Don’t Lose Your Head Traveling in Paris
Today I have a lovely guest post on Paris, France travel from freelance writer, David Elliott. Hope you enjoy just as much as I did, and remember, don’t lose your head while traveling in Paris! (Yes, bad pun intended).
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Sunset in Paris, France.
One of the world’s greatest capital cities, Paris is a beautiful city to explore the wealth of attractions it has to offer. There are loads of cheap holiday deals on offer these days, and you could do worse than book a trip to Paris.
France was of course the cradle of revolution in the late eighteenth century, and everywhere you sense that spirit of intellectual freedom and proud independence that survive from the days when it seized the initiative and finally burst its chains of benighted medieval bigotry and superstition to initiate a new world order based on rationality and freedom.
Place de la Concorde in Paris
Well, that was the idea anyway, but a stroll along to the Place de la Concorde in the heart of Paris will probably stir up a few old ghosts. Things after all are rarely as cut and dried as we often like to think them. The square is conveniently situated close to the start of the famous Champs-Elysses and the gardens of the Tuileries, so all three can be taken in during the course of a day here.
The Place de la Concorde was finished in 1763, during the reign of Louis XV, and in fact the original name for the square was Place Louis XV, and it had a monumental statue of him at its centre. Now the square, unlike all the others in Paris, is not enclosed and you have to dodge the traffic to some extent because it has become an intersection for a number of main avenues in the city.
Gardens of the Tuileries
This square, much as it now resembles a sort of giant zebra crossing without the stripes, is still worth a visit if you’re interested in history because of the central place it held during the revolutionary Terror. It was renamed in those heady days as Place de la Revolution and the great guillotine whose position is still marked on its flagstones became a symbol throughout the whole of Europe for bloody excess.
Aristocratic and royal heads hit the basket like ninepins and paranoia reigned throughout the country as the revolutionaries desperately attempted to wipe out all trace of the old order and ensure their own survival. Marie Antoinette and her rather dim husband Louis XVI, who had written ‘Nothing’ as his sole journal entry on the day the Bastille fell, were Madame Guillotine’s most high profile victims, but there were thousands of others.
Eiffel Tower photo taken from the Trocadero
As the revolution started to spin out of control, Robespierre and Danton were themselves consumed by its gaping maw and their heads joined those of their countless victims before things started to settle down and the periods of first the Revolutionary Wars and finally the Napoleonic Wars were initiated.
Following the restoration of the monarchy after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, the Place de la Revolution along with many other landmarks in Paris was renamed several times. Place de la Concorde was eventually settled on, with its connotations of reconciliation for a country riven by the aftershocks of long years of revolution and the world’s first truly global conflict.
Luxor Obelisk
Louis XV’s statue disappeared during the revolutionary years and was replaced by the Luxor obelisk. This was a gift from the Viceroy of Egypt to Louis Phillipe in 1836 and it still stands there at the centre of an oval and statues that represent various French cities.
About the author: David Elliott is a freelance writer who loves to travel, especially in Europe and Turkey. He’s spent most of his adult life in a state of restless excitement but recently decided to settle in North London. He gets away whenever he can to immerse himself in foreign cultures and lap up the history of great cities.
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Thanks for the great post, David! Come back anytime. 
Have you ever been to Paris, or would you want to go? Tell me in the comments!
If you liked this post, I invite you to read Kastelorizo Island and The Blue Cave or others in the archives. Before you go, please subscribe to this blog through the available RSS options or via email.
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Feature images courtesy of Flickr via Creative Commons.
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I’ve never been anywhere outside the U.S. but I loved the pictures.
This brings back a lot of good memories
Great post David, and thanks Amberr for sharing. I adore Paris. I love everything about it. I was lucky enough to live there for 6 months as a student and have visited it countless times since over the years. For a weekend away, you just can’t beat it. There is always something new to discover, always something to delight. David is right, it is steeped in the history of the French Revolution.
I have 2 European cities that I have a fantasy about living in at sometime. Amsterdam, and Paris. If I lived in Paris, I would choose to live in the Marais which is in the 3rd and 4th arrondissment. It is the perfect place for me!
Great post – especially as I’m headed to Paris in less than a month! xx
I haven’t been to Paris in decades, but this post with its beautiful descriptions makes me want to go!
Travel makes it easier to understand history and people in general. (great fun, too) Nice post
Does Mr. Elliot need someone to carry his bags when he travels?
I’d be more than happy to accommodate!
Wow! This is amazing. Just love Paris and can’t wait to return. Something about the mix of history, food and eclectic array of people makes it intoxicating. Thanks for sharing – wonderful pics too.
Gorgeous pics and excellent post! Paris is definitely on my list. Oh, and I can totally relate to being in a “state of restless excitement”. It’s what pushes us to explore. Thanks to David and Amberr!
I’ve been to Paris about a dozen times. I even did a tv show there a couple decades back! THAT was a challenge given everything/everyone was on strike at the time! The Gare D’Orsay is my favorite museum in the world and doing the corny dinner cruise on the Bateau Mouche is really fun. But, the French are, well, the French…
Thank you to everyone who left such nice comments for David. Really appreciate the support, and I’m ready to get to Paris myself!