Ninety seconds on Arch of Triumph
From the pavement it is a photograph and little else. The terrace inside is what makes the trip north worth making, and its opening has moved from year to year, so it is worth confirming before setting out.
A triumphal arch of 1936 in Deva granite, replacing a wooden one of 1878, carrying reliefs of the First World War campaign. A stair inside opens to the terrace on a few days each year.
The reliefs and the inscriptions are on the outer faces, and a slow circuit of them takes about ten minutes on foot. Inside, a stair of one hundred and sixty four steps climbs to the terrace and the view over the city that the climb is sold on. When the terrace is closed, which it has been for most of the year in most years, that circuit outside is the whole visit and half an hour covers it comfortably. It is a monument that repays being folded into something else on the same trip north, and punishes being made the object of one.
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