Au revoir á Europe

And as the sun sets slowly over the Champs-Élysées we say, not ‘Adieu’, but a fond ‘Au revoir’ to Paris and to Europe…

Actually it’s not quite that easy. First we had to get from London to Paris, and then we have to wait until midday tomorrow to start flying home. The last train trip has been taken, and next time I’m going in First. I’ll stick with Economy for the flight.

I write this on our balcony at the Hôtel Cecelia five floors above in Avenue Macmahon. I have a very good view of the Arc de Triomphe a couple of hundred metres up the road, but more interestingly of the traffic circulating around it – Paris traffic is especially enjoyable in the roundabouts, and the Arc de Triomphe sits in the middle of the granddaddy of them all. All it would take is a couple of cameras and you would have a very popular cable channel, Canal Etoile.

After checking in we strolled up to the Champs-Élysées. As the song goes, the Champs-Élysées is a busy street, full of tourists gawking at the sights and marvelling that they’re in Paris. I know a couple of people who did that about two months ago, so we forgive them. Chocolate at Ladurée, an establishment near Etoile that sells, well, chocolate, and back up the road and the subway under Etoile (the roundabout) to get to the Arc.

The only word is massive. Not the Arc de Triomphe, although that’s pretty big. I’m thinking of the ego it takes to build something like that. Napoleon wanted it finished by the time he married Josephine, but he had to make do with a full scale replica on the site. The displays are ho-hum, but the view from the top is spectacular, in some ways better than the Tour Eiffel because you are closer to the buildings. We could see all our favourites: the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Pantheon, Les Invalides, and the Eiffel. You can also see La Defense, but you don't have to.

The time to see the Arc de Triomphe, however, is at about 6.20pm. Every night the flame on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is relighted, and it is as much an event as the Ceremony of the Keys. A military guard, parade of standards, wreath-laying, salutes, and the singing of La Marseillaise. Now you see the Arc de Triomphe as a war memorial, not a monument to Napoleon’s vanity. At the moment the flame was relighted the sun broke out of the clouds. If that was scripted, I’m impressed. The solemnity of the ceremony is accompanied by amusement at the traffic stopped by the gendarmes for the standard bearers to parade across Etoile from the Champs-Élysées. That’s France; rush hour, and they hold the traffic up. I love this place.