France and the U.S. sometimes seem like an old married couple or maybe two girlfriends who've known each other since grade school. We've stuck together through much of the past 250 years but we still can't seem to stop pick, pick, picking at each other. Still under the surface of cultural clashes and misunderstandings, we still have an abiding love for each other, or at least, our ideal of the other.In my previous post about the American landmarks in Paris, I left out a big one: the replica of the Statue of Liberty which, of course, the French gifted to the U.S. back in 1886. Actually, there's more than one in Paris, but the biggest and most dramatically placed is the one standing at the western tip of the Île des Cygnes, looking west up the Seine towards New York Harbor. On one of the rare sunny Sundays in recent memory, I caught a few pictures to share. If you can believe Wikipedia, it turns out that this one was actually put in place (although originally in the Place des États-Unis in the 16th arrondissement) before the inauguration of the one in New York. It was moved to its current spot in 1889 and restored with support of the Florence Gould Foundation in 1988.
To visit the statue, you can approach from the north via the Pont de Bir Hakeim (Metro: Passy or Bir Hakeim) or from the south via the Pont de Grenelle (RER: Avenue du President Kennedy).
Views of contemporary apartment buildings in the 15th and the skinny strip of land that makes a beeline path to the statue.
4 comments:
I keep meaning to make the journey to see this, but somehow never get around to it.
love her...such an icon.
always amazes me how icons are duplictated - seen the original in NY from a distance!
Then there is Cleopatre's needle in NY, London and Paris
I recall my first visit to Paris, taking one of the sightseeing dinner boats (before I knew any better :-))...when the boat reached this statue, the entertainment broke into singing "New York, New York"...it was hilarious.
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