i just returned from paris and noticed <BR>a huge feris wheel at one end of the <BR>champs-elysees. does anyone know when it <BR>got there, how long it has been there <BR>and why it is there? i have a dinner bet <BR>(i say it's been there since summer) <BR>thanks. <BR>

I don't know the EXACT date the Ferris Wheel on Place de la Concorde went up, but it wasn't the summer. I would guess more like November 15. It's part of Paris' millenium celebration, which included a dozen smaller Ferris wheels on the Champs-Elysees for New Year's Eve (since taken down).

Every summer, there is a fun fair in the Tuileries which includes a ferris wheel. So, there was one there this summer. But I am not sure it is the same on that's there now in place de la concorde.

I thought the ferris wheels were put up for the millenium celebration only. They weren't there 11/10 - 11/17.

Nancy- I ate cotton candy in front of the ferris wheel in the Tuileries this past August,(took a picture to show my 6 yr. old daughter where we can take her someday),and can say this ferris wheel is always up. It was there five years ago when I walked through the park to see children to push the wooden sailboats along using sticks. The other ferris wheels on Champs-Elysees were put up for the Millennium celebration only.

I was in Paris December 5th, 1998, and they were just constructing it. I was told by a man selling souvenirs at a kiosk that every Christmas season they put it up and it is taken down after Christmas. All the other smaller ones that were put up this year were for the millenium celebration only.