Rue de Rivoli description and photos - France: Paris (Topic)

Rue de Rivoli description and photos - France: Paris. Detailed information about the attraction. Description, photographs and a map showing the nearest significant objects. The title in English is Rue de Rivoli.

Photo and description

Rue de Rivoli is considered the longest in Paris. She is also the most famous (except, of course, the Champs Elysees). The guidebooks write that Rivoli is a "natural continuation" of the Champs Elysees. This is not entirely true: the street lines do not match. But Rivoli really stretches east from the Place de la Concorde, parallel to the Seine, right up to the old Mare quarter - three kilometers of grace and history.

He founded rue Napoleon in 1806 - he named it in memory of his own military victory near the Italian city of Rivoli ... The "Napoleonic" part of the street stretches along the Tuileries Gardens and the Louvre. On its northern part, the architects of the emperor Persier and Fontaine erected a long - more than a kilometer - row of identical buildings with deep arcades. They were invented by Fontaine so that, as he explained, "Visitors to fashion shops ... could not pay attention to bad weather." This is perhaps the best place to buy all sorts of little things in memory of Paris.

Charles X and Louis-Philippe continued the work of Napoleon Bonaparte, continuing Rivoli east to Saint-Antoine suburb - it was with them that it became so long ... The construction had a good reason: in the crooked streets of the suburbs, it is convenient for the insurgent population to build barricades, Rivoli was necessary for the quick transfer of troops there. Nevertheless, throughout the centuries of history, the street has remained exceptionally peaceful.

The Louvre, the Gothic tower of Saint-Jacques, is located on Rivoli, and the building of the Paris City Hall overlooks it. In the center of the modest Pyramids Square (named again in honor of Napoleon's victory in Egypt) there is a small gilded equestrian statue of Joan of Arc, which does not really correspond to the grandiose architectural ensemble.

Rivoli is directly related to Russian culture. For three years Ivan Turgenev rented a small apartment on the fourth floor in house No. 210. He also recommended the family boarding house in house number 206 to Leo Tolstoy - the classic lived here for several months. A memorial plaque on the facade of the house reminds of this.

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Topic: Rue de Rivoli description and photos - France: Paris.