Paris 2011 "Day 5" The Sewer Tour, then Champs-Elysees

This was Emily's pick for the Day, Why Emily, Why??? LOL

The Parisian sewer system dates back to the year 1370 when the first underground system was constructed under "rue Montmartre". Since then, consecutive French governments have enlarged the system to cover the city's population.

Until the Middle Ages, the drinking water in Paris was taken from the river Seine. The wastewater was poured onto fields or unpaved streets, and finally filtered back into the Seine.[1] Around 1200, Phillipe Auguste had the Parisian streets paved, incorporating a drain for waste water in their middle. In 1370 Hugues Aubriot, a Parisian provost had a vaulted, stone walled sewer built in the "rue Montmartre". This sewer collected the wastewater and took it to the "Ménilmontant" brook. However the wastewater was still drained in the open air.[2]

Under the reign of Louis XIV, a large ring sewer was built on the right bank, and the Biévre River was used as a sewer for the left bank of the Seine. On at least two occasions in the late 1700s, Paris refused to build an updated water system that scientists had studied. Women were actually carrying water from the river Seine to their residences in buckets. Voltaire wrote about it, saying that they "will not begrudge money for a Comic Opera, but will complain about building aqueducts worthy of Augustus". Louis Pasteur, himself lost three children to typhoid. Under Napoleon I, the first Parisian vaulted sewer network was built that was 30 km long.

In 1850, the prefect for the Seine Baron Haussmann and the engineer Eugéne Belgrand, designed the present Parisian sewer and water supply networks. Thus was built, more than a century ago, a double water supply network (one for drinking water and one for non drinking water) and a sewer network which was 600 km long in 1878

The Store from the movie Ratatouille

We tried to make it to Musee' Marmottan for mommy to see some Monet, but they were closed, just her luck :^(

The Arc de Triomphe (Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile) is one of the most famous monuments in Paris. It stands in the centre of the Place Charles de Gaulle (originally named Place de l'Étoile), at the western end of the Champs-Élysées.[1] There is a smaller arch, the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, which stands west of the Louvre. The Arc de Triomphe (in English: "Triumphal Arch") honours those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars, with the names of all French victories and generals inscribed on its inner and outer surfaces. Beneath its vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I.

The Arc de Triomphe is the linchpin of the historic axis (Axe historique) — a sequence of monuments and grand thoroughfares on a route which goes from the courtyard of the Louvre, to the Grande Arche de la Défense. The monument was designed by Jean Chalgrin in 1806, and its iconographic program pitted heroically nude French youths against bearded Germanic warriors in chain mail. It set the tone for public monuments, with triumphant patriotic messages.

The monument stands 50 metres (164 ft) in height, 45 m (148 ft) wide and 22 m (72 ft) deep. The large vault is 29.19 m (95.8 ft) high and 14.62 m (48.0 ft) wide. The small vault is 18.68 m (61.3 ft) high and 8.44 m (27.7 ft) wide. It is the second largest triumphal arch in existence (after Arch of Triumph in Pyongyang).[2] Its design was inspired by the Roman Arch of Titus. The Arc de Triomphe is so colossal that three weeks after the Paris victory parade in 1919, marking the end of hostilities in World War I, Charles Godefroy flew his Nieuport biplane through it, with the event captured on newsreel