please empty your brain below
At the time of the visit, most of the open areas were accessible, but there was very little of the shops, facilities etc. that are there now. The vast RER ticket hall / circulating area was deserted, with very few concessions open, as was much of the rest of La Defense above it. I think that there were about 40 escalators in the RER area, from the tracks. Most were running but with very few people. It all seemed very surreal!
Whenever I go to Paris, I usually go to La Defense. In 2007, I went with my godson and we went the scenic route to the top of the Grande Arche. It was worth the trip and there is a good 360 degree view of Paris from the top of the arch. At the time, there was a computer museum on the top floor and also a platform where you could walk out onto a glass floor and look directly down from the centre of the tower
If the weather is good, I can recommend walking the axis from La Defense (It’s downhill!). I did this on a later visit, branching off at l’Etoile towards the Seine and it was quite enjoyable.
When it was built in the 1950s it soared above a plaza, but then lots of new levels were built above the plaze, so CNIT is just a bubble poking out of it.
When it was built it became the biggest concrete-covered space in the world, finally beating the record that had been held by the Pantheon in Rome since 125AD.
No one would bury the Pantheon up to second floor level, I hope
dg writes: See photo.
You may have a axe to grind.....
"But I had an axis to follow".
I love it.
The original 'axe historiques' are medieval and thus long lines with wiggles in them. They all start at the tour Saint Jacques in the centre, just north of the Ile de la Cite (can't find accents on this keyboard). Southwards in the rue Saint Jacques (the start of the route to Compostella); northwards it's the rue Saint Denis, westwards rue St Honore; and eastwards rue St Antoine. When they reach the old city limits, they change their names and are prefixed by the word Faubourg (meaning suburb).
And the 'Champs Elysees' axe you so wonderfully describe, has one thing wrong with the straight line. If you stand at the middle of the Arc de triomphe du Carrousel and look towards the Arc de triomphe in the middle of the place de l'Etoile, they don't line up.
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