Arc de Triomphe

Landmark · Place de l'Étoile (8th)Paris,France

A fifty-metre stone arch at the head of the Champs-Élysées where twelve avenues meet, ordered by Napoleon and covering the First World War's unknown soldier.

The Arc de Triomphe stands at the centre of a roundabout where twelve avenues meet, a single stone vault fifty metres high at the western end of the Champs-Élysées. Traffic circles it all day. Up close the piers carry huge carved panels of soldiers and winged figures, and the inner walls are dense with the names of victories, generals and campaigns. Beneath the vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from the First World War, with a flame burning over it. Climb the spiral stair to the roof and the twelve avenues run out below in every direction, the axis going straight to the Louvre one way and to the towers of La Défense the other. Napoleon ordered the arch after Austerlitz and never saw it finished; Jean Chalgrin drew it after Roman triumphal gates and built it far larger, and it opened in 1836. Four years later Napoleon's coffin passed beneath it, carried back to Paris nineteen years after his death.

Worth knowing

Good to know

The roof is the point, not the base — from the pavement you mostly read traffic; only from the terrace does the tangle below finally snap into a clean twelve-pointed star.
The pillars empty as the roof fills — most visitors head straight up, so the reliefs and inscriptions at ground level often have room to breathe even when the terrace is packed.
Twice a year the sun sets straight down the Champs-Élysées — for a few evenings in spring and late summer it drops right through the monument's line.
The roundabout obeys no lanes — twelve avenues pour into the ring unmarked, so notorious that insurers split blame for any collision fifty-fifty; reach the arch by the tunnel, never a crosswalk.
The space under the vault is a war grave — voices tend to drop when people step beneath it, and it rewards a slower minute than a passing photo.

Things to do

1
Take the roof at dusk
Climb the spiral stair to the rooftop terrace and stay until the streetlights blink on and the headlights below thicken into rivers of white and red. Turn west and pick out the towers of La Défense; then turn east down the Champs-Élysées and follow the axis all the way to the far obelisk at Concorde.
2
Circle the pillars before you climb
Walk a slow lap around the four great piers before you head up. Find La Marseillaise on the Champs-Élysées face, then tilt your head back to read the battle names cut above the arches, and trace the ring of carved shields around the top where the campaign inscriptions run.
3
Stay for the evening flame
Linger past the day-trippers until nightfall, then step to the tomb beneath the vault. Stand on the side away from the traffic, let the noise fall behind you, and watch the small rekindling ceremony unfold. Keep still and quiet; by the time it begins the daytime crowd has thinned to almost nothing.