Bastille Day - 14 July

July 14, 2009 was Bastille Day here in France. This is the French Independence Day and celebrated a bit like our Fourth of July in that the people have the day off to see the parades, view the fireworks and do whatever else they want.

Our apartment is just about 3 blocks and across the river from the parade. But, with so many thousands wanting to see the parade you either have to take a ladder to stand on (which many do!!), or go very early to find a place where you can be close enough to see.

Once we learned that we could have almost a “front row seat” in front of the television, we opted for that option. However, we did go and stand by the river to watch the flyover that happens at the beginning of the parade. The first formation of nine planes had colored smoke exhaust with three blue, three white and three red….the colors of the French flag. Then, they must have flown several of every plane that the French air force has in different formations.

In the parade we saw many regular army, navy, etc marching/riding personnel (mostly men and a few women) but those units with long traditions dress in their traditional uniforms. There were lots of sabers and distinctive hats. Some of the more interesting that we recognized were the French Foreign Legion and some that had served in India. There were also invited Indian units this year. There were of course the traditional instruments in the bands, but there were also a few weird looking and sounding things.

The Indian military unit had their transport bus parked close to the church so we were able to get a good look at them. They posed and let people try on their hats.

But the real thrill of the day was the fireworks. Each year they are done close to the Eiffel Tower, but this year probably half of them were shot from the tower. The estimate was that over a million people sat on the grass of the park at the tower to watch the fireworks….and we did that in 2006. However, this year we had a great view as we splurged and bought a boat cruise that ended right at the tower.

It was a delight to see different fireworks going off up and down, right and left from the Eiffel Tower. At one point the lights didn’t explode outwards but just looked like big flames on different levels of the tower. I guess this seemed very realistic to one of our grandsons who is visiting. He asked me the next morning if the tower had burned the night before. Since we can see the tower from our windows, I showed him that the tower was still there and the elevators were still going up and down and it was certainly all right.

After walking home through the crowd, we were almost too sound and light shocked to sleep, but it had been a great day.