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Thursday, November 17, 2005

The Sights of Paris

» Posted by Jon at 10:21 pm :: Comments (0)

For our last day, we headed back to The Tower, then up The Hill.

Day 7: Saturday

There's really not much to say about the day's activities. We went to photograph the Eiffel Tower. It took us a while.

Seriously, you could spend all day at Le Tour. You could spend all day in one spot, watching the interaction of the clouds and the light and the people coming and going. At least you could. It's a fascinating building, possibly accentuated by the simplicity of its shape and the complexity of its construction.

Anyway, we chose to take the Metro to the Ecole Militaire stop and walk up the Champs du Mars, slaloming our way across the pathways through the grass, edging our way toward the tower, taking pictures as we went.

See the trees change	Champs du Mars	Side of the park
The flowers down front	Aren't we cute?	Getting closer
At the base	The sky is getting bluer	These side parks are handy
Lunch spot (more or less)	Ran back for the blue sky

By the time we got to the tower, the morning clouds were burning off, so we walked around the base of the tower again (see Monday or Tuesday, I think), using the blue sky and the ponds and the trees with the tower.

As lunchtime approached, the lines to go up the tower had grown, so we decided to go grab lunch nearby. A few blocks away, we found a boulangerie with take-away sandwiches and pastries (chocolate layer cake - mousse, cake and grenache - and a raspberry tart; we'll let you guess who got which :) and took that back to the park to eat in the shade, continuing to gaze at and photograph the tower.

There was nothing left but to go up, so we got in line and headed to the top. Everyone stops at the second floor to get on another elevator to the top, so that's another bit of a wait. But you can also wander around for a while them, or on your way back down.

We went up an took all the panoramic shots of the city, focusing on a few of those big, recognizable buildings. Then we headed back down, and took many of the same pictures from our new vantage point.

Top level view of park	Way above Invalides	Louvre and Pompidou
Trocadero	Second level view of Invalides	A little closer to the park
From the Trocadero	And the wide view	Now for the zoom

We decided not to stand in the line for the down elevator, so we walked down to the first level. Didn't shoot as much from there - the buildings just don't have the same attraction once you flatten things out apparently. The film and some of the other exhibits and the tower are there and were quite interesting. Could have spent more time there, but we had other things to do.

So, once more over to the Trocadero for a few more pictures (the fountains were on this time) and we needed a crepe break (nutella and apricot).

Then we took the Metro up to Montmarte, the cheap art district that's still filled with bistros and street painters like it was in the days of Picasso and Satie and others who populated the butte over the years.

Sunset at Sacre Coeur	Streets of Montmarte
View from the Square	Night falls

We took the funicular up to Sacre Couer and toured the 100-year-old church that looks like it came from previous centuries, especially with all the mosaics inside. Curiously, they seem quite adamant about you not taking any pictures in there. Maybe they figure it hurts their postcard business.

Anyway, parts of the district are quite lively, but others are very quiet. We followed a little walking tour that took us past Paris's last winery and some old residences and restaurants that gained some renown based on their previous clientle.

We also wandered into Place Tertre, a tourist magnet with restaurants on all sides, seating the middle and more portrait artists per square foot than anywhere I've ever been.

Just off the square, we went to a recommended restaurant, Chez Plumeau. Entree of escargot was followe by lamb and steak with some excellent sauces and finished with chocolat mousse and profiteroles. Add in a very nice glass of a St. Estephe rouge and we had an excellent conclusion to our week in Paris.

» Filed under: Paris, Photolog

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