La Grande Arche is a tall office building west of Paris that is shaped liked an arch. The building, completed in 1989, was intended to resemble the Arc de Triomphe.
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| (Credit: ColdCreation) |
The location of the Grande Arche is not haphazard. The building sits on the Axe Historique, a straight line starting at the Louvre, running along the Champs-Élysées and stretching about 5 miles to the Grande Arche. Other important monuments sit along the Axe Historique.
The top of the building includes a small museum and an observation deck. Getting to the top is interesting, especially if you are acrophobic. A glass elevator lifts passengers to the top through an open framework. Check it out.
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| Looking upward from the elevator |
The museum at the top tells the story
Grande Arche's design and construction. The building, which is 360 feet high, was inaugurated on the bicentennial of the French Revolution.
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| A model of the Grande Arche |
The view of the Paris skyline from the observation deck is amazing.
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| A view along the Axe Historique, with the Arc de Triomphe barely visible in the distance |
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| A view of the Eiffel Tower in the distance, with the white-colored Fondation Louis Vuitton in the nearby Bois du Boulogne. |
Another place visible from the Grande Arche is Le Mont-Valérien. A fortress was built there in 1841 to defend Paris. Since 1945, the location is a memorial to those killed during WWII. The fortress was used by the Germans for executing more than a thousand prisoners, mostly Resistance fighters.
Thanks for visiting
La Grande Arche with us.
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| Jean-Claude on the esplanade of the Grande Arche |
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