By running place de la Concorde with Veena

Veena - Place de la Concorde

7:58 AM - Veena, of Brisbane (Australia), did her first visit of Paris, doing a running tour. 
We thus realized an attractive loop passing by the most beautiful places of the heart of the capital: the garden of the Luxembourg where we greeted Geneviève, the protector of Paris (her statue decorates the park), the Pantheon, the island of La Cité, the Louvre, the Palais Royal, the place de la Concorde and then the banks of the Seine...

In La Concorde, we met eight great ladies who represent the main cities of France. 

City of Nantes

These statues (1838) are arranged on the place according to their situation on the map of France. By taking place in front of the statues of Marseille and Lyon and by prolonging our look, we would indeed reach the corresponding cities (it is not really the case for the other statues). The view of La Concorde below shows the lines which join the statues and their corresponding cities.

Click on the images to enlarge them

Merci Veena !

The route of the tour :

In front of the Elysee with Cindy

Cindy - Palais de l'Elysée

8:54 AM - With Cindy, from Chicago (USA), we crossed the city on about eleven kilometers. 

On our route, we had a photo break next to the Elysée Palace, the siege of the Presidency of the French Republic, very close to the place Beauvau where stands the Ministry of the Interior (Home office / Department of the Interior). 
Presidency of the Republic, Ministry of the Interior, the place is really well protected, we can see numerous policemen surrounding these buildings. Besides, it is forbidden to walk, moreover to run, along the sidewalks which line the Elysée Palace!

Railing of the Ministry of the Interior - Place Beauvau

We then joined the place de la Concorde, the place Vendôme, the banks of the Seine, the Eiffel Tower and appreciated to run in Paris while evoking the charm of the morning runs along Lake Michigan...

Merci Cindy !

The route of the tour :

Passing by the Palais Royal with Bill and Emily

Bill and Emily - Palais-Royal

9:03 AM - With Bill and his daughter Emily, from Albany (USA), we explored Paris by drawing two loops around the islands of La Cité and Saint-Louis, right bank then left bank.

It is at a good pace, the family of Bill and Emily being very sporting, that we discussed of Paris, the running and the new possibilities of visits, the archeological crypt near Notre Dame, the Sainte-Chapelle and the Conciergerie, the Louvre entering by the Carousel, the Panthéon, the "Jardin des Plantes", ...

Passing by the Palais-Royal, we also evoked the small cannon of the garden. It was a watchmaker who, in 1786, installed this small cannon on the meridian of Paris. When it was present, the sun, through a correctly directed magnifying glass, lit the fuse every day at noon. The thunder of the cannon indicated the hour of noon to the neighborhood. Nowadays, the original cannon having been stolen, a copy replaces it. Lit electrically, it thunders every Wednesday at noon, for the biggest enjoyment of the Parisian. If you can, go to see it, otherwise here it is, filmed:

Merci Emily! Merci Bill! Merci Alison!

The route of the tour :

Running on the canal with Toni

Toni - On the covered canal

7:46 AM - Toni (Adelaïde, Australia) is a runner of very good level. The running had essentially for objective to visit Paris and it is thus with a quiet pace that we crossed the city, in 12 kph... (Quiet pace? Yes, for Toni!). We left the garden of the Luxembourg to discover the east of Paris and notably the covered part of the Saint-Martin canal.

In 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte ordered the creation of the canal to improve the supply of Paris in drinking water. Later, between 1860 and 1862, the Baron Hausmann, Prefect of the Seine, within the framework of his big works of improvement of Paris, covered the canal on a big part (the current boulevard Richard Lenoir).
As for main avenues and boulevards of Paris, these works also answered the objective to make easier the military interventions. Troops left to repress a rebellion would have been slowed down by an open-air canal, even crossed by bridges! A covered canal, this is better...

The open-air canal part (in the upper left label, the 10km of the 10th arrondissement, around the canal)

Merci Tony !

The route of the tour :