Friday, March 26, 2010

Avenue des Champs-Élysées



The Avenue des Champs-Élysées (French pronunciation: [avəny de ʃɑ̃.z‿elize] ( listen)) is a prestigious avenue in Paris, France. With its cinemas, cafés, luxury specialty shops and clipped horse-chestnut trees, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées is one of the most famous streets in the world, and with rents as high as €1.1 million (USD1.5 million) per year per 1,000 square feet (92.9 square metres) of space, it remains the most expensive strip of real estate in Europe. The name is French for Elysian Fields, the place of the blessed dead in Greek mythology.
The Avenue des Champs-Élysées is known in France as La plus belle avenue du monde ("The most beautiful avenue in the world"). The arrival of global chain stores in recent years has slightly changed its character, and in a first effort to stem these changes, the City of Paris (which has called this trend "banalisation") decided in 2007 to ban the Swedish clothing chain H&M from opening a store on the avenue. In 2008, however, American clothing chain Abercrombie & Fitch was given permission to open a store.

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