A WEEKEND IN PARIS EIFFEL TOWER 100 YEARS AND LOUVRE - TRAVELOGUE (VOL 27) DOWN MEMORY LANE
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| Eiffel Tower at night |
The year was 1967 when the movie “An Evening in Paris” was released. Rafi from Bombay studio at high pitch imagined himself to be in Paris to be Shammi Kapoor for this title song which set the tone for this musical album.
Aj aisa mauka phir kahan milega hamara jaisa dil kahan milega
Ao tumko dikhalata hun Paris Ke ek rangi shaam
Dekho dekho dekho dekho an Evening in Paris
Shankar Jaikishen the music director for this movie were at their peak. All the songs were shot around exotic locales in Paris and became the chart busters of that year. This young boy who was in Chennai was listening with rapt attention to the mind-blowing music and never thought one day he will be there in Paris!
Those days without VFX the director Shakthi Samantha hired a helicopter crew for an astronomical amount (in lacs Rs) and shot this song from the same movie Aasman Se Aaya Farishta from the helicopter to bring out the aerial view of Paris along with the antics which only Shammi can do!
As an engineer in L&T got an opportunity to visit Paris later in the year1989 about 2 decades latter with the engineering team from Mysore which happened to be the Centenary year of Eiffel Towers (Eiffel 100).
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| Eiffel 100 years 1989 |
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| with the Team |
Eiffel History: Eiffel Tower history comes from the French vision to build a suitable centerpiece for the proposed 1889 Exposition Universelle, a world's fair to celebrate the centennial of the French Revolution.
The proposal of erecting an iron tower as the centerpiece on the Champ-de-Mars with a square base, 125 meters across and 300 meters tall came from Emile Nouguier and Maurice Koechlin, the two chief engineers in Eiffel's company and was accepted in 1884.
As part of the design of this tower the curvature of the uprights were mathematically determined to offer the most efficient wind resistance possible. All the elements were prepared in Eiffel’s factory located at the outskirts of Paris. Each of the 18000 pieces used to construct the tower were specifically designed and calculated traced out to an accuracy of a tenth of a millimeter and then put together.
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| Cable car to reach the top |
The Eiffel Tower is named after the principal engineer who built it, Gustave Eiffel. A civil engineer by profession he was also one of the Architects for Statue of Liberty in New York built in the year 1884.
Gustave Eiffel set up a reception lounge at the top of the Tower. Promoting “his” Tower, Gustave Eiffel made sure to welcome many journalists and scientists to the Tower site after its inauguration. The most famous at the time was undoubtedly the American Thomas Edison, who gave Eiffel, on his visit, a phonograph that could record sounds on a roll of wax.
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| View from the 2nd stage Ravindran L&T Mysore |
Gustave Eiffel had the names of 72 scholars inscribed on the border encircling the first floor of the Tower. He had the names of scholars inscribed in golden capital letters 60 centimeters high, large enough to be read from the ground. They are all French and all lived and worked between 1789 and 1889.
The construction work began in January 1887 and was finished on March 31, 1889. It received two million visitors during the World's Fair of 1889. The tower is symbolic of art, love, French culture, and industrial prowess.
The Eiffel Tower is visited by 6.8 million people each year and has had an estimated 250 million visitors since it was built in 1889. It is the #1Tourist Place in the world.
Louvre Museum: There is no other museum in the world like this. To see the full museum, it will take about 3 to 4 days. We could see only glimpses of the displayed masterpieces of French history. The iconic Louvre pyramid was added to the museum during a renovation project in the 1980s to promote a higher visitor volume.
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| Louvre Museum Paris |
When we went in the year 1989 there was no smartphones, and it was Sony Walkman ruling the world. We were given headphone along with the Walkman as a guide and as we entered every room, we can hear the audio about the history of those places as we move. I was spellbound with the innovation of that time using Walkman as a tourist guide!
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| Queen De Le Reine Bedroom |
The Louvre Museum was originally constructed over 800 years ago as a fortress to protect the city of Paris from invaders. The fortress was eventually torn down and replaced with a palace that served as the royal residence of the French monarchy. By 1793, the Louvre had been transformed into a museum, with the French Revolution facilitating the changing of hands from the monarchy to the national government.
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| The Hall of Mirrors Die Spiegelgalerie |
Louis XIV was the last king to use the Louvre as a royal residence—he moved his court to Versailles in 1682. In 1793, during the French Revolution, the Musée Central des Arts opened to the public in the Grande Galerie. Napoleon Bonaparte and Napoleon III both added to the Louvre, enhancing their own prestige. It wasn’t until 1793, however, that the whole building was used as a museum for the first time.
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| Drawing room of the Grand Queen De Le Reine |
The Louvre Museum is now home to more than 35,000 of the world’s most famous works of art, including the “Mona Lisa,” the “Venus de Milo,” and the “Great Sphinx of Tanis.”
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| Christ before the High Priest HONTHORST (1590-1656) |
One of the most famous works of art in the world, the Mona Lisa, painted by Leonardo da Vinci, has been on display at the Louvre since 1797.
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| Mona Lisa By Leonard de VINCI |
The Louvre collection has an impressive 5,500 paintings. Some of the stunning paintings on display are the creations of masters such as Michelangelo (1475-1564), Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci.
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| The Entombment MICHELANGELO |
Most of the paintings displayed in the Louvre were created between the 13th and 19th centuries.
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| The Virgin of the Rocks LEONARD da Vinci |
The Mona Lisa may be the Louvre’s most famous painting, but many people don’t realize that the museum’ has so many other classic paintings of that era.
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| The Execution of Lady Jane Grey Paul DELAROCHE (1795-1856) |
More about this trip in the concluding part!
(To be Concluded)
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