About This Location
This is one of those Paris crossroads where architecture, art, and politics all share the same few steps. Look left and right along Avenue Winston Churchill - the city is showing off on purpose here. Start with the Grand Palais. It was built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle, and it was designed to feel like a celebration of modern France - stone on the outside, and an enormous steel-and-glass world inside. When the light hits the glass roof, the whole building can feel like a bright indoor street, made for huge exhibitions, fashion shows, and big public moments. Now turn toward the Petit Palais, directly opposite. It was created for the same 1900 World’s Fair, but it tells a different story. Instead of a giant event hall, it became the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts. If time allows later, the calm inner garden is a surprise - a quiet pocket hidden behind the grand façade, perfect for a short reset from the traffic outside. Between these two buildings, the statues add a human scale to the scene. Near the Petit Palais, look for Winston Churchill. The bronze statue was inaugurated in 1998, and it is based on an image that captures determination rather than comfort - Churchill walking with Charles de Gaulle on the Champs-Élysées in November 1944, during the liberation era. Now find the statue of Général Charles de Gaulle nearby. De Gaulle is shown striding forward, larger than life, as if the next decision cannot wait. The monument dates from 2000, and together with Churchill it quietly turns this elegant avenue into a place of memory - not just pretty buildings, but the leaders and choices that shaped modern Europe.