The sixteenth arrondissement is located on the Right Bank of the Seine River in western Paris. This arrondissement hosts the famous chestnut tree lined Avenue Foch, the widest street in Paris, and lots and lots of embassies. If you're starting to think it's one of the richest corners of the city, you're absolutely right. Its land area is about 6.3 square miles (16.3 square kilometers) but if you exclude the Bois de Boulogne the size drops in half to 3 square miles (about 7.8 square kilometers). Its population numbers slightly over one hundred sixty thousand and the district hosts over one hundred thousand jobs. This is the only arrondissement to merit two postal codes, both considered exclusive.
Passy is in the northern part of the district. It was once a village and served as home away from home to Benjamin Franklin for many years. Here in 1782 he printed a pamphlet "A Project for Perpetual Peace" which presented his vision for a permanent peace in Europe. Despite his inability to predict the future, Parisians have honored him with a rue Franklin. You may want to visit the Cimetiere de Passy (Passy Cemetery) burial grounds for the painter Edouard Manet and the composer Claude Debussy. It is the only cemetery in Paris whose waiting-room is heated. Perhaps that's why it was once "the place" in Paris to be buried. If you go make sure to see the retaining wall memorial to soldiers who fell in World War I. Another Passy site of interest is the house where the famous writer Honore de Balzac lived and wrote.
The Parc des Princes (Princes' Park) is a football stadium with just a bit less than fifty thousand seats. It was France's national stadium until the much bigger Stade de France was built in the working class suburb of St-Denis. The stadium was designed in 1972 by Roger Taillibert who also designed the Montreal Olympic Stadium for the 1976 Olympics. The Parc des Princes area was a hunting preserve for the royal family name during the Eighteenth Century. Alas the neighborhood went to pot. There is something about this site that attracts stadiums (stadia for purists); the first one went up in 1897 and the second in 1932. Until 1967 the Parc marked the end of the Tour de France bicycle race, the most famous such race in the world. There are plans afoot to increase the seating capacity to a whopping one hundred fourteen thousand.
Lycee Janson de Sailly is generally considered as one of the best lycees (roughly high schools) in France. It is the biggest such institution in France with 3200 students whose age ranges from 11 to 20. The founder, a Parisian lawyer named Monsieur Janson de Sailly disinherited his wife after discovering that she had a lover. He left his entire fortune to the State. This chauvinist insisted that the monies be used to establish an excellent high school for boys only, but eventually girls were accepted. The lycee was built in the 1880s as the first Republican lycee in France. However, it subsequently attracted many students from Parisian high society.
Janson's motto was Pour la Patrie, par le livre et par l'epee (For the Homeland, by the book and by the sword). Many of its students pursued a military career, often in the colonies. In 1944 hundreds joined the French Free Forces, fought German divisions in Alsace, and entered Germany with Patton's forces in 1945. Janson's students often end up at France's most prestigious post-secondary institutions, the equivalent of Ivy League schools.
The Musee Guimet (Guimet Museum) boasts one of the largest collections of Asian art outside Asia. It also has a magnificent collection of pieces from Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. The Musee de la Contrefacon (Counterfeiting Museum) was established in 1951 by the Union des Fabricants, an organization of manufacturers. It currently exhibits several hundred items, pairing each original piece with its counterfeit. The Musee Marmottan-Monet features a collection of some one hundred Impressionist works by Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
The Trocadero lies across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower. The French won the Battle of Trocadero in 1823 protecting the autocratic Spanish King Ferdinand VII. Forty some years later they honored this victory by renaming the square called Place du Roi de Rome (i.e., Place of the King of Rome). The following year, the Palais de Trocadero (Trocadero Palace) was built on the site as the centerpiece of a world's fair celebrating France's recovery from its defeat in the Franco-Prussian war, The Palace was built like a concert hall in mixed Moorish and Byzantine style with a large aquarium occupying the lower level. For the Exposition Internationale (World's Fair) of 1937 the old Palais du Trocadero was demolished and replaced by the modernist Palais de Chaillot. The complex includes several museums: the Musee national de la Marine (Naval Museum), the ethnological Musee de l'Homme (Museum of Man), and the Musee national des Monuments francais (National Museum of French Monuments) as well as the Theatre national de Chaillot (Chaillot National Theater). At the Palais de Chaillot the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. The esplanade was renamed the esplanade des droits de l'homme (esplanade of human rights). And since then human rights...
Of course you don't want to visit Paris without sampling fine French wine and food. In my article I Love French Wine and Food - A Province Bandol I reviewed such a wine and suggested a sample menu: Start with Caviar d'Aubergines (Egglant Puree). As your second course savor Poisson aux Herbes de Provence (Fish with Provence Herbs). And as dessert indulge yourself with Tarte aux Noix (Walnut and Honey Tart). Your Parisian sommelier (wine steward) will be happy to suggest appropriate wines to accompany each course.
The seventh arrondissement is located on the Left Bank of the Seine River. It is home to several major government institutions and some very important tourist attractions. This district occupies about 1.6 square miles (slightly over 4 square kilometers) and has a population of almost 57 thousand people while hosting over 76 thousand jobs.
Some of the best jobs in this arrondissement are in the Assemblee Nationale (National Assembly), the lower house of the French Parliament which consists of 577 elected members known as deputes (deputies), each elected to represent a single-member constituency. The official seat of the National Assembly is the Palais Bourbon (Bourbon Palace) on the banks of the Seine River as well as some neighboring buildings.
The Eiffel Tower is perhaps Paris's best-known landmark, recognized the world over. This thousand foot (three hundred twenty meter) building, as tall as an eighty-story building, annually attracts over six million paying visitors. Once the tallest structure in the world it is now only the fifth tallest building in France. And yet every year more visitors pay to see this structure than any other monument in the world.
The Eiffel Tower was erected between 1887 and 1889 as the entrance arch to the Exposition Universelle (World's Fair) honoring the centennial of the French Revolution. It was not immediately popular. The French writer Guy de Maupassant supposedly ate lunch there every day. When asked why, since everyone knew that he hated the tower, he simply replied ' that was the only Paris location where he couldn't see the tower. The original plans called for the tower's demolition after twenty years but happily plans changed. The tower is used for radio transmission and served for German television broadcasts during the occupation of Paris in World War II and again since 1957.
There's a fancy restaurant with a private elevator on the second floor and another restaurant on the first floor. The Eiffel Tower was struck by lightning in 1902 and in 1910 served in the discovery of cosmic rays. And con men have succeeded in selling it for scrap metal. The tower shifts up to 7 inches (18 centimeters) because of the sun and sways about a third as much in the wind. You can climb the first two levels but going higher requires an elevator. Once every seven years it's painted in three different colors to keep up appearances.
During the German occupation Nazi soldiers climbed to the top and hoisted the swastika but after a few hours the wind blew that rag away. Later during the war the tower proudly flew the French flag. During the winter the first floor hosts a free ice skating rink. Its night-time image has been copyrighted. While many buildings are taller, none are as recognizable or perhaps as well loved.
The Hotel Matignon, which was completed in 1725, is one of Paris's most elegant mansions. At that time, the owners authorized any "well-dressed" person to visit the mansion in their absence. Too bad for me that I was unaware of this little slice of history when I last set foot in the neighborhood. The building had seen a lot including the signing of the famous Matignon Accords in 1936 that established the forty-hour work week and paid vacations for French workers. During World War II it was used by the collaborationist government. Legend has it that the French Resistance leaders who seized the premises were confused between Hotel Matignon and the Matignon Avenue across the Seine River. In all fairness, they did have a lot on their mind. General de Gaulle convened the government there in 1944 and once again in 1958. Its park is the largest private garden in Paris.
The Champ de Mars (Field of Mars) is named for the Roman war god and was once used for military training. It's not far from the military school described below. It was the site of both a festival and a massacre during the French Revolution. The Musee d'Orsay (Orsay Museum) was once a railway station, the world's first electrified urban one. Charles de Gaulle spoke there in 1958 before taking power. It is now a museum specializing in French art from 1848 to 1914. Its collection includes impressionist works by Monet, Renoir, and many others.
The Ecole Militaire (Military School) was founded in 1750 by Louis XV. Madame de Pompadour was part of this project whose objective was to enable poor boys to become cadet officers. Napoleon Bonaparte managed to graduate from a two-year program in a single year but he had already frequented (from age nine) another French military school. Be sure to visit the nearby Les Invalides (The Invalides) complex, built in 1670 as a retirement home for war veterans that has expanded to include a soldiers' hospital, war monuments, and war museums. Many of France's war heroes are buried there including France's greatest war hero of them all, Napoleon Bonaparte and his family.
The Musee Rodin (Rodin Museum) was opened in 1919 in the Hotel Biron where he lived from 1908. It contains most of his greatest works including The Thinker and The Kiss. You'll see many of his sculptures in the gardens. Other great artists and sculptors including Van Gogh, Rodin, and Claudel are represented in the museum.
The Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Paris Institute of Political Studies), often called Sciences Po is one of France's greatest educational institutions. Among its subjects of choice are political science, economics, business, communications, finance, journalism, law, management, and urban studies. It was established in 1872 by French businessmen, intellectuals, and politicians in the wake of France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 and the Paris Commune of the following year. In the last few years Sciences Po has taken on a few students from the poor suburban areas outside Paris; a French version of the inner city. This is in contrast to their usually elitist student body. The undergraduate program is usually three years with the third year spent abroad or in an internship. Of course there are Master's and Doctoral programs. Students are expected to be proficient in at least two foreign languages and fluent in French. Many French leaders such as Chirac and Mitterand, thirteen former prime ministers and a whole slew of world leaders are former students, teachers or both.
Of course you don't want to tour Paris without sampling excellent French wine and food. In my article I Love French Wine and Food ' A Bordeaux Merlot I reviewed such a wine and suggested a sample menu: Start with Gravette Huitres (Oysters from the Arcachon Bay). For your second course savor Lamproie au Pomerol (Eels cooked in Red Wine and Chocolate). And as dessert indulge yourself with Cannelles de Bordeaux (Portable Crême Brulee). Your Parisian sommelier (wine steward) will be proud to suggest some appropriate wines to accompany each course.
Levi Reiss has sinced written about articles on various topics from Touring Italy, Travel and Leisure and Food and Drink. Levi Reiss has authored or co-authored ten books on computers and the Internet, but between you and me, he prefers drinking fine German, Italian, or other wine, accompanied by the right foods and the right people. He knows what dieting is, and is glad tha. Levi Reiss's top article generates over 450000 views. to your Favourites.