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Switzerland, Lucerne: Lion Monument in Lucerne
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Gletschergarten Lowendenkmal is massive heartrending stone relief which was carved to remember the Swiss Guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution when defending Louis XVI. Swiss Guards were and are famous as brave sentries. Today, they still surround the Pope. When the revolutionaries stormed the Tuileries Palace in Paris, more than 800 were killed during the fighting, after surrender, or died in prison of their wounds. 300 lucky survived because they were with the detachment which King Louis XVI had sent to Normandy to escort grain convoys. Two surviving Swiss officers went on to become senior ranked guards for Napoleon.
In 1880, Mark Twain had this to say about it ” His size is colossal, his attitude is noble. His head is bowed, the broken spear is sticking in his shoulder, his protecting paw rests upon the lilies of France. Vines hang down the cliff and wave in the wind, and a clear stream trickles from above and empties into a pond at the base, and in the smooth surface of the pond the lion is mirrored, among the water-lilies.
Around about are green trees and grass. The place is a sheltered, reposeful woodland nook, remote from noise and stir and confusion and all this is fitting, for lions do die in such places, and not on granite pedestals in public squares fenced with fancy iron railings. The Lion of Lucerne would be impressive anywhere, but nowhere so impressive as where he is.”
France, Paris: Is that an Egyptian Obelisk or the Leaning Tower of Paris?
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Place de la Concorde is where, during the French Revolution in 1789 the statue of Louis XV of France was torn down. The area renamed the Place de la Révolution and a guillotine was erected in the square. It was here that King Louis XVI was executed on January 21, 1793. On October 25, 1836, King Louis Philippe placed this tall Egyptian obelisk in the center, a gift from the Khedive of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha. The 3,300-year-old Obelisk once marked the entrance to the Luxor Temple and the hieroglyphics on it herald the reign of the pharaoh Ramesses II.
If you squint and look way down the Champs Elysees behind the Obelisk of Luxor, you can see clear back to the Arc de Triomphe.
