Paris (day 5)

Day 5 was a good day, despite the cold that kept nudging me off balance. I still hadn’t made it to a few places, so I decided to take the Metro to the Eiffel Tower and walk up the river past the Louvre, ending at Notre Dame. That walk would essentially let me see any major sites along the river that I’d missed.

The Eiffel Tower
You know, I’ve read about the Eiffel Tower. I’ve seen many photographs of it, rising above the Paris skyline. However, until you stand under the thing, you just can’t appreciate how frickin’ huge the thing is compared to everything else in the city.

Standing under it, I can now understand why Parisians were afraid that the thing would be a monstrosity and that Eiffel was going to ruin the city skyline. It was a bold construction, for the time, and it was so amazingly modern. This, too, I can appreciate more after walking for endless miles through Paris streets, lingering in squares, dodging cars and motorcycles. The buildings in Paris are so consistently built that the tower must have been shocking to anybody who had grown up with the architecture that surrounds the site.

The Branly
As I moved from the Eiffel Tower along the river towards Notre Dame, I passed the Branly. It’s a museum with…aboriginal?…primitive?…non-Western?…well, it’s art made by people who lived all over the world many centuries before Christ was born. Art from all continents was gathered in the museum and was well presented.

I’m not a big fan of such art. I prefer the abstract and the non-Western (what do you call it?) art tends to be very human-centric or tells stories through various mechanisms. This is OK and I can appreciate it, but I really enjoy things that are more meticulous and more contemporary. The older art doesn’t speak to me as such. Still, at eight Euros, it’s a good deal and the gardens are beautiful.

Along the River: sadness
I made my way along the river, taking photos occasionally. One thing I did not photograph was very sad.

As I alluded to in earlier photographs and as I’ve mentioned, the traffic in Paris is dangerous. Crossing against the signals, except at the most basic intersections, is unwise. Crossing with the signals at major intersections is still an exercise of attention — look both ways, keep watching, be prepared to jump.

As I crossed either Pont des Invalides or Pont Alexandre III (I forget which), a woman ahead of me started to cross against the light. These bridges are very wide with three lanes of traffic moving in each direction as people try to get from one side of the river to the other.

The woman made a mistake and looked left as she crossed into traffic coming from the right. A car coming from the right slowed, but didn’t react fast enough. She was knocked out of her shoes. They were luminescent purple trainers with a round tread. She was wearing a red dress. The driver came to a stop.

By the time I got to the intersection, a police car had already pulled up (there are many in the area). Before I got across the street, an ambulance appeared (there are two hospitals near). She was still moving, but clearly was injured.

It was sad. I paid more attention when crossing the streets.

The remainder of my walk
I continued to walk up the river, taking photographs, until I reached the Louvre. At that point, I didn’t feel like walking any further so I went into the Louvre to catch the Metro that runs beneath it. I rode home, happy that I had been in the sunshine and saw the river but I was also a little sad.

And, of course…more to come as I have time to post…

Related posts:

1. Paris (day 1, part 1)
2. Paris (day 1, part 2)
3. Paris (day 3)
4. Paris (day 6)
5. A 50-Hour Day (day 8 & 9)