Hi, I'm Rick Steves,
back with more of the best of Europe,
and this is one of about a million reasons
this place is called "The City of Light."
You got it -- we're in Paris.
Thanks for joining us.
♪
As we return for another visit to Paris,
we're enjoying an intimate look at Europe's grandest city.
One of the great things about Paris is how,
amidst all its grandeur,
the little joys of life are still embraced.
We'll feel the pulse of Paris, from village-like neighborhoods
to a magnificent pipe organ loft.
We'll visit a megalomaniac's tomb,
tour the world's biggest art gallery,
and celebrate the mother of all revolutions
with a big, patriotic Bastille Day bang.
Paris was born over 2,000 years ago
on this island in the River Seine,
and many of its highlights can be seen
from popular sightseeing boats.
There's the Notre-Dame...
And the Louvre Museum...
And of course the Eiffel Tower, built to commemorate
the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution.
Paris glitters with history.
Even the bridges,
bestowed on the city by kings and emperors,
tell a story.
Beyond its glorious monuments and buildings,
Paris is a city simply in love with life.
Delightful parks let commoners luxuriate like aristocrats.
Here in Luxembourg Gardens,
there's a tranquility and refined orderliness
enjoyed by young and old.
The gardens are impeccably tended.
And for generations,
children have launched dreams on this pond.
To establish a foothold in Paris,
I like to choose a neighborhood and make it home.
Strolling market streets like this,
Paris has a small-town charm.
For those learning the fine art of living Parisian-style,
market streets like Rue Cler are ideal.
With the help of my local friend Delphine Prigent,
each shop provides an insight into Parisian life.
Delphine's planning a dinner party and she's taking us along.
Shopping on a street like this is just a delight, isn't it?
It's really nice.
We are very lucky to able to walk on the street
and have all these very different shops
which are very good for shopping.
'Cause in America, there's one-stop shopping.
We go to one big place.
We have one-street shopping here.
One-street shopping, like a market street.
It's a market street, it is.
I think for the first course, it would be nice
to put some shrimps and mayonnaise.
Okay.
And so you see you have different types of shrimps.
You have, like, different colors,
different sizes as well, so I think we'll
go for the "moyenne," for the medium ones,
which are very flavorful.
It looks very fresh.
So we'll have some meat tonight as a main course,
and we'll use a neighborhood butcher.
You know, my mum used to come here, and...
Rick: So you can trust the quality.
You can trust the quality, you know that
they give you advice as well.
So I'm going to have roasted beef,
and I'm going to ask the man for some tips.
[ speaks French ]
[ man speaks French ]
[ speaks French ]
"Merci, monsieur."
Rick: So what did he say?
So he said like 25 minutes,
and for six people, 1,200 grams.
1,200 grams. For six? Big people.
[ laughs ]
So, Rick, a dinner
without a cheese course is not complete,
so we have to go and pick some cheese.
Before dessert, after main course,
and we'll have
an assortment of different cheeses.
So you create a variety. Yes.
I create a small plate with different cheese.
So we'll have some -- this one looks good,
some goat cheese,
and some blue, some camembert, and some hard cheese.
Rick: Good socially, I think.
It is very good because you have more wine.
More wine, more cheese, more wine, more cheese.
So once we know what we are eating,
we are going to choose a wine.
Oh. Beautiful shop.
Yes, it's very nice.
"Bonjour."
We are going to talk to the expert
and we are going to tell him
what I'm going to have for dinner
and he's going to pick the right wines for us.
Rick: In France, with so many wines
to choose from, expert advice is welcome.
He recommends a white for the shrimp,
a full-bodied red from the Rhône Valley
for the beef,
and another white, this time from the Loire Valley,
for the cheese plate.
Nice to have the advice
for the little details of the menu.
In France, any good meal comes with fresh bread,
and that requires a visit to the local "boulangerie."
Delphine: So you'll have some bread for the dinner.
No meal without today's bread.
Today's bread? No bread, no party.
No bread, no party.
So we'll have some baguettes
and we'll have some special bread as well
for the cheese.
Oh, so it's a variety of bread
with the cheese course.
Rick: And the final touch, flowers for the table.
Delphine: It's very bright
and they're going to be beautiful on my table.
It's great.
Rick: We're hopping the Métro to visit another neighborhood.
Paris has the most extensive subway system on the continent,
and it's clearly the fastest
and most economic way to get around town.
Trains come frequently and the system is easy to use.
The Marais is another distinct Parisian neighborhood.
I'm always impressed by how you can just sit
and savor Parisian street scenes like this.
Once a mucky slum -- "Marais" means "swamp" --
it was gentrified in the 17th century
by King Henry IV.
With Henry's vision,
Place des Vosges became the centerpiece
of the finest neighborhood in town.
Stroll along its elegant, gallery-lined arcade.
The park-like square is a reminder that Paris
is not just a collection of world-class museums.
For millions of people,
it's home --
a place to meet a lover,
enjoy a relaxed retirement,
or raise a family.
In the 18th century,
as Parisian high society moved elsewhere,
immigrating Jews gradually settled here in the Marais.
In the historic heart of this neighborhood,
you'll find Paris' Jewish Quarter,
with kosher eateries and falafel joints
that draw an enthusiastic crowd.
Strolling its characteristic lanes,
pause and observe.
It's a celebration of cultural diversity.
The Marais is also the city's
gay district, much enjoyed for
its lively cafes and clubs.
And, straight or gay, trendy Marais boutiques
make for fun window-shopping.
Paris' original neighborhood,
the Île de la Cité, is well worth exploring.
While a church has stood on this island since ancient times,
the iconic Gothic cathedral we see today,
dedicated to "notre dame," or "Our Lady,"
is only 700 years old.
You can brave the line for a look at its interior
and climb to the top of its bell tower.
But the church I like to visit in Paris,
especially on Sunday mornings,
is St. Sulpice, to enjoy
its magnificent pipe organ, arguably the greatest in Europe.
For organ lovers, a visit here is a pilgrimage.
After Mass, enthusiasts from around the world scamper
like 16th notes up the spiral stairs
into a world of 7,000 pipes.
Before electricity, it took three men
working out on these 18th-century Stairmasters
to fill the bellows which powered the organ.
The current organist, Daniel Roth,
carries on the tradition of
welcoming guests into the loft to see
the organ in action.
As his apprentices pull and push the many stops
that engage the symphony of pipes,
a commotion of music lovers
crowd around a tower of keyboards
and watch the master at work.
St. Sulpice has a rich history,
with a line of 12 world-class organists
going back over 300 years.
Like kings or presidents,
the lineage is charted on the wall,
and overseeing all this, Johann Sebastian Bach.
This sacred music continues to fill
the spiritual sails of St. Sulpice,
as it has for centuries.
The good life in Paris --
music, culture, an appreciation of
its rich heritage and fine architecture --
is easy to take for granted,
but today's freedoms and a government
that seems passionate about its people's needs
didn't come to France without a struggle,
and the pinnacle of that struggle,
an epic event that reverberates in the spirit
of its people to this day, was the French revolution.
The symbolic launch pad of the French Revolution
was a notorious prison called the Bastille,
which stood on this square.
In 1789, angry Parisians stormed it,
released its prisoners, and tore it down.
It's one of Europe's great non-sights --
there's nothing left to see.
While Parisian back lanes feel peaceful and content today,
during times of revolution, they hid hotbeds of discontent.
Before French political leaders learned the wisdom
of subsidizing the cost of baguettes,
hungry peasant mobs would set up barricades
in narrow lanes like these.
Generals like Napoleon
were fond of quieting the streets by loading
chains and nails into cannon and giving the malcontents
what they called "a whiff of grapeshot."
Later, the government commissioned Baron Haussmann
to modernize the city.
He ripped up most of medieval Paris
and created the city's grand boulevards.
Great city planning, but really,
it was great military planning.
Heavy artillery and grand armies work better
with long, broad streets as battlefields.
Paris was made easier to rule, and more elegant.
Today, like a citywide game of "connect the dots,"
wide Parisian boulevards lead to famous landmarks,
like the Pantheon...
The old opera...
The Arc de Triomphe...
And the Hotel des Invalides.
Built by Louis XIV in the 1600s as a veterans' hospital,
this massive building now houses
Europe's greatest military museum,
and, at its center, under a grand dome which
glitters with 26 pounds of thinly pounded gold leaf,
lies the tomb of Napoleon.
It's hard to imagine a building
dedicated to a mortal that's more impressive.
Gazing at Napoleon's tomb,
I love to ponder the story of the charismatic leader
who took France from revolutionary chaos
to near total dominance of Europe,
and then, catastrophically,
to near ruins.
Just a humble kid from Corsica, Napoleon Bonaparte
went to military school here in Paris.
He rose quickly through the ranks
during the tumultuous years of the Revolution.
By 1799, he was the ruler of France.
After that, within five years,
France had conquered most of Europe,
and Napoleon declared himself emperor of it all.
As the head of France's grand million-man army,
he blitzed Europe.
His personal charisma on the battlefield
was said to be worth 10,000 additional men.
Imagine Napoleon the emperor, all of Europe at his feet.
The laurel wreath, the robes, and the Roman eagles
proclaim him equal to Caesar.
As emperor, he worked feverishly
to implement the ideals of the revolution into
a well-designed and modern society.
Probably no single individual destroyed so much
and yet built so much.
To this day, the French remember Napoleon
for his legacy -- infrastructure,
education system, and legal code.
But, ultimately,
his megalomania got the best of him.
Napoleon invaded Russia with the greatest army ever assembled
and returned to Paris with a frostbitten fraction
of what he started with.
Two years later, the Russians marched into Paris,
and Napoleon was deposed.
After a brief exile on the isle of Elba,
in 1850, Napoleon skipped parole and returned to France,
where he bared his breast and declared,
"Strike me down or follow me!"
For a hundred days,
the people of France followed him,
until finally in Belgium, Napoleon was defeated
once and for all by the British at Waterloo.
Exiled again, Napoleon spent his final years
on a remote island in the South Atlantic
until he died in 1821.
The Arc de Triomphe was finished just in time
for the funeral procession that welcomed Napoleon's body
home from exile in 1840.
The arch is a memorial to France's
many military campaigns, and is particularly stirring
on national holidays, when it flies the French flag.
It crowns the city's main drag.
Europe's grandest boulevard is the Champs-Élysées.
Built for the queen in the 1600s,
it originated as a carriageway
leading away from the palace gardens.
The population of France is becoming increasingly diverse,
and this is particularly true
here in its cosmopolitan capital.
The largest immigrant group is from its
former colonies in Africa,
especially Muslims from North Africa.
Paris' mosque is a reminder that,
even though its colonial empire is long gone,
cultural connections remain strong.
The challenge for both France and its immigrants
is to assimilate comfortably
into an ever more multi-ethnic society.
Welcoming visitors,
the mosque's tranquil courtyard
provides a calm and meditative oasis
in the midst of the hubbub of Paris.
The adjacent Cafe de la Mosquée
provides a tasty alternative to French cuisine.
Parisians and North Africans alike enjoy couscous,
tagine, and a characteristic glass of sweet mint chai
with the ambiance of a Moroccan teahouse.
Nearby stands the home of the Arab World Institute,
a partnership between France and 22 Arab countries.
With a museum, art galleries, and library,
its mission is to build understanding between
the Arab world and France.
And from its rooftop terrace,
the rest of the city beckons.
The Palais du Louvre
was once the palace of the ultimate kings
and the biggest building in the entire world.
Today, the vast,
horseshoe-shaped palace,
built in stages over eight centuries,
with its striking 20th-century pyramid entry,
houses the world's grandest collection of art treasures.
These people are waiting not to get into the Louvre
but to buy a ticket to get into the Louvre.
With a city museum pass, I save money, and,
more importantly, lots of time.
Anyone with this pass can walk right in.
Once inside, take a moment to enjoy
the modern pyramid entry, a work of art in itself.
It leads to three wings.
We'll limit our visit to the Denon wing.
The Louvre's huge collection
covers art history from ancient times
to about 1850.
It can be overwhelming.
A key to enjoying your visit --
don't even try to cover it all.
Enjoy an excuse to return.
Remember to look up for a sense of how,
long before it was a museum,
this was Europe's ultimate palace
and home of its mightiest kings.
In fact, the collection includes
royal French regalia, such as the crown of Louis XV
and the crown Napoleon wore on his coronation.
This museum is one of the world's oldest,
opened to the public during the French Revolution in 1793.
I guess it just makes sense.
You behead the king, inherit his palace
and a vast royal collection of art,
open the doors, and "voila" -- a people's museum.
The statue of Winged Victory seems to declare that
the Louvre's ancient collection is Europe's finest.
Two centuries before Christ,
this wind-whipped masterpiece of Hellenistic Greek art
stood on a bluff celebrating a great naval victory.
And just past her stands
an entourage of twisting and striding statues,
each modeling the ideal human form.
Venus de Milo has struck her pose
like a reigning beauty queen for 2,500 years now.
There must be more famous paintings here
than in any other museum.
The crowded grand gallery, while a quarter mile long,
displays only a small part of the Louvre's collection.
We'll feature a few paintings
representative of three styles --
Renaissance,
Neoclassical, and Romantic.
Francois I, who ruled through
the early 1500s, was France's Renaissance king.
His private paintings became
the core of the Louvre's collection.
It was trendy for kings to have
a Renaissance genius in their court.
One of Europe's greatest kings, Francois "Premier,"
got Europe's top genius, Leonardo da Vinci.
Leonardo's work epitomized the aesthetics
of the Renaissance, and the Louvre's collection
of his paintings demonstrates his lasting influence.
His "Virgin of the Rocks"
illustrates his trademark "sfumato" technique --
the subtle modeling of his faces,
and, in landscapes, how he shows distance
by making it hazier and hazier.
And this portrait, "Mona Lisa,"
believed to be of the wife of a Florentine merchant,
is Leonardo's crowd-pleasing masterpiece.
With her enigmatic smile,
she seems to enjoy all the attention.
Her body is solid and statue-like,
a perfectly balanced pyramid,
angled back so we can appreciate its mass.
Her arm, level with the frame,
adds stability and realism.
And again, Leonardo creates depth
in Mona's dreamy backyard.
For me, this painting sums up the Renaissance --
balance, confidence, and humanism,
the age when the common individual --
Mona Lisa -- becomes art-worthy.
Like the museum,
Napoleon was a product of the Revolution.
One of the Louvre's largest canvases shows
Europe's grandest coronation -- Napoleon's.
The pope traveled from Rome to Paris to crown Napoleon,
but Europe's most famous megalomaniac,
crown confidently in hand,
pretty much ran the coronation show himself.
The pope looks a little neglected.
The French Revolution was all about ending kings,
so Napoleon crowned himself emperor.
The politically correct art style of the time
was Neoclassical.
Napoleon would approve of everything in this room.
Greek, Roman, heroic,
or patriotic themes, clean, simple, and logical --
it's pure Neoclassical.
This Parisian woman, wearing ancient garb
and a Pompeii hairdo, reclines on a Roman-style couch,
perfectly in vogue.
Neoclassicism was an intellectual movement.
After all, during the Revolution,
everything was subjected to the "test of reason."
Nothing was sacred.
If it wasn't logical, it was rejected.
The reaction to Neoclassicism was a romantic movement --
"Romanticism."
Romanticism meant putting feeling over intellect,
passion over restrained judgment.
Logic and reason were replaced by a spirit
that encouraged artists
to be emotional and create not merely
what the eyes saw but also what the heart felt.
What better setting for an emotional work than the story
of an actual shipwreck?
In Gericault's "Raft of the Medusa,"
we see a human pyramid ranging from death and despair
at its base to a pinnacle of hope
as one of the survivors spots a ship,
which ultimately comes to their rescue.
If art controls your heartbeat,
this is a masterpiece.
The Romantic Movement championed nationalistic causes
of the 19th century.
Delacroix's "Liberty Leading the People"
shows the citizens in 1830, once again asserting their power
and raising the French flag at a barricade
in those troublesome back streets of Paris.
This painting and that struggle reverberate
with the French people to this day.
France's national holiday is July 14, Bastille Day.
That's today, and that means a big party
as all of France indulges in a patriotic bash.
In Paris, that means lots of flags
and lots of parties.
Everyone's welcome to join in.
Like towns and villages all over the country,
each neighborhood here hosts parties
until late into the night.
The local fire department's putting on this party,
so I guess it doesn't matter if the fire marshal drops by.
♪ "Let's live it up" ♪
♪ "I got my money" ♪
♪ "Let's spend it up" ♪
♪ "Go out and smash it" ♪
♪ "Like oh, my god" ♪
♪ "Jump off that sofa" ♪
♪ "Let's get, get off" ♪
Traditionally, crowds pack the bridges
and line the river for a grand fireworks display
over the Eiffel Tower.
[ crowd cheering ]
Paris is a cultural capital with many dimensions,
and it certainly knows how to celebrate its freedom.
Thanks for joining us.
I'm Rick Steves.
Until next time, keep on travelin'.
Vive la France!
I hope there's lots of wine.
We'll have more fun with wine.
Oh, that's for sure.
Angry Parisians stormed it, released its prisoners,
grabbed its arsenal, and tore it down.
It's one of Europe's incredible non-sights --
there's nothing left to see!
And never get enough of what to me is the capital of Europe --
[ loud bang ] Paris.
I'm Rick Steves. Until next time --
ugh!