Monday October 7th:
I heard about this museum dedicated to the creation of the sewers of Paris and I figured why not go see it. It may be smelly (and it kinda was but not too bad) but who else would say they had been in the Parisian sewers.
nothing unusual really, looked like the metro tunnels except less shiny
apparently Paris flooded in 1910 and caused massive amounts of damage and it was conveniently during the time they were building most of the sewers.
The second line on the statue shows how high the water was in Paris during the flood.
A model showing where the sewers are in comparison to the metro. Its nice to know when I ride the metro how close I am to the actual sewers....
Did you know we Americans and even the Canadians consume more water than any other country?? Yeah me neither lol
The history of the sewers, right over the 'water' that was going through the sewers. This was the kinda smelly part. But I found out that the creation of the sewers dates back to almost the 1600s. People used to dump their waste into the Seine River yet use that water as drinking water, not a very good idea. However the drinking water soon became unhealthy, no way!, and the kings decided they had to do something to get the water cleaners. So I think it was Louis XIV who started to create the Parisian sewers but it was mostly just ducts and drains that brought in water from the surrounding lakes to Paris. The actual sewers that are used today began during Napoleon III reign during the second empire from the 1850s till the 1870s. Apparently, even today the Seine is still not fully back to its clean and natural state. The thousands of years people dumped their waste into the Seine is still being cleaned out and filtered during the 21st century. The signs said it could take many many more years before the Seine is actually a clean river.
It was a beautiful fall day so I took some pics, like this one of the Eiffel Tower! I love how it just shows up sometimes when you are walking around Paris.
Ah..fall colors!
Pont Alexandre III aka Alexander Bridge
Those statues are made out of solid gold. Which is probably why they are up so high lol
Hotel National des Invalides: it has 2 churches, Napoleon I tomb, and 4 different museums about the world wars, machines in the war, etc.
Inside one of the churches, I think this one was St Louis
Organ in the church
Napoleon's tomb
Its on the second floor of the second church which I think is called St Trinity. But you can see the tomb right when you walk in, talk about a dominating effect.
The ceiling
A model of what the entire establishment looks like.
This is the wall that connects the two churches. But this is the view from Napoleon's tomb.
Entrance to the bottom floor, which is where the tomb is.
Its huge. I have no idea why it had to be so big but its huge.
Emperor Napoleon, this sculpture is based off his coronation as emperor.
The front of the church.
As you can tell it was a very very gorgeous day!
This building is the military school in Paris. The most demanding and toughest military school I've heard about here in France. I've heard if one passes through the entirety of the program they are financially secure for the rest of their life. They will always be announced that they graduated from this school and will always have some high position job no matter what they go into after here. I heard the President graduated from here, talk about top of the ladder.
Eiffel Tower!!
I got a little crafty with my shots, trying to be all artsy fartsy in Paris.
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