Remember the cauldron of Paris 2024? A golden hot-air balloon in the middle of the city? Of course we had to go see it!
Free viewing tickets were impossible to get (like all tickets for these Games) but hey, the balloon was in the air, right? So on Sunday after the opening ceremony, we hopped on the métro and went into town. It was a lovely warm summer evening, and we walked from Invalides over to the Tuileries where the cauldron (la Vasque) was, staying on the opposite bank at first.
Then we crossed and realized we could get pretty close without any tickets whatsoever.
Did you know the Cauldron had no real flame? It was a LED lighting system plus a cloud of mist generated by a lot of water jets. We got to see it up close.
No real flame – it’s LED lights and a cloud of mist – awesome, right?
We finished off with some great shots from the Arc de Triomphe du Carroussel, the small triumphal arch just across from the Louvre. There were lots of people everywhere, and ten times more different languages than what you usually hear in the tourist areas of Paris. It felt very special to be a part of this.
The Vasque seen through the Arc de Triomphe du Carroussel
The Games are on. They are everywhere. All over Paris, just as we were promised. There’s Arena Paris Nord, Arena Paris Sud, Paris La Défense Arena to the west, Paris Bercy to the east, the Champ de Mars, the Esplanade des Invalides, the Grand Palais, the French Open tennis courts of Roland Garros, the parc of Versailles Palace, and more, not to mention Châteauroux in central France, Marseille on the Mediterranean, Tahiti on the other side of the world.
Every day on the métro, I see tourists heading to this or that site and volunteers in their easily recognizable uniforms.
A Paris 2024 volunteer
The organizers have pulled all the stops, and so has the Paris transport company. There are friendly employees everywhere pointing you the right way (even RATP boss and former PM Jean Castex). A stroke of genius: the signage. Every single sign related to Paris 2024 is pink. Above and below ground, on and off transport premises. You’re going to the Games? Follow the pink! It’s brilliant. I love it. (So much so that at the post-Games sale, I almost came home with one of the signs.)
Ho to get to the Paris 2024 sites
Métro line 1 serves the Trocadéro, Grand Paris, Alexandre III bridge, Concorde, City Hall, and Arena Paris Sud sites
France Télévision has pulled all the stops too. They have four channels: France 2, France 3, France 5 and France Internet. They switch back and forth to cover everything. At one point, a reporter tells viewers, “We’re on France 2 now but switching over to France 5.” He is, in fact, on France Internet and switches over to France 3.
Finally, the moment has come. The day is here. It is Friday, July 26, 2024, and tonight’s the night of the Olympic Opening Ceremony.
No, wait. We’re not there yet. In the morning, France wakes up to reports of arson attacks on the French high-speed railway during the night. Chaos ensues, and reportedly, some spectators who paid a fortune for their Opening Ceremony seats (tickets cost over 1,000 euros) didn’t make it in time.
But now for real! We’re on the Seine river, it is Friday evening, and I give you—
RAIN!
Yes, thousands and thousands of spectators sit in temporary stands along the river between Austerlitz and Iéna bridges, and it’s pouring down on them. Also on the artists, the VIPS, the security people, and most importantly, on the Olympic athletes in their boats!
I watched a documentary later, and Tony Estanguet, head of the organizing committee and three-times Olympic champion, had tears in his eyes. He’d weathered everything, the arguments, the delays, the politics, and now just as his dream was coming true, the weather gods punished him.
Meanwhile, my family had the very best seats in the house: in front of the TV!
Best view in the house!
You see, the idea of holding the Opening Ceremony on the Seine meant that each spectator only saw a small part “live” and had to follow the rest on one of the big screens. Also, they were being rained down upon. Whereas we were sitting in our warm and dry living room, hadn’t spent a cent on tickets for the night, yet got the very best view.
Many Parisians had applied for free tickets, but those were obviously behind the 1,000-euro-seats and, just as obviously, in the rain.
I don’t regret anything about that night.
The Opening Ceremony changed everything. From the moment the French national colors blue-white-red exploded on Austerlitz Bridge, still hours before the Games were declared open, the mood changed.
Parade, the Paris 2024 hymn by Victor Le Masne
The ceremony was amazing. It started on a fun note, with comedian Jamel Debbouze (you might know him as architect Numerobis in “Asterix: Mission Cleopatra”) taking the Olympic torch to the Stade de France and finding it empty, only to have French football star Zinedine Zidane show up to save the day, racing with the torch into the métro. The métro (predictably) gets stuck, and Zizou tasks three kids with carrying the torch. They meet the Phantom of the Opera who rows them along an underground canal and onto the Seine. Later, a masked Assassin (from Assassin’s Creed, created in France) takes over and carries the torch over rooftops, checking in on rebuilt Notre Dame cathedral and rehearsals for Les Misérables musical. At one point, the torch is handed over to a cavalière on a silver horse named Zeus riding on the river to the Trocadéro. Only for more torchbearers to get in a speedboat and take the torch back to the Tuileries where the cauldron, a golden Montgolfière—a nod to History—is lit by an Olympian and a Paralympian.
Céline Dion rallies her voice to sing live from the Eiffel Tower, and a volunteer gets her fifteen minutes of fame holding the umbrella for organizing committee boss Tony Estanguet during his Opening Ceremony speech.
I was in tears in front of our TV screen. Skepticism? Forgotten. Let the Games begin!
I don’t talk about politics on this blog, but the French President calling snap elections a few weeks ahead of the Olympics was on no one’s bingo card. As a result, we spent June in election mode, with voting taking place at the end of June and the beginning of July. This followed the European Parliament elections in early June. Don’t ask.
The Assemblée Nationale – seat of the lower house of the French parliament
So here we are, with the world’s biggest sporting event about to begin, a host city full of disgruntled citizens who have just been forced to cast their votes and who only wish their summer vacation were already there. But there are still a few more events coming first:
The Tour de France The Tour is a huge annual event. It dominates French television for three weeks, even on rest days. This year, in order to avoid an overlap with the Olympics, the Tour started a week earlier than usual and finished for the first time ever far away from the capital, in Nice. (This should have scored with the disgruntled Parisians. Probably not, though.)
The 2024 Tour de France publicity cars in the Champagne region
The Tour de France racing past us in the Champagne
Bastille Day July 14 is the French National holiday, with a big military parade and lots of flag-waving and fireworks. Nothing special to report there, but two days later the prime minister’s resignation was accepted. His government stayed on as caretaker government until all of Paris 2024 was concluded.
On July 17, the French mayor took a quick swim in the Seine, with dozens and dozens of journalists immortalizing her heroic feat. Talk about a political summer!
As the Games approached, school was out for the summer, and posters popped up on métro billboards inviting Parisians to work from home, avoid public transport, avoid the stations of the Games sites, and generally stay away, when we’d been sold on the Games as a “Grande Fête Populaire” (a big party for all).
Locals were told to “anticipate” their travels on public transport during the Games (or stay home altogether).
We considered the very large security zones surrounding the Games sites exaggerated, and the Paris mayor’s attempts to relocate the Bouquinistes, you know, those traditional vendors of old books, maps, assorted stuff (and nowadays souvenirs), away from the Seine quais in view of the opening ceremony on the river were greeted with an outcry. She backed off.
In short, Parisians weren’t happy, and we weren’t looking forward to those weeks of projected chaos.
Sorry, I mean the Olympic flame. When the majestic three masted barque Belem carried the torch into the port of Marseille, France was watching.
The BELEM at the Rouen Armada in 2013
The torch relay across France and its overseas possessions was a huge event, including people from all walks of life. (French astronaut Thomas Pesquet carried the torch on Mont Saint Michel in his native Normandy.) Even though this is an Olympic tradition, the relay mixed abled and disabled participants from the start and up to the moment the flame was lit during the Olympic Opening Ceremony.
Olympic Opening Ceremony installation at the Trocadéro
Olympic beach volleyball on the Champ de Mars
The mascots at this point were still badmouthed. Les Phryges (an Olympic and a Paralympic one) were supposed to represent the Phrygian Cap from the French Revolution, but people would compare them to a part of the female anatomy (or, like my husband, to pigeons).
Pont Alexandre III – start and finish of Olympic and Paralympic triathlon
The Seine – triathlon and open-wataer swimming – but will it be clean enough?
Parisians were still upset about the construction and knew that certain new métro lines wouldn’t be finished in time. They were skeptical about the opening ceremony on the river and the Games sites all over town. Oh, and would the Seine finally be clean enough for the open water swimming events?
Throwback to August 2023 when the Seine was barely clean enough to host an open water world cup event
When I went to watch a swimming world cup event that served as dress rehearsal in August 2023, it had to be postponed due to water safety problems.
World Cup open water swimmers in August 2023 (Games dress rehearsal)
Bu the mayor had promised it would be clean in time for the Games, and she would swim in the Seine to prove it.
Still, we were curious and went to have a look at the Olympics Opening Ceremony site at the Trocadéro, Invalides (archery), and the Place de la Concorde (3×3 basketball, breaking, skateboarding, and BMX freestyle).
The ticket hype began in 2023. Ticket packages were released, meaning if you chose one sport to watch, you had to buy tickets for another. Individual sports tickets were very expensive, and the promised “cheap tickets so everyone can go” were never available.
Alexandre III bridge (triathlon start and finish) and Grand Palais (taekwondo & fencing)
As a swimmer myself, and with Olympic swimming tickets unaffordable (plus being annoyed at all the Olympics hype), I had set my sight on Paraswimming. In November 2023, I purchased tickets for a finals session at the end of August 2024 in Paris La Défense Arena. I had no idea who’d be swimming, and no guarantee the announced races wouldn’t be modified.
A friend who practices taekwondo got a family package for Olympic taekwondo (Grand Palais) and Olympic water polo (in the newly built Paris Aquatics Centre).
The Grand Palais hosted Olympic taekwondo and fencing.
So when it started all over again, we didn’t pay much attention. Paris got the 2024 Games in 2017, but what with endless Yellow-vest protests starting in 2018, two months of métro strikes in 2019-2020, and COVID following in quick succession, we were distracted.
Place de la Concorde – installations for 3×3 basketball, breaking, skateboarding, and BMX freestyle
Then things began to speed up. Construction sites popped up, planning information was released, and Parisians began complaining, as we’re wont to do. The construction that won’t be finished, the hassle it’ll be for locals, the tax money it’ll cost, and look at those ridiculous mascots!
New fast métro still not finished over a year later.
Reserved fast lanes on the highways leading to the sites? A scandal!
See how sceptical we look – we don’t really want to associate with the mascot.
Spoiler: The construction wasn’t finished, the instructions to locals to work from home were ignored, and the mascots became hugely popular – once the Games began.
Having the Olympic and Paralympic Games in your hometown is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, right? One that most people will never have. As you all know, the Games did come to my hometown in 2024, and I’m sharing my personal take on it in this summer series:
(The links will go live one by one as the posts publish every 3 days over the next weeks.)
