“Where hacks come to spew nonsense” - B2B
Miscellaneous shots from my phone:
Tete de Veau, or calf’s head…my co-worker ordered this on my behalf. I was able to choke down two bites.
Lyon opera house.
Lyon Saint-Exupery train station.
Lots of motos in Paris.
On the hill of Montmartre looking down on Paris.
Basilique du Sacre Coeur at the top of Montmartre
The original Moulin Rouge.
From Wikipedia:
Georges-Eugène Haussmann was hired by Napoleon III on 22 June 1852 to “modernize” Paris. He hoped in hiring Haussmann that Paris could be moulded into a city with safer streets, better housing, more sanitary, hospitable, shopper-friendly communities, better traffic flow, and, last but not least, streets too broad for rebels to build barricades across them and where coherent battalions and artillery could circulate easily if need be. He created broad avenues linked to the main train-stations so army troops from the provinces could be operative in a short amount of time (for example, the boulevard de Strasbourg near Gare de l’Est and Gare du Nord). This work achieved during the Second Empire is one of the causes of the quick repression of the 1871 Paris Commune: since the 1848 revolution, Adolphe Thiers had become obsessed with crushing out the next foreseeable Parisian rebellion. Thus, he planned to leave the city and retreat, in order to better take it back with more military forces.
Haussmann’s design of streets and avenues, combined with the new importance given to trains, made this plan more than successful, and Adolphe Thiers easily crushed the Communards. Haussmann accomplished much of this by tearing up many of the old, twisting streets and rundown apartment houses, and replacing them with the wide, tree-lined boulevards and expansive gardens for which Paris is famous today. Other elements of Haussman’s plan included uniform building heights, grand boulevards, and anchoring elements including the Arc de Triomphe and the Grand Opera House.
Haussmann’s plan for Paris inspired some of the most important architectural movements including the City Beautiful Movement in the United States. In fact, renowned American architect Daniel Burnham borrowed liberally from Haussmann’s plan and even incorporated the diagonal street designs in his 1909 Plan of Chicago. Cities like London and Moscow also have Haussmann influences in their city plans.
Beautiful city, but I am glad to be coming home tomorrow.
