Champs-Élysées

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This is a picture of the avenue des Champs-Élysées.

The large white arch in the distance is the Arc de Triomphe (the same structure that you see illuminated in my nighttime photo). It seems smaller here than in the nighttime photo because I used a shorter lens for this photo; as it is, it looks even more distant in real life, since it is about a kilometer away. The Arc is on a low hill, so you can’t really see anything behind it from this point on the avenue; beyond it, though, is the avenue de la Grande Armée and La Défense, the very chic, very modern business suburb just outside the Paris city limit; the suburb is aligned precisely with the axis of the Champs-Élysées.

The area around the Champs-Élysées was originally marshland and fields, nearly four hundred years ago. The architect Le Nôtre built the predecessor of the current avenue about a hundred years later, and it came to be rather imaginatively called the Elysian Fields (that's what Champs Élysées means in French). Today this real estate is some of the most expensive in the world. Whoever said that swampland is a poor investment?

The large trees on either side of the avenue conceal the many buildings and the very wide sidewalks crowded with people (mostly tourists) that run up either side of the street.

This picture was taken on a very clear morning in July. The complete ensemble of La Défense, the trendy suburb of Neuilly, the avenue de la Grande Armée, the Champs-Élysées, the Place de la Concorde, the Tuileries Gardens, and the Louvre (the last three of these are behind the camera in this photo) were visible in person, although only the main drag of the Champs-Élysées is visible here. The flags are from the Bastille Day celebrations on July 14.

The rise in the avenue towards the Arc de Triomphe is not an illusion. The avenue rises towards the Arc, then descends again slightly beyond it, only to rise again at La Défense.

Photographed on July 17, 2008.