Category: Paris

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To The Guillotine and Back

One thing I’ve learned…

while researching this book in Paris, is there are enough individual sad stories about the French Revolution to fill an entire book. This really hit home when we visited the Picpus Cemetery in the 12th district.

Picpus is the only private cemetery left in the city of Paris. It is a cemetery born out of the Revolution. For background purposes, let me take you to 11 June 1794. France and Paris in particular are in the depths of the period called “The Terror.”

The Terror

The guillotine has been dismantled and moved to the “Square of the Overturned Throne.” This in now known as the place de la Nation (Métro: Nation). For the next 46 days, 1,306 people were executed here. Only on 27 July 1794 or 9 Thermidor was the blade of the guillotine silenced. Robespierre was arrested, attempted suicide, and held at various locations.

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The Uniqueness of Paris

Stew Ross (author) sitting on Sanson grave at Montmartre Cemetery. (Photo by Dan Owen)
Stew Ross (author) sitting on Sanson grave at Montmartre Cemetery. (Photo by Dan Owen)

Always Enough To Do

How many times have you visited a city you’ve always wanted to see, and allotted, a certain amount of days only to find out once you get there that you can see everything in half the time?

Yet there are other cities that it doesn’t matter how many times you return there is always enough things to do, to learn, and experience.

That is the uniqueness of Paris.

There aren’t that many cities in the world that you return to for the twelfth time and you’re still experiencing new things. There’s London, Rome, Tokyo, and New York City to mention a few.

I would never discourage first timers to Paris to disregard the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Tuileries Gardens, or a boat ride on the Seine. Any other city and they are called, “Tourist Traps” – not in Paris.

More Than the Eiffel Tower

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