste Rodin:

Susan, Mary, Sonia - Rodin Museum (garden and building)

From the street, behind glasses, we found the statue of the Burghers of Calais in the garden of the Rodin Museum. Find the history of "Les Bourgeois de Calais" in this article.

Continue our route around the Invalides...

Susan, Sonia, Mary - "Hôtel des Invalides" and Eiffel tower in the backgroung

...to reach the right bank and enjoy a beautiful view of the "Musée d'Orsay" and the "Hôtel de Salm", the "Palais de la Légion d'Honneur":

Susan, Mary and Sonia - Orsay Museum and Palace of the Legion of Honor

On Saturday, after a run at the foot of the Seine bridges:

Susan and Mary - "Petit Pont" and further, the "Pont Saint-Michel" (Pont=Bridge)

... we went to see one of the places where Ernest Hemingway lived in Paris:

Susan and Mary - "74 rue du Cardinal Lemoine"

Read what he wrote in his book "A Moveable Feast":
... "this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy."
A green door for Edith Wharton and a blue door for Ernest Hemingway... ; )
Just around the corner is the pretty little "Place de la Contrescarpe" Hemingway loved:

Susan and Mary - "Place de la Contrescarpe"

On the way back, we stopped in front of the marble standard meter of the "rue de Vaugirard":

Mary and Susan - Street of Vaugirard

Merci Mary ! Merci Susan ! Merci Sonia !

The routes of the tours:

Discovery of the symbols of Paris with Emily

Emily - Alexandre III bridge

9:03 AM - With Emily, from Ohio (USA), our sports route crossed the seventh and eighth districts of Paris, known in particular for the big works and monuments we can find there. It is here that we shall meet the constructions which stayed after the 19th and 20th centuries World Fairs: the Eiffel Tower, the Palace of Chaillot, the Palace of Iena, the Palace of Tokyo, "Petit" and "Grand Palais" and of course, the Alexandre III Bridge.

Had you noticed that on the Alexandre III Bridge are the symbols of France and Paris?

Alexandre III bridge - France and Paris Symbols

On the basis of most of the candelabras surrounding the bridge, you will find various representations of the symbols of France and Paris:

• On the left photo above, you can read "RF", which means French Republic. All the public buildings in France show these letters RF. A little farther, for example, on the left bank, at the east of the bridge, you will find these letters on the blazons of the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
• In the middle, the Gallic cockerel ("Coq Gaulois") which is the national symbol of France, even if it is not as formalized as the bald eagle, national bird of the United States..
• Finally, on the right photo, you will find the blazon of Paris, the ship of the powerful Gallic corporation of the Nautes. The motto of Paris is bound to this blazon: "Fluctuat nec mergitur", Latin expression which means "It floats but does not sink". You can see this blazon on most of the public buildings of Paris. Moreover, we find it in big on the bridge again:

Alexandre III bridge - West side

We thus left the area of the Champ de Mars to go around the Invalides :

Emily - "Hôtel des Invalides" - South side

Emily - "Hôtel des Invalides" - North side

Meanwhile, we were able to admire, since the street, the Rodin museum and its beautiful garden:

Emily - Rodin museum : the garden, the museum and the The Burghers of Calais statue

To go on the right bank, we crossed the footbridge Léopold-Sédar-Senghor, with, by leaving the bridge, a beautiful point of view on the "Musée d'Orsay":

Emily - Orsay museum

By going back up the Champs-Elysées, we made a small detour to find again our symbols, the Gallic Cock and the letters RF:

Elysée palace - "Grille du Coq" (Railing of the Gallic cockerel)

If there is a place where we have to see these symbols, it is the Elysée Palace ("Palais de l'Elysée"), the residence of the President of the French Republic (equivalent to the White House for the USA), here on the Railing of the Cock which is in the South of the Palace garden.

By crossing the "Petit Palais", very Parisian monument, it is, this time, the Ship that we found again:

Emily - "Petit Palais" - Blazon of the Nautes

By entering the "Petit Palais", by raising the head towards the ceiling, we find once more the blazon, where we can even read it the motto " Fluctuat nec mergitur ":

Ceiling of the entrance of the "Petit Palais"

By leaving the "Petit Palais", here is again the Alexandre III Bridge and in the background the "Hôtel des Invalides" (in fact, the bridge was created to connect the Champs-Elysées to the "Invalides"):

Emily - Alexandre III bridge (right bank side) and left bank, in the background, the Invalides

By the way, do you know what represents this other symbol, a double-headed eagle, that we can also see at the bottom of the Alexandre III bridge lampposts? ; )

Merci Emily !

The route of the tour:

Two sports tours in Paris with Rosalie

Rosalie - Medici Fountain - Luxembourg garden

9:04 AM - With Rosalie, who comes from the beautiful city of Quebec, we made two visits of Paris by running.

An important mist covered Paris the first day, making buildings and monuments hardly visible:

Rosalie - The dome of the Invalides can slightly be seen

Where are the towers of Notre-Dame, usually visible since the bank?
The Musée d'Orsay getting free of the mist (in the right of the photo)

And there, what is this monument which is in the background of the photo?

Yes!... The Eiffel Tower which we find a little farther, a little less veiled:

On our way, we admired a work of Dubuffet, installed for the occasion of the FIAC :

Rosalie - "Petit Palais" - Welcome Parade, of Jean Dubuffet - 2008

and a little bit further west, the beautiful Galliera palace, the Paris Museum of Fashion:

Rosalie - "Palais Galleria"

For our second run, the sky was a little more clear.
Our first strides led us near to the Pantheon, place "Sainte Geneviève":

Rosalie - "Place du Panthéon" - The Panthéon. On the left, the "Sainte-Geneviève" library and in the background, the Saint-Étienne-du-Mont church.

We went to greet the oldest tree of Paris, a Black Locust tree planted in 1601 by the botanist Jean Robin (the tree is native of North America) :

Rosalie - "Square René Viviani"

After the Museum of Fashion, we went to see  the first shop of the famous shoes creator, Christian Louboutin (notice that the shop occupies the premises of a former printing office):

Rosalie - In front of the Christian Louboutin's first shop, in the Véro Dodat gallery

Back on the Left bank, we ran on the old pavements of the "Cour du Commerce Saint André", next to one of the oldest Cafés in Europe (1682): the Café Procope, just under Benjamin Franklin's eyes who was one of the regular customers of the Café (we say that he would have written a part of the United States Constitution there):

Rosalie - "Cour du Commerce Saint André"

A kind newspaper seller was kind enough to take the last photo of our tour. Funny of to have the view of a newspaper seller inside his kiosk!

Rosalie, Paris Running Tour - Avenue of the Général Leclerc

Merci Rosalie !

The routes of the tours :

Snapshots of a first visit in Paris, with Melinda

Melinda - On the bridge of Austerlitz. In the distance, Notre-Dame and Saint Louis Island beautiful houses

Monday 27th May - 12:51 PM, Wednesday 29th May - 6:57 PM - First time in Paris for Melinda from Miami (USA) ! 
What better choice than to start a first stay in Paris doing a visit by running (with Paris Running Tour)? A good way of unwinding legs after a long travel by plane and a first discovery of Paris getting directly into the life of the city.

And why not begin again two days later to discover new paths through Paris?
We thus ran by following two routes which mainly crossed the disctrict of "Le Marais", the Left bank, the island of "La Cité" and the center of Paris around the Seine.

Here is the route (numbers indicate where the photos of this article were taken):

We took numerous photos during our running:

1) "La rue des Barres" (Street of Bars). This name comes because formerly, in the 10th century, on the location of the street, a wall, a fence of wooden bars, constituted a wall protecting Paris:

Melinda - "Rue des Barres"

2) "L'Hôtel de Sully" (The Hotel of Sully). The Duke of Sully, Minister of Finance of king Henri IV, lived in this noble mansion at the end of his life. By crossing the Hotel of Sully, we passed directly from the street Saint Antoine to the "place des Vosges".

Melinda - "Hôtel de Sully"

3) The "bassin de l'Arsenal". Having crossed the place of the Bastille, we met the Basin of the Arsenal, port and canal connecting the river Seine with the Saint Martin canal and which, formerly, was a ditch which filled the moats of the castle of the Bastille.

Melinda - "Port de l'Arsenal"

4) "Pont d'Austerlitz" (Bridge of Austerlitz). See the picture at the beginning of the article.

5) "Cour du Commerce Saint André". Another place which is situated on the plan of the former surrounding wall of Paris, the wall of king Philippe Auguste. This passage, opened in 1776, allows to reach the Café Procope (1686), one of the oldest cafés in the world.

Melinda - "Cour du Commerce Saint André"

Second tour :

6) "Le Tribunal de Commerce de Paris" (Commercial court). This building presents the peculiarity to have a dome placed not in the center, but on the side, in a way that the dome is visible from the Boulevard Sevastopol. The dome closes the perspective of the Boulevard by the South.

Melinda - On the bridge Notre Dame. We can see, on the island of "La Cité", successively,
the Hôtel-Dieu (Hospital), the "Tribunal du Commerce de Paris" and the Conciergerie.

7) On the "Pont Neuf" ("New" Bridge). 

Melinda - Pont Neuf. On left, the "Institut de France", the Eiffel tower and, on right,the "Musée d'Orsay"

8) Colonnade of the Louvre. Summit of the French classicism, the Colonnade of the Louvre was realized at the request of king Louis XIV. The Colonnade of the Louvre served as model to numerous famous buildings, in particular, the Capitol of the United States in Washington, Metropolitan Museum of art in New York and San Francisco War Memorial Opera House.

Melinda - The "Colonnade du Louvre"

9) Alexandre III bridge. The widest bridge in Paris. Built with the "Grand" and "Petit Palais" for the World Fair of 1900. The bridge offers a direct link between the "Invalides" and the Champs-Elysées.

Melinda - the Alexandre III bridge - In the distance, the "Invalides"

10) The Champs Elysées.

Melinda - Champs Elysées, at the end, the "Arc de Triomphe" and far off, the "Grande Arche" of "la Défense"

11) The equestrian statue of Joan of Arc, place of the Pyramids. She is situated not far from the Gate Saint Honoré, where Joan of Arc tried to cross Charles V's surrounding wall to reconquer Paris, occupied at the time by the English. She was hurt by an arrow in the thigh there.

Melinda - Equestrian statue of Joan of Arc, of Frémiet and inaugurated in 1874

12) The Puget courtyard in the Louvre.

Melinda - Puget Courtyard, situated with the Marly Courtyard on both sides of the passage
which connects the Louvre Pyramid to the street of Rivoli

13) Stravinsky fountain. This fountain, fountain Stravinsky or fountain of automatons, was created by the couple of artist Nikki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely in 1983 and evokes the work of the composer Stravinsky.

Melinda - the "Fontaine Stravinsky", on the right George Pompidou Center

Interesting and beautiful discoveries, isn't it?
Merci Melinda !

The route of the tours: