Armistice Day, Tuesday November 11th

Veteran's Day in the US, the holiday was initially created to honor the end of World War I.  A relatively big deal in the US, it's a very large holiday in Europe, for the obvious reasons.

Part of the benefit to being here for such a long stay is that we can take the time to go to more locally interesting events.  The Armistice Day celebrations closed down the Arc de Triomphe and ALL the roads leading up to it, as well (we assume) as the Metro underneath.  For us, not an inconvenience but an opportunity to do something largely attended by the French.

We'd read that the signer of the armistice agreement for the Allies was French Marshall Foch.  His name was given to the spoke road off the Arc where we take Emmy daily.  It's very wide, tree lined, with those stretches of grass.  The agreement was signed on November 11th at 11AM, and that's when the French President, Hollande, lays a wreath at the French tomb of the unknown soldier, which is located underneath the Arc.

We're sorry, but our pictures for this aren't terribly good.  We were in the shade (cold!) and pretty much everything was in the shadows.  Also, we'd assumed that this would be about parades and marching bands and it seemed to be more of an event of recognition.  So, while there was a brief parade of horses that accompanied Hollande, that was it.  Bands and military guards surrounded the wide roadway circle of the Arc, but the police were keeping everyone very far away.  It looked like most foreign ambassadors attended, including the US.  We saw embassy cars (quite a few Mercedes) drive by from our vantage point on the Champs Elysee (which was otherwise closed!).  Without the large screens, it wouldn't have been possible to see much, but we were glad to be there anyway.  Here are our pictures:

The horse parade that escorted Hollande

Troops being dismissed following the event.

Difficult to see, but the guy in the center of the picture leading the group of men is Hollande.  He shook a LOT of hands today.

Nice picture of the Arc de Triomphe with an extremely large French flag hanging from the center.

Soldiers heading away after the event.

French TV interviewer commenting on the event.