This is a view of the avenue des Champs - Elysees , considered by many to be the most famous avenue in the world. This picture shows the avenue just before midnight on a Saturday, looking northwest from the Rond-Point des Champs-Élysées towards the Arc de Triomphe , which is at the other end of the avenue. The picture was taken from the median of the crosswalk at the midpoint of the avenue, where there is a transition from commercial properties to parkland.

The area around the Champs - Elysees 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?

I took this photograph with cars streaking past in both directions. The median is marked by lines on the pavement and an occasional small post, but that's about it. Since I laugh at danger (well, almost) when obtaining pictures with which to entertain visitors to my Web site, I ignored this and snapped away. In fact, believe it or not, I actually managed to set up a tripod to take this shot (I was shooting at ISO 80, so that was the only way to get a shot that wasn't completely blurred). Anyway, motorcycles are the biggest hazard here, since they drive on the wrong side of the road most of the time; fortunately, there weren't too many around during the few minutes I needed to take my pictures.

The odd coloring in the photograph is pretty much the way it actually looks; the street lamps are high-pressure sodium vapor, like most street lamps these days, and so they cast a kind of orange-yellow light on everything. The Arc de Triomphe is lit with the same kind of lights.

There are always people and cars on this street. I took the photograph at 11:37 PM, but the avenue would have looked very much the same at three o'clock in the morning. I also have a photograph of the Champs-Élysées in daylight from this same point (approximately), another daylight picture from the top of the avenue, a picure of one of the broad sidewalks on the avenue, and even a photo taken from the top of the Arc de Triomphe if you're interested.

The avenue des Champs - Elysees is equipped with very broad sidewalks on either side to accommodate the huge crowds of pedestrians that frequent the avenue day and night. Not too many years ago, about half of this space was taking up by narrow alleys reserved for parking, but several years ago all the alleys were replaced by underground parking garages, and the sidewalks were entirely repaved in granite.

This photograph was taken in the mid-afternoon on a summer day, but there are people on the avenue at all times of the day and night, all year long.

This is the Arc de Triomphe, a 16-story war monument conceived by Napoléon, designed by architect Jean-François Chalgrin, and built at the top of the avenue des Champs-Élysées. It was constructed between 1810 and 1836 (there were a number of long delays).

It is possible to reach the roof of the monument by climbing nearly three hundred steps, and the view is excellent. I haven't been up there very often, but I do have some nice photos of several Paris streets taken from the top of the arch, including a photo of the avenues leading to La Défense, a photo of the Avenue Foch, and a photo of the ever-popular Champs-Élysées.

The arch is surrounded by a huge vehicular roundabout. Some tourists foolishly try to cross the roundabout in front of hundreds of cars in order to get to the monument. The seasoned habitués of the city know that there is an underground pedestrian walkway on the northern side of the Champs-Élysées that provides safe access to the monument.

This monument, like so many others, is intended to glorify war and those who died waging it. Beneath the arch lies the tombe du soldat inconnu (“tomb of the unknown soldier”), and a flame of remembrance burns above the tomb (it is symbolically rekindled daily at 6:30 PM in a small ceremony). There are regular military ceremonies at this location to commemorate the many and varied massacres that have colored French and world history.

The site on which the monument stands is called the place Charles de Gaulle; it used to be called the place de l’Étoile, because of the multicolored star built into the pavement of the roundabout (look closely at the pavement, and you’ll see the alternating gray and red colors of the star), and it is still referred to casually by this name.

On the lower left in the photograph, you can see the Eiffel Tower, which is about 1.7 km away; it looks a bit sunken because it is at a much lower elevation than the Arch.

Anyway, the tomb is often covered by flowers donated by organizations of veterans and the like. Despite all the flowers, the soldier is still dead, and still unknown. I always end up shaking my head when I see things like this. A flame of remembrance burns over the tomb, too.

The place de la Concorde is one of the largest open vehicular and pedestrian plazas in the world. Traffic swirls continuously around a central pedestrian area marked by two large fountains (one of which is seen here) and an ancient Egyptian obelisk, a 3300-year-old artifact from Luxor, donated by the Viceroy of Egypt to France in 1829.

It‘s difficult to get an overall view of this very large plaza. In this photo, you are looking at the fountain at the southern end of the place, the Fontaine des Mers, which has recently been completely restored; a similarly restored fountain, the Fontaine des Fleuves, adorns the northern end. The Obelisk is not visible in this image but is off to the right. The large building at the right in the background is the Hôtel Crillon and the headquarters of the French Navy; the building with a rounded roof to the left of it is the American Embassy. Further off to the right and outside the frame is the rue Royale, which leads to the Madeleine and features Maxim‘s restaurant. Just left of center, but behind the bus, is the bottom of the avenue des Champs-Élysées. Further off to the left, and not visible here, is the Seine River and, several kilometres away, the Eiffel Tower. Way off to the right, and again not visible here, are the rue de Rivoli and the Tuileries Gardens.