Le quatorze juillet

Saturday was le quatorze juillet, or la fête nationale, the French holiday that is called Bastille Day in the United States.  The big celebration in Paris consisted of a military parade down the Champs-Élysées in the morning, fireworks by the Eiffel Tower, and parties at some of the fire stations (bals des pompiers) lasting late into the night.  Normally the bals des pompiers take place the night before the holiday but with the holiday falling on a Saturday there were parties on both Friday and Saturday.

We got up on Saturday morning and took the metro line that would drop us right into the parade route.  Unfortunately we learned while on the train that the metro stops running under the parade route were mostly closed or open only for transfers.  We ended transferring to another line so that we could approach the parade route from just across the river.  When we emerged from the metro stop in front of the Hôtel des Invalides we discovered that we were at the staging area/endpoint for the military regiments marching in the parade.  We got to see a lot of soliders marching away from the end of the parade route, graciously taking pictures with civilians, and even playing tourist.

  

The parade also included all sorts of military vehicles driving down the Champs-Élysées with one carrying the president of France.  We tried to cross the nearest bridge to the side of the river where the parade was taking place but it was closed, as were the next closest bridges.  We finally found an open bridge and set off walking towards the Champs-Élysées only to find that all of the streets had been barricaded by the police within a block of the parade route.  We found a street that military vehicles were using to speed away from the parade route, but failed to reach the parade itself.

We gave up on seeing the actual parade and headed back toward the metro stop.  While we were walking back across the river we saw the finale of the parade, which was a series of helicopters and planes flying over the parade route and soldiers parachuting into the Place de la Concorde (the official endpoint of the parade).

Right next to the entrance to the metro we saw a recruitment van for the French Foreign Legion.  If only they accepted women, I could be on my way to French citizenship.

We were almost home from our ill-fated attempt to watch the parade when we saw a large convoy of military vehicles driving down our street.  There were a few sites around the city where people could go to meet the members of the French military.  Our apartment is quite near to one of them, so we had tanks and jeeps driving through the neighborhood all afternoon.

(our favorite neighborhood restaurant is in the background of this picture)

It rained off and on all day, but luckily it was dry for the parade.  Nonetheless, we did not want to brave the intermittent rain to wait outside all evening at the park next to the Eiffel Tower to reserve a spot for viewing the fireworks at 11 pm.  We decided to watch the fireworks from the one of the bridges over the river instead.  The fireworks were gorgeous, even from afar, and it was interesting to be packed into a huge crowd of people filling the sidewalks of the bridge and spilling into the street.  My pictures of the fireworks did not turn out well, but a 40+ minute video of the fireworks is available online.  It is even more exciting than our viewing, as it lets you fully enjoy the disco theme of the fireworks this year.  I found a few pictures of the parade online and it looks like we missed quite the affair.  The parade is televised, so maybe next year we will just watch it at home!