So after all my exploring to find a place to see the ceremony without a ticket, and I thought I had found such a place, none of it worked out. But that was not a problem because there were dedicated areas along the river for just that. It wasn’t like the ticketed areas with nice seats and everything, but you could still get a view. And better yet, they had giant screens set up so you could really see things. I had a feeling this was more for the Paris locals while the expensive seats, which I didn’t get, were for the visitors. So I watched it with the locals.

I just followed a crowd through the empty streets and eventually came to a security check. Here they went through my backpack and I emptied all my pockets.

This viewing area is Le Jardin d’Erevan, a little ways upstream from the Trocadéro, on the right bank. It was hard to get a spot overlooking the river so I found myself a place to stand, and waited for the next couple of hours.

It rained a little at first, then it stopped for a while, then started up again even heavier and never quit for the entire time.

It was pretty interesting. The entire thing was shown on the giant screens. After it was done I followed the crowd to the nearest open Metro station and finally arrived back at my Air BnB.