Friday, January 22, 2010

European Adventure Recap - The Middle of the Seine River

Saturday October 24, 2009
Paris, France

This post corresponds to yesterday' post - the Seine River.  Where we were walking along the Seine this day, we came upon a tree-lined island right down the middle of the river, called the Ile des Cygnes (which means Isle of Swans).  It runs between two bridges - the Pont de Bir Hakeim (shown in the previous post) and the Pont de Grenelle (I don't have any pics of this bridge).


The island is "2,789 feet long and 36 feet at its widest point".  Looking to the left you can see a double-decker train passing by.


Here's the bridge the train in the previous picture was going across (this isn't the Pont de Grenelle - it's just a train bridge and as far as I can tell doesn't have a name).  It is located almost at the halfway point of the island.


Another shot of the train bridge


The underpass of the train bridge - aren't those trees beautiful?  I love autumn!


It started to rain ever so slightly and the umbrellas started going up


This was the one and only time I had to use my teeny-tiny umbrella on the entire trip and I think I only had it open for about 5 minutes (we were blessed with wonderful weather the entire trip!)


At the end of the island, near the Pont de Grenelle, is a replica of the Statue of Liberty (a smaller one).  "This statue, which was inaugurated at its site on November 15, 1889 (three years after its US counterpart), was given by the French community living in the United States to commemorate the centennial of the French Revolution."  The statue faces west towards NYC and the original Lady Liberty.


This is the sign at the base of the statue, its in French, but I'm assuming it says pretty much the same thing I explained above....if not then we'll just pretend it does! 

No comments: