La Defense

Hopped on the Metro at Hotel de Ville and rode Line 1 all the way to the end at La Defense. Two uniformed RATP surete dudes were on my car at one point, first time I've seen anything like that. They had guns too. As we got closer and closer to La Defense, there were more and more suits with briefcases on the Metro, heading for some business meeting or another I suppose. Not the usual Metro passengers.

Question: what happens when the Metro trains reach the end of the line? I know the trains are multi-directional, so the front becomes the back and vice versa. But is there a spot further on (the metro depot?) where the driver gets out and walks to the other end of the train? When it's the end of his/her shift, does a new driver get on? I knew I should have gone to the maison de la RATP last Sunday. I'm fascinated by the Metro (and the sewers and the Eiffel Tower - the three engineering marvels of Paris, a mon avis). Today I happen to be sitting "backwards" and see there are little television monitors (mounted just beyond the end of the quai) that the drivers can see as they are sitting in each station.

Walk out of the Metro at La Grande Arche. WOW. It's like standing under the Eiffel Tower; there's just no way to convey the size without actually being there. The entire facade of Notre Dame cathedral, including the towers, could fit under the Arche - height and width. No, I didn't measure it; I read that. It is overpowering, and it would be easy to believe it holds up the sky.

First impression of La Defense complex: Vast built environment, not a lot of green. Empty despite all the buildings. Definitely some interesting 20th c. architecture, but some pedestrian buildings too.

There is a lot of outdoor sculpture. For one, there is a huge bronze thumb (by Cesar Baldaccini - despite his name, he's French). Now if they got that together with the giant ear at St Eustache, pretty soon they could have a whole person.

Walking up the white marble stairs to the Arche, I notice literally thousands of cigarette butts. I'm sure these steps are swept regularly, but these cigarette butts are stuck in the cracks between the steps and the risers. They would have to be picked out individually (or sucked out by a vacuum with a very, very, very long cord). Quelle dommage. Back home, I could see this as a nice community service project for some DUI folks.

The ascenseurs that take you to Le Toit de la Grande Arche (the roof) are like little bubbles that go up through an open metal framework so you are completely exposed. The view is amazing, as long as you don't look down. Vertigo! As it rises, you can immediately see the Arc de Triomphe and then slowly off to the right emerges the Eiffel Tower, perfectly blocking the view of La Tour Montparnasse (or, if you prefer, creating a second axis with the Eiffel Tower and the Montparnasse Tower in addition to the "historic axis" with the Arc de Triomphe, the Carrousel du Louvre and now the Pyramid du Louvre).

There's a great exhibit inside: L'Histoire d'Informatique, from the first mechanical calculators to modern computers. The labels for everything are in both French and something ressembling English. It always astounds me that for an exhibit of this magnitude, they don't get a native English speaker to polish it up. It's actually kind of humorous to read in English, then to go back to the French to figure out what they were trying to say!

There is a belvedere along one side of the Arche from which you can see out over the city. Again there are a lot of steps to walk up to reach the look-out. Can't walk around all four sides, the view is only to the east. Beautiful day, blue sky with fluffy clouds, couldn't be better. Unfortunately, in between you and a lovely view of Paris are all of the office buildings at La Defense. You have to peer between two of them to catch a glimpse of the Basilica of Sacre Coeur. The size of the Bois de Boulogne takes my breath away.

Somehow I end up in conversation with one of the guards at the top who tells me there is a photograph down below in the main exhibition space of the neighborhood before any of this was built (we were discussing the Paris of "old" (the 60s), before the Montparnasse Tower and La Defense). When I go back down, I ask one of the shopkeepers about it. She shows me the photographs of the construction, the maquettes, and the film but she doesn't know where the old photograph is. She actually goes off to find out, then comes back and leads me to it. It's in the back of one of the exhibition spaces; I would never have found it on my own nor would I have even looked for it if it hadn't been for the guard up above. It's a lovely photograph from around the turn of the 20th c. of the Avenue of La Defense, lined with trees, long before any of this had been thought up.

Later as I'm watching the film about the construction of the Arche, I realize that the belvedere section is cantilevered out from the main body of the Arche and I'm glad I'm back inside. :) The film is fascinating but goes by very fast as I'm trying to listen to the French, read the English subtitles and look at the pictures at the same time. I like the idea that the Arche was designed to celebrate humanity (not to celebrate military victory as the Arc de Triumphe). But the suggestion that "Le Toit is for everyone" rings hollow: it's only for those who have the 9 euro admission fee.

Before today, I had no idea that the Arche was not just "ornamental." It actually is two 35-story office buildings (in each of the sides) and a huge exhibition space in the "roof." The construction was an amazing technical challenge as the film clearly demonstrates. Parts of it are covered with Carrera marble, yet other surfaces are glass. It's much more interesting close-up than it is from afar.

I make a pit stop and am reminded once again how often Les Toilettes are nicer than those at home. Here there are actually wooden doors with honest-to-god door handles (not those stupid sliding things that never work with the metal doors). Lovely vessel sinks and faucets. Hanging on the wall, however, are Kimberly Clark soap dispensers! (BTW, Les Toilettes at the AF are unisex. The door to the room stands open and inside are several stalls, all of which close completely. No urinals.)

Back down the ascenseur. This time I'm looking out the other way and see the Cimitiere de Neuilly laid out unlike any I've seen before. There are rows of tall hedges running both width-wise and length-wise, creating green rectangles which harbor the graves and mauseleums. Would like to experience that from the ground.

I go into The Dome complex which used to have an IMAX film showing but no more. Now there's a standard multi-plex movie theater and a huge mall on at least three levels. After seeing Starbucks and Toys-R-Us, I decide I've had enough. It's too nice a day to be inside (cool, sweater weather, and sunny). However, there is a little restaurant near the entrace called Yo! which could have been in the old TV show, The Jetsons. You sit at a booth, and a little conveyor (at a little below eye-level as you're seated) carries around an assortment of dishes on different colored plates/bowls. Each color has a specific price assigned to it (2, 3, 4 Euros). You take what you want and, at the end of the meal, they add up what you've had based on the color of your plates, and that's it. I was tempted to try it just for the experience.

I especially like two of the office buildings that are close to the Arche. One is dark, highly-polished granite, square-ish, about 40 stories high and the other is a cluster of three, glass curtain wall towers of different heights which reflect the sky amazingly. In fact, so many of the office towers reflect the sky that it almost makes me dizzy. Further along is a Calder stabile (photo). I would like to walk around here again with a detailed guide to all of the architecture and the outdoor sculpture.

There is sculpture seemingly in every little nook and cranny (and there are a lot of these). One that is not in a nook but right in the middle of the walkway is Fresque de Raymond Moretti (also French; his parents fled Italy under Mussolini): Il décore, à la Défense, une triste cheminée d'aération qui culmine à 32 mètres. Il habillera l'excroissance inesthétique de 672 tubes de fibre de verre. 1990 (I found this description on a website and it basically says that he covered an unfortunately-placed, 32-meter-high air tunnel with 672 tubes of fiberglass. Literally: he "dressed this ugly protuberance") The tubes are painted in bright colors so it is very eye-catching.

Noted on walk:
-reflecting pool ends in waterfall above roadway;
-paving stones reflect the design of the marble on the Arche (see sketch);
-a man, seemingly dressed in many layers of worn clothing, with what may be all of his worldly goods in a back pack and a shopping bag, feeding the pigeons (listen! I can hear music from the film "Mary Poppins");
-three men in camouflage outfits carrying machine guns (and I'm not kidding).

Another entrance to the Metro is at the bottom of the walk so back to Hotel de Ville. (As I'm heading down the stairs to Direction: Chateau de Vincennes, I see that there is a train sitting at the quai. So I pick up the pace and hurry to get on it before it pulls away. I hear a voice behind me saying "vite, vite" and as I reach the bottom of the stairs and through the door onto the train, I look behind me and see a man with a big smile holding a cup of coffee. He opens a door and gets into the compartment at the front of the train. It's the conductor! So I was in no danger of the train leaving without me!)

A quick stop into Paul's to pick up a tarte aux figues, and get into a funny conversation with a lovely French woman behind me in line when the nice looking young man behind the counter asks me "et avec ceci?" and I don't understand. Her English is about like my French, but she says that he is asking me if I want anything else. After answering "non, merci" I whisper to her in French that he must be unhappy that I'm buying only one thing and then, when it's her turn, he asks her the same question. We burst out laughing. So "et avec ceci?" will now be une plaisanterie (a joke) and a comic refrain. She says that at least he'll remember me the next time I come in. Big smiles and "au revoirs" all around. I truly do not understand why everyone thinks Parisians are not helpful. It's certainly not my experience.

I stopped at the G20 marche to pick up some milk and discovered that they carry bread from Poilane, the famous parisian bakery. I have to set my alarm clock tonight because I'm taking a "test" at the AF tomorrow.
Pedometer: 11,006 (Ok, it was 10,991 so I walked around my apt twice to get it up over 11,000!.
Currency: 1 Euro = $1.39563 US