Paris: Evening on the Seine and Napoleon’s Tomb in the Day!

Seine River Just After Sunset

Dear Commons Community,

This is our last day in Paris. Tomorrow (Sunday – June 2^nd) we travel home to New York.

We spent last evening just at sunset on Pont Des Arts Bridge that overlooks the Seine River. It is a pedestrian bridge with ample benches to sit and look up and down the river. The Institut de France is on its Left Bank and the Lourve Museum is on its Right Bank. It was a beautiful evening and we spent most of our time looking without saying much.

Today we went to see the Dôme des Invalides, a large church, the tallest in Paris at a height of 351 feet, with the tombs of some of France’s war heroes, most notably Napoleon. The exterior and interior are quite elaborate with lots of gold, silver, marble, and polished quartzite. Besides Napoleon whose sarcophagus is about 3o feet high including the base, there are a number of French generals buried here including Ferdinand Foch (World War I), Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque (World War II), and Joseph Bonaparte (Napolean’s older brother). One of the most impressive is Louis Lyautey (World War I – Morocco), who has engravings on his sarcophagus in both French and Arabic. At dinner, we mentioned our visit to the manager of one of the restaurants we frequent and she said without any hesitation: “They love themselves! Don’t they?”

You cannot visit Paris without a visit to the Eiffel Tower. We saw it in a park about 200 yards away.

And our visit to France comes to end!

Au revoir!

Tony

Seine River after Sunset