Paris - France

The photo from Paris in 1909 seems quaint by today's travel standards; Small planes stand inside a palace, engines are exposed, and balloons hang above the heads of visitors, while Parisians move between them, just as we move today between the pavilions of a modern tourist exhibition.

We go back to September 25, 1909. The place is the Grand Palais, and the event is the opening of the first International Aeronautics Exhibition in Paris. On that day, the public was not looking for a plane ticket or a new destination, but rather came to see the machine that, in a few years, would change the way the world travels.

The audience came to see the future with their own eyes

Flying was still more of an adventure than a means of transportation. Only six years separated the exhibition from the Wright brothers' famous flight in 1903, so the meeting of planes, balloons and engines under the palace's glass dome was an extraordinary event for the public.

The exhibition, which opened on September 25 and lasted for weeks, gave visitors a rare opportunity to see this nascent industry up close, at a time when seeing a real plane was an unfamiliar experience for most people.

Two months ago, I crossed the sea... and now in front of the public

Among the exhibits was a name the French knew well... Blériot XI.
Just two months earlier, French aviator and inventor Louis Blériot had used this model to cross the English Channel from France to Britain, a journey that became a global event. When the plane appeared at the Grand Palais, it was not just a new machine, but a witness that traveling through the skies was beginning to transform from a daring experiment into a real possibility.

When the plane was a destination, not a means of travel

Here lies the tourist irony in the story. In 1909, people were traveling to see planes, and decades later, planes were carrying people to see the world.

The industry developed, airports, airlines and regular flights appeared, and French air shows gradually moved to a larger stage, until Le Bourget became associated with one of the most famous international air shows.

The planes left... and the palace remained a witness

As for the Grand Palais, it remained in its place in central Paris. The building, which was built for the World's Fair in 1900, continued to host major exhibitions, arts and events, while the aircraft that amazed its visitors became a normal part of the traveler's life.
After 117 years, returning to those images gives us a different meaning: what we do today almost without thinking - booking a seat, crossing a border and arriving in another city within hours - was for the visitor of that exhibition merely a future he was trying to imagine.

Among the pages of the travel archive, the image of Paris in September 1909 remains one of the moments when the public witnessed the means of transportation that would later bring the world closer than it had imagined.