A stop for bus route #81 was right across from our hotel so, after breakfast, on we went. The driver nicely told us what stop we needed, then we walked a bit and there it was!!  The Eiffel Tower! The meeting place for our 11:00 Fat Tire Bike Tour. (From here on referred to as FTBT.)  This would be a highlight of the trip.  The lines were already very long to go up the tower so we decided to just stroll and relax until we went to the meeting point – the south leg of the Eiffel Tower.

Above left and right, The Gates of Hell.

     A FTBT guide, Paul, walked up holding a large sign and at 11:00, 31 of us tromped the short distance to the FTBT office.  We were separated into two groups, paid and picked out our bikes.  Our guide was Steven from Texas.  After some instructions and helpful hints we set off on our tour of Paris!

     We rode from place to place stopping to hear entertaining descriptions and trivia about their history.  We went back to many of the places but here are some that we rode by, in random order.

Place de La Concorde

     From wikipedia, " The Place was designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel in 1755 as a moat-skirted octagon between the Champs-Élysées to the west and the Tuileries Gardens to the east. Filled with statues and fountains, the area was named Place Louis XV to honor the then king. …During the French Revolution the statue of King Louis was torn down and the area renamed "Place de la Révolution". In a grim reminder to the nobility of a gruesome past, when the "Place de Grève" was a site where the nobility and members of the bourgeoisie were entertained watching convicted criminals being dismembered alive, the new revolutionary government erected the guillotine there. The first notable to be executed at the Place de la Révolution was King Louis XVI, on January 21, 1793. Other important people guillotined there, often in front of cheering crowds, were Queen Marie Antoinette, Madame Élisabeth, Charlotte Corday, Madame du Barry, Danton, Desmoulins, Lavoisier, Robespierre and Louis de Saint-Just…

     The guillotine was most active during the "Reign of Terror", in the summer of 1794, when in a single month more than 1,300 people were executed. [2800 others were executed between 1793 and 1795.  It is said that the smell of blood was so strong that a herd of cattle refused to cross the place. ]  A year later, when the revolution was taking a more moderate course, the guillotine was removed from the square and its name was changed in token of national reconciliation.

    …The center of the Place is occupied by a giant Egyptian obelisk decorated with hieroglyphics exalting the reign of the pharaoh Ramses II. It is one of two the Egyptian government gave to the French in the nineteenth century. The other one stayed in Egypt, too difficult and heavy to move to France with the technology at that time. In the 90's, President Mitterand gave the second obelisk back to the Egyptians.  The red granite column rises 75 feet high, including the base, and weighs over 250 metric tons.”

Pont Alexandre III

     This bridge goes over the Seine and connects the Champs-Élysées area with the Invalides and Eiffel Tower areas.  It is considered the most ornate bridge in Paris.  It was built between 1896 and 1900 and named after Tsar Alexander III.  His son, Nicholas II laid the foundation stone in October 1896.

     The four gilt bronze statues on the bridge sit on tall columns and represent four Fames -  Fame of the Sciences, Fame of the Arts, Fame of Commerce and Fame of Industry.

Jardins des Tuileries

The Jardins des Tuileries are surrounded by the Louvre, the Seine, the Place de la Concorde, and the Rue de Rivoli.  They cover about 25 acres and still closely follow a design laid out in 1664.  We walked our bikes through the gardens and all ate lunch at a café there. 

L’Ecole Militaire

L’Ecole Militaire was founded by Louis XV in 1750 as a college for cadet officers from poor families.  The school opened in 1760 and Napoleon Bonaparte graduated in 1785 after finishing in one year rather than two.

Rodin Museum

     We rode by this museum while on the tour but later went back to see Rodin’s sculptures up close.  They are in the gardens of the Hôtel Biron.  The building has a long history of ups and downs but Auguste Rodin lived there from 1908 until his death in 1917.  In 1911 the State bought the property and Rodin came up with the idea to give everything he had collected to France as long as a museum devoted to his work was created at the Hotel Biron.  Apparently this didn’t happen easily as “at that period the sculptor’s art was still so little understood, or even regarded as the work of the devil.”  In 1916 after donations were approved by a vote in Parliament Rodin gave “the State all his collections, his photographs and archives, as well as all his work - sculptures and drawings - along with the proprietary rights that went with it."  The museum opened in 1919.