The Seine river

The Seine (pronounced "sen") is a major river of northern France, forming the country's chief commercial waterway. It is also a tourist attraction, particularly within the city of Paris.

The river is 780 km (485 miles) long, France's second longest (after the Loire which is 1020 km (634 miles) long). In ancient times the Seine was known by the Latin name Sequana.

The Seine's main tributaries are the Aube, Marne and Oise rivers from the north and the Yonne and Eure rivers from the south. It is connected with canals to the Scheldt (also called the Escaut), Meuse, Rhine, Saône and Loire rivers.

The Seine rises in the French région of Burgundy, in the département of Côte-d'Or, 30 km (18 miles) northwest of Dijon at a height of 471 metres (1545 feet). The river then flows through Troyes to Paris.
In Paris, narrowed between high stone embankments, the river carries commercial barges, waterbuses and large tourist boats (bateaux-mouches). From the water, fine views are seen of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay (housing Paris' collection of Impressionist art), the Conciergerie and the Eiffel Tower. The northern side of the river is described as the Right Bank (Rive Droite) and the southern side as the Left Bank (Rive Gauche).

Banks of the river Seine

From the Louvre to the Eiffel Tower, from the Place de la Concorde to the Grand and Petit Palais, the evolution of Paris and its history can be seen from the River Seine. The Cathedral of Notre-Dame and the Sainte Chapelle are architectural masterpieces while Haussmann's wide squares and boulevards influenced late 19th- and 20th-century town planning the world over.

Pont des Arts

The Pont des Arts, the Heart of Romantic Paris

If a river is a symbol of life, and a bridge is a symbol of change, then the River Seine and its bridges symbolize the life of Paris, where “plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose”. One thing will never change, and that is the frisson of nostalgia, the romantic flush that overcomes you when you stop on the Pont des Arts and gaze upriver towards the Ile de la Cité, the historic center of Paris that was the home of kings until the 14th century.

This wooden walkway atop seven steel arches is the natural domain of the kissing couple, intoxicated by the seductive embrace of sky, Seine and sous-entendre.

The bridge offers a lovers'-eye-view of the famous quays, the bouquinistes at their familiar green metal stalls selling posters and old books, the flags of the Samaritaine department store fluttering overhead, and the ever-gratifying Eiffel Tower defining the Parisian skyline to the west.

It is strung between the Institut de France (where you will find the Academie Française busily defending the language of Molière against inroads by the language of Shakespeare) and the Louvre Museum — initially the Palais des Arts, from which the bridge derived its name.

The current structure is among the newest of the French capital's bridges, having been completed in 1984, but it replaced France 's first iron bridge with plans that were as faithful as possible to the original structure, while reducing the arches from nine to seven.

The original Pont des Arts was built in 1804, following nearly three decades after the world's first iron bridge was built over the Severn River in England, an achievement that Napoleon – then only First Consul, with greater ambitions ahead of him — was eager to match.

This bridge had a series of mishaps, including being bombarded in both World Wars and being pummeled by passing river traffic, with serious accidents in 1961 and 1970, with the last straw coming in 1979, when it was hit by a barge and nearly half the structure crashed into the water.

Today its proud replacement offers benches for picnickers and canoodlers, a stage for street performers and a vantage point for artists, as the placid green waters of the Seine swirl along underfoot. Here, the river's flow is barely perceptible, as if to stop time in its tracks. This is timeless Paris .... where the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Gina Doggett also won the 2nd prize in the Paris Essay Contest for her essay on the Galerie Véro-Dodat.
This text is by Paris Eiffel Tower News.

The Eiffel tower

The Eiffel Tower is the most recognizable landmark in Paris and is known worldwide as a symbol of France. Named after its designer, Gustave Eiffel, it is a premier tourist destination, with over 5.5 million visitors per year.

The structure was built from 1887-1889 as the entrance arch for the Exposition Universelle (1889), a World's fair marking the centennial celebration of the French revolution. It was inaugurated on March 31, 1889, and opened on May 6. 300 steel workers joined together 18,038 pieces of steel, using two and a half million rivets. Considering the safety standards in place at the time, it is remarkable that only one worker died in the construction of the tower (during the installation of Otis Elevator's lifts (elevators)).
The tower is 300 metres (986 feet) tall, not including the television antenna on top, which adds another 20 meters, and weighs over 10,000 tons (over 21,000,000 pounds). It was the tallest structure in the world for forty years. Maintenance on the tower includes 50 tons of three graded tones of brown paint every 7 years. Depending on the ambient temperature, the top of the Eiffel Tower will shift away from the sun by eight centimetres because of expansion of the sun-warmed metal.
Perhaps predictably, the tower met with resistance from the public when it was first built, many thought it would be an eyesore. Today it is widely considered to be one of the most striking pieces of architectural art in the world.
One of the great Hollywood movie clichés is that the view from a Parisian window always includes the Eiffel Tower.
Originally, Eiffel had a permit to leave the tower standing for 20 years, more than recouping his expenses, but as it proved valuable for communication purposes, it was allowed to stay after the end of the permit.

Events

On January 12, 1908, the first long-distance radio message was sent from the tower.
View from the Tower across the River Seine, showing the Trocadero gardens and the Palais de Chaillot. A pleasure boat cruises on the river.Father Theodor Wulf in 1910 took observations of radiant energy radiation at the top and bottom of the Eiffel Tower, discovering more than was expected at the top, and thereby detecting what are today known as cosmic rays.
In 1925, the con artist Victor Lustig twice "sold" the Eiffel Tower for scrap.
In 1929, the Tower lost the title of the World's tallest structure when the Chrysler Building was completed in New York.
When Adolf Hitler visited occupied Paris in 1940, the lift cables were cut by the French so that he would have to climb the 1792 steps to the summit - the part to repair them was allegedly impossible to obtain because of the war, though it was working again within hours of the departure of the Nazis. He chose to stay on the ground.
On January 3, 1956 a fire damaged the top of the tower.
In 1959 the present radio antenna was added to the top.
In the 1980s an old restaurant and its supporting iron scaffolding midway up the tower was dismantled; this was purchased and reconstructed in New Orleans, Louisiana, originally as the Tour Eiffel Restaurant, more recently known as the Red Room.
In the year 2000, flashing lights and several high power searchlights were installed on the tower. Since then the light show has become a nightly event. The searchlights on top of the tower make it a beacon in Paris' night sky.
The tower received its 200,000,000th guest on November 28, 2002.
At 19:20 on July 22, 2003, a fire occurred at the top of the tower in the broadcasting equipment room. The entire tower was evacuated; the fire was extinguished after forty minutes, and there were no reports of injuries.

Reproductions and Imitations

Several reproductions of the Eiffel Tower (often smaller-scale) are found in:
• Tokyo, Japan called the Tokyo Tower (13 meters higher than the original, scale 1.04:1)
• Blackpool, England - Blackpool Tower 158 meters (519 feet) tall is not quite a free-standing structure; it stands above the Tower Circus complex, where the four "legs" can be seen.
• Guatemala City, Guatemala - Torre del Reformador, 75 meters tall
• Paradise, Nevada, near Las Vegas, USA (scale 1:2)
• Prague, Czech Republic (scale 1:5), Petrinska rozhledna, built in 1891
• Shenzhen, China (scale 1:3)
• King's Island theme park, Ohio (scale 1:3)
• an imitation in front of Paris Hotel, Las Vegas, 165 meters (540 feet) high (scale 1:2).
• Wembley Park, London - Watkins' Tower
• Woodwards Building, Vancouver, Canada. A small reproduction on the roof of the building is topped by a signature neon "W". This building is now being converted into social housing.
• Paramount Park's Kings Dominion, Virginia. A 84 m (275-ft) reproduction is available for the amusement of visitors. (scale 1:3.59)