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:

"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:

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:

Some nice places to run in Paris

Hayley on Paris historical axis, after the Louvre, the Garden of the Tuileries, the "place de la Concorde" and the Obelisk of Louxor, the Champs-Elysées, the Arc of Triomphe and the business center of "la Défense" with its "Grande Arche"

7:30 AM - Hayley, who lives in Vancouver, began her stay in Paris and in Europe by a sports discovery of the city thanks to a 10 miles route in the company of Paris Running Tour.
Hayley is journalist for Lainey Gossip and also a personal trainer. 
We further recommend her article Travelling and weight management. We fully agree her first advice for travelling ;) => see the web link that comes with it... Thank you Hayley :)

Discover with us some beautiful places of Paris, to run (or not) :

• The "Cours de la Reine" : This beautiful alley created by Marie de Medici in 1618 is a nice place to run, see this beautiful lawn surrounded with majestic trees and which welcomes a number of statues. At Paris Running Tour, we call this perspective "The Alley of the Statues". On the photo below, we can see successively the monument to the Russian Expeditionary force having fought in France during the World War I, the statue of General Lafayette (do you remember the small little tortoise ?), the statue of the Liberator Simon Bolivar then the one of the King of the Belgians, Albert the 1st.

Hayley - "Cours de la Reine"

• "Place du Palais Royal" : Having passed by the garden of the Tuileries (see the photo at the beginning of this article), having crossed the Louvre by the passage which leads of the Pyramid to the Street of Rivoli, you discover the beautiful square of the Palais Royal. From there, you can join the gardens of the Palais Royal, the beautiful garden protected by the galleries of the Palais Royal.

Hayley - "Place du Palais Royal"

• The "new banks of the river Seine" : We could not resist to the envy to make a small sprint on the 100 meters running track of the new banks of the Seine, small 2 km paradise in the center of Paris for the runners. Not so easy to accelerate after about 6 miles...

On our road, we were also able to admire:

• The "Hôtel de Ville de Paris" (Paris City Hall), which, this day, welcomed the President of the Federal Republic of Germany (German flags joined to the French flags):

Hayley - "Hôtel de Ville de Paris"

• The magnificent front door of the "Petit Palais":

Hayley - Le Petit Palais

• as well as one of the Parisian Statues of Liberty (discover them here) :

Hayley - Statue of Liberty ("Arts et Métiers")

Merci Hayley !

The route of the tour :

Around the Louvre with Janaina and Gustavo

Gustavo and Janaina - The Island of the "Cité" seen from the "Quai du Louvre"

7:13 AM - Gustavo and Janaina live in Salvador (Brazil). To visit Paris by running, we chose a beautiful stroll around the Louvre.

We left the Grands Boulevards and went through the "passage des Panoramas" (see the previous post), the "Palais Royal", and then we joined the Louvre, by crossing the Street of Rivoli:

Janaina and Gustavo - The Louvre, entrance to the "passage Richelieu"

The Passage Richelieu connects the street of Rivoli with the Louvre Pyramid and allows to see the beautiful sculptures of the Puget and Marly courtyards (remember the article which speaks about the horses of Marly) :

Gustavo and Janaina - The Louvre, Puget courtyard

After this small break in front of the passage Richelieu windows, we continued our running at the foot of the Pyramid, the magnificent glass pyramid which respects the central space of the Louvre and allows to see the Louvre in its totality:

Gustavo and Janaina - The Louvre and the Pyramid

What was there before the Pyramid? A stand of trees where cars could park. At the foot of the trees, impossible to see all the facades:

The Louvre before 1983

In the same direction, towards the garden of the Tuileries, we had a photo break to take advantage of the view on the Eiffel Tower, the "Musée d'Orsay" and also some statues of Maillol. Look for them in the bushes by enlarging the photo:

Gustavo and Janaina - The Louvre ("Pavillon de Flore"), "Musée d'Orsay", Eiffel tower and Tuileries

We then left the garden of the Tuileries by way of the small tunnel which goes out of the garden by going towards the river Seine. We crossed the Seine by the footbridge Léopold Sédar Senghor and going up the staircases of the bridge, where we enjoyed a beautiful point of view on Notre-Dame:

Gustavo and Janaina - Léopold Sédar Senghor footbridge

On the other side of the bridge, we saw the beautiful Palace of the Legion of Honor, cleaned recently (we had spoken about its replica in San Francisco here):

Janaina and Gustavo - "Palais de la Légion d'Honneur"

Evoking the various places to run, we spoke about the immense and long beautiful beaches of Brazil. In Paris, we also have the opportunity to have some beaches ;) 
At least from mid-July to mid-August, the banks of the "Right bank", in particular, welcome the operation "Paris-Plages":

Gustavo and Janaina - On the "Pont Neuf". Behind, the beautiful "Paris-Plages"sand before the opening

A little farther, near the Louvre, is the Louvre Oratory, with the Statue of the "Amiral de Coligny", whose tragic end reminds us sad moments of the French History:

Gustavo and Janaina - "Oratoire du Louvre"

On our road, we passed by the beautiful "Véro Dodat" gallery and we were amazed by the height of a famous Parisian shoemaker's shoes (see below, near the passage, the Christian Louboutin's first shop):

Gustavo and Janaina - "Galerie Véro Dodat" and a shop of eccentric shoes

 Merci Janaina, merci Gustavo !

The route of the tour:

Ducks swimming on the route of the Paris Marathon?

Voie Express rive droite (Right bank express way) - Click on the picture for a larger view and some explanations

Paris undergoes small floods sometimes, generally in February.
Discover the one of this February 2013 => here.

For the Paris marathon, don't worry, we have some times...
In April, it will be dry. And, by the way, if you run a marathon the 7th of April 2013, Paris, for instance, it is time to begin you marathon training plan, it is in 8 weeks!

Running with Pedro and Juliana on the historic axis of Paris

Pedro and Juliana - On the historic axis of Paris, in the garden of the Tuileries

9:10 AM - Juliana and Pedro are well trained runners from Campinas, near Sao Paulo in Brazil.

We ran all along the river the Seine and for a good part, on the historic axis of Paris.
Historic axis? Yes, it is the name given to the axis which leaves the center of Paris and goes westward.

The history of this axis began when the Capetian kings took the habit to leave the Louvre to go hunting in the forest of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, drawing then a way in straight line to the West.
In 1599, king Henri IV created a road on this axis leading of the Louvre to Saint Germain's castle.

This axis is successively fitted out and embellished, by the extension of the Louvre, the garden of the Tuileries, the place de la Concorde, the Champs-Elysées, the Arc de Triomphe and now, the Business center of the La Defense with the "Grande Arche".

Discover in detail the historic axis of Paris. Click on the following image. On the obtained page, you can again enlarge the image (a new click on it). Then, take place on the right of the image and with the horizontal-scroll, move on the left (Have a good trip!)

Do you remember the previous article, which speaks about the Baron Haussman who had wished to enlarge the axis eastward?
Do you also remember this running with Amy, where we had made a buckle on the West part of the axis by leaving from "La Defense"?

Pedro and Juliana - Quai d'Orsay

Juliana and Pedro - Champ de Mars and Esplanade du Trocadéro

Merci Juliana et Pedro !

The route of the tour: