Paris, Grande Arche

The project to build the 'Grande Arche' in La Defense was initiated by French President Mitterand. The Grande Arche is a 350 feet high cube covered with Carrara marble from Italy. (When we visited Carrara, where this marble — and the marble for Michelangelo‘s Statue of David — was quarried, we purchased a rolling pin from that same mountain top.) The problem was, when it was first built, many of the marble tiles came lose and fell to the ground. Scary and dangerous for visitors. Haven’t heard of this recently, so it must have been fixed. This photo was taken in the mid-1980s, while the Arche was still under construction.

With only a slight offset made necessary by the placement of the foundations, it is almost perfectly aligned with Ave Charles de Gaulle, Ave de la Grande Armee, the Arc de Triomphe, Champs-Élysées, Place de Concorde, Carrousel Arch, and the Louvre. As we drove up the Champs-Élysées we could see the Grand Arch through the opening of the Arc de Triomphe.

The 200th anniversary of the French revolution was celebrated on July 14, 1989. That was also the inauguration of the Arche, with the meeting of the seven countries commonly known as the "G7," — France, United States, Britain, Germany, Japan and Italy, and Canada. (In 1998, with the addition of Russia, this group became the "G8.")

Just a few blocks away from La Grande Arche is the Paris-Ouest campsite where we have stayed several different years.