h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Paris is great. It has great food, fascinating architecture and a real buzz. It's only problem is that it's not on a human scale. The planning is far too big - walking from point to point quickly becomes impractical - while you have to be a true Parisian to be mad enough to dart through the tiny spaces in the traffic if you dare to drive in - Braille Parking is very much the order of the day. I've never driven there but as an idea of it's sheer scale, a fellow architecture student and I went up the Eiffel Tower, from which we could see the Grande Arche de La Defance, illuminated brightly. We decided it would be an easy walk. However, like most of the buildings in La Defance (and similarly, the Grande Bibliotheque), the Grande Arche was conceived as a pure shape - from a distance it looked much closer than it was. It took us over three hours to get there. Mind you, the sheer size of it was mind-blowing when we did get there.

If you do go to Paris and like the architecture, visit Chartres Cathedral on the way back (I *think* it's on the way back...) The bizarre history of one-upmanship in cathedral building has given this modest city a most remarkable building, widely regarded as key in the development of 'Gothic', and all subsequent cathedrals (and before anyone asks, as has been the case on a newsgroup I subscribe to, Gothic doesn't mean it's populated with people in layered black clothes with too many body piercings).

Paris was redeveloped extensively by Napolean III in the late Eighteenth Century. This was supposedly to 'do away' with slum areas, but cynics noted that the vast new boulevards and avenues (such as the Champs Elysees) were also now the perfect width to fit militia and cannon down, and also far too wide to barricade effectively. (Parisiens, in common with the rest of the French race, were, and still are, prone to barricade the streets at the slightest provocation.

Had you spent the morning on absinthe, Cakewalker? How else would you decide from several hundred feet up that something like La Defence was close?! Sounds like the Father Ted sketch where he holds up a model cow for Dougal and explains "large: far away, small: close up." Still, walking in Paris is always fun as long as you make enough brasserie stops.

It was dark...

Take the Ray-Bans off next time then!

Doh!

The Arch at La Defense is actually a hole in the middle of a building, isn't it? I've seen it from a distance too, but never actually been to it. If you want parisian updates, my mate Wonko the Sane lives in Paris. Post something on his home page and he'll get back to you eventually (twin babies take up most of his time just now).

I'm not quite sure what the concept of the Arche was. Structurally, I think it is actually one unit, sitting on it's foundations, so theoretically, it could have been put anywhere. It does look like a box with a hole through the middle, the sides of the box tapering into the hole - at the bottom this forms the steps which, when I visited once in the summer, seemed a popular place to sit and socialise. Though I'm sure Wonko the Sane will fill me in with more details. I had a book on La Defance and the buildings within it, but don't have it to hand, so can't really say much more!