As you are all dreaming of days and nights in Paris, I encourage you to let the city happen to you as it did to us a number of years ago. You never know what might happen.
We were celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary on a fantastic French vacation. We spent a week on a luxury escorted bicycle tour of Burgandy and then finished the trip with two nights in Paris. We really didn%26#39;t plan much other than a blow the budget anniversary dinner, it was our second trip to the city and we were just taking it casually. We did want to go up the Eiffel Tower as on our previous trip we had only looked at it from the end of the Champ de Mars. Tiredly,but happliy eating Fois Gras on baguette.
On July 8,1998 we were wandering around the Tracadero on our way to the Eiffel tower and we saw these huge TV screens. We had heard that they were placed around in parks for crowds to view the World cup. The semifinals (France was in it) were being played that night. Nothing seemed to be going on and no crowds were gathering. We headed over to the ET and saw more unwatched TV screens and an orchestra shell in the park.
We eventually meandered our way up the viewing levels of the ET. While at the top I thought I heard something going on in the park and I convinced my husband to stop again at the lower level. Sure enough something was going on, there was music and signing. Turns out the TV screens were in preparation for a free concert in the park several days later, performed by the three tenors. Hundreds of thousands of people were expected. But tonight was an unannounced dress rehearsal. Luciano Pavarotti was singing to ME on the balcony of the Tour de Eiffel. After I got over being stunned, we went down to the park and listened to the rest of the hour performance. Front row with maybe 100 people around. My husband was starving and we really didn%26#39;t know where to get food and foolishly thought that if we didn%26#39;t hurry we might miss dinner (10PM) so we headed to the Champs-Elysees figuring something must still be open (ignorant Americans). We got off at the wrong Metro station, too close to the Jardin de Tuileries to find anything interesting. Hints that should have worried us: the TV leaving the Metro station had the following on screen France 2, Croatia 1. There were 3 or 4 policemen at every corner. I grew up in the Detroit area. Policemen in groups were NOT a good thing. As we headed toward the Arc de Triumph things eventually returned to normal and we started to look for food. ANYTHING at this point looked good. Before we could decide all Hell started breaking loose. I heard a big BANG, people started screaming and pouring out of buildings, shop keepers started grabbing chairs and pulling them inside and pulling down grates. The Detroit girl in me is starting to panic! RIOTS! My husband calmed me down and pushed me into a still open pizzaria where we grabbed a table and watched the melee ensue. France won the semi-finals of the world cup (eventually winning it) It was chaos for the next 20 minutes or so, people were walking on top of the cars that were unlucky enough to be trying to drive down the blvd. Fortunately car burning didn%26#39;t start and it was clear that it was a joyous celebration. For the next two hours we watched very very happy, singing people marching to the Arc de Triumph. They never came back the other way, always to the arch of victory. Turns out, the turnstiles were turned off on the metro and people just rode it back a few stops so they could march the victory route again. The song was a cute tune but we were told it wasn%26#39;t a real song people were just singing %26quot;we won%26quot;. On the way back to our hotel we watched one of the trains. The revelers had it swaying on the tracks.
The following night review of dinner at Alain Ducasse will have to wait for another time, but was just as memerable.
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How exciting to be party to the celebration.Lucky you to hear the tenors!
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That you can remember with such detail the events of 7 years ago just highlights the true meaning of %26quot;priceless memories%26quot;.
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