Bastille Day celebrations...

We didn't know what to expect in Paris on France's National Day. Anglophones call it Bastille Day, le Quatorze Juillet, because it celebrates the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1790, the flashpoint of the Revolution. The day proved to be a great experience, and we feel very privileged to have been able to enjoy it.

The centrepiece of this Mexican contingent was their splendid eagles!

Very serious looking hand-arms on this platoon of soldiers.

The main celebration takes place on that grand boulevard, the Avenue des Champs-Elysees attended by the President. This wasn't a big walk from the Rue St Lazare, but traffic restrictions and pedestrian barricades made it quite difficult for us to approach. But we did see quite a bit in the side streets, as shown in the accompanying photos. Not surprisingly, the march is predominantly a military display, supported by artillery vehicles, tanks and guns, plus flyovers from jets (training red, white and blue vapour trails) and dozens of helicopters in formation. A French friend later told us that it's much easier and better to watch the march on TV!

Golden firemen's helmets are the chief adornment of this troop.

Dozens of military helicopters accompanied the Bastille Day parade.

The day, despite being a major festival, proved to be a normal day for commerce. All restaurants, cafes and bars are open, also the stores including some department stores.

This troop of French axemen with leather aprons were very popular.

And in the evening, we were lucky enough to be invited to the apartment of good friends in the Grenelle district, where we had a spectacular view of the fireworks display around the Eiffel Tower. These were at 11pm and lasted 30 minutes, plenty good enough to rival Sydney's NYE. They couldn't be earlier - it's just not dark enough! Low or no wind meant that fireworks smoke often obscured the tower.

When it finally got dark, the Eiffel Tower was illuminated before the start of the fireworks.

The fireworks display between the Tower and the Trocadero lasted 30 minutes.

En route to Grenelle, we made a strategic error, unforgiveable given we are experienced what happens in Sydney on great fireworks occasions. Instead of getting off the metro at Bir-Hakeim as we were advised, we decided to exit at Trocadero and walk across the river. Bad mistake - crowds were very heavy and all pedestrian access to the bridge was forbidden! Maybe the fireworks were installed on the bridge? Whatever, we had to walk an additional 2-3km or so in heavy crowds to find a bridge across the Seine that was open.

Coming home was similarly problematic. We were told to walk - the metro would be totally clogged, and we could see that it was. But crowd controls were everywhere, and even the now unnecessary barricades from the morning's march were still in place and being enforced. We thought this latter situation was pretty poor, given the number of people walking around the city. We didn't get back to our hotel and into bed until 3am, for a 5km "as the crow flies" walking distance. Suffice to say, it was pretty hard to get up for breakfast the next day!

Heavy traffic at 2am on the Avenue des Champs Elysees.

But despite these difficulties, we would not have missed the chance to experience Bastille Day. Truly wonderful to see how the French celebrate the formation of their ground-breaking Republic.