La Fête Nationale, aka Bastille Day

France celebrates its national holiday with multiple events throughout the day: a military parade on the Champs-Élysées, an air show, free admission to many of its museums, and a concert/fireworks display at the Eiffel Tower.

The facade of the Hôtel de Ville was decorated with the blue, white, and red tricolor flag.

We decided to take advantage of the free museum admission and headed to the Louvre.  Just before we got to the entrance, we saw the planes from the military parade in the distance.

They flew right over our heads.

In the evening, we took the Metro to the Champs de Mars (or tried to, all the stops nearest the Eiffel Tower were closed for security reasons so there was a lot of walking involved).  We ended up getting to the park just before sunset, with plenty of time to set up our picnic.

We were way at the back but we could still hear the bands from the concert that was going on closer to the tower.  On the right hand side of the photo you can see the Monument to Peace, where the word "peace" is written in 32 languages on 32 columns.  The sun setting behind the tower was a beautiful sight.

We had chosen a spot right in front of the École Militaire.  This was the scene right before the fireworks show started.

As the program began, the Eiffel Tower twinkled, then went completely dark.

For the first half of the show the darkened tower was silhouetted by the explosions of light, then about midway through they turned the sparkly lights on again.

I should mention that the musical theme for the evening was "Broadway Musicals".  All the songs were pretty much in English, so it did end up feeling a little like one of our American Independence Day shows.  It really was a bit odd to hear snippets of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina", and "Memory" at the celebration of France's national holiday.  Lots of people sang along.  I never imagined I'd be surrounded by masses of French people belting out "MEM-REE!!!  All alone in the MOOON-LIGHT!!".  Surreal.

The grand finale was set to music as well -- a popular song from "West Side Story".  Can you guess what it was?  If you guessed "America", then you're correct!  They could've ended with any number of songs from "Les Misérables" and made it more about France while still keeping to the Broadway theme.  But maybe they've used some of those songs in previous years.