Paris revisited

If you have been reading these pages for a number of years, you must have, in the past, come across my professed love for Paris. Our visits to this great city have become rather infrequent in recent times, but the affection remains in full force. When it comes to “there is no other place I’d rather be”, Paris is among the first options that would come to my mind.

I have an ok collection of Parisian photography. In fact, similar to what happened in London on the preceding leg of the trip, the level of familiarity that I have with the French capital undoubtedly contributed to the selective nature of my photographic efforts on this visit to Paris. That being said, an iconic landmark is an iconic landmark, and hardly anyone could restrain themselves from snapping additional photos of one. Especially while riding around town in a vintage Citroën with an open roof.

So, here is Arc de Triomphe…


… Panthéon…


… Place de la Concorde…

… Place Vendôme…

… Pont Alexandre III and Hôtel des Invalides…


Here is the aforementioned Citroën while on Place Vendôme.

We were not super happy with the tour for reasons that are too long to recap, but as something you don’t do every day, I suspect it will remain a memorable diversion.

Notre-Dame de Paris has recently reopened following the notorious fire several years ago. It is one of the hardest-to-get-in Parisian sights – everyone wants to visit, but the number of tickets sold is not sufficient (and they sell out in minutes upon becoming available).

The stairs leading to Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre are always packed with revellers at either dawn or dusk.

The dome of Saint-Louis-des-Invalides is such a prominent – and literally shining – feature of the Parisian skyline that it practically begs to be in the frame again and again.


Even if you’ve never been to Paris, you must be aware of the most famous feature of its skyline that is impossible to miss – Tour d’Eiffel. Here it is seen from Passerelle Debilly.


Another perspective of the tower, through the lovely garden of Square d’Ajaccio.

And another perspective of the Invalides dome, from Place du Président Mithouard.

The bouquinistes lining the banks of the Seine are a unique Parisian feature dating back centuries.

Paris’s World Heritage recognition is mainly due to the mastery of architecture and of town planning along the river. The vast proportion of the city’s major historic monuments sits either right on the banks of the Seine or very close to it. Bridges – practically each one of the three dozen – offer many great perspectives.

The view from Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor towards the spires of Sainte-Chapelle and Notre-Dame de Paris on Île de la Cité.

The dome of Institut de France on the right and Pont du Carrousel in the foreground make the perspective look somewhat cluttered, but it’s all a lens compression trick – we are over a mile and a quarter away in direct line from Notre-Dame, with the Institute exactly midway to the cathedral, and the bridge another quarter-mile nearer.

From the same vantage point, the opposite direction view towards the Grand Palais.

The narrowest stretch of the Seine in the city is its southern branch between Île de la Cité and the Left Bank.

The view from Pont Saint-Louis to Hôtel de Ville, with Tour Saint-Jacques in the background to the left.

The perspective from Pont Marie towards Île de la Cité, with the spire of Sainte-Chapelle piercing the sky. High-rise office buildings of La Défense, more than six miles away as the crow flies, can be seen in the distance.

Moving away from the central areas of the city, here are a few looks over Canal Saint-Martin.




That boat in the last picture above is entering one of the locks on the canal. On the left, you can see people standing behind a barrier. They are waiting for the boat to pass and for the swing bridge (the green platform on the right) to provide a means of crossing. Surprisingly, quite a few of them are pedestrians who can cross at any time using the nearby overpass, but they choose to wait for the swing bridge.

Here is the picture of the restored crossing from that same overpass, Passerelle Arletty.

The locks along Quai de Valmy provide the opportunity to observe their operation in action. Here is a sequence of shots, roughly a minute between each pair, illustrating a cruise boat being lowered on the southward journey.




The Neoclassical architectural masterpiece of La Rotonde de la Villette sits near where Canal Saint-Martin flows into Bassin de la Villette.

Also known as La Rotonde Stalingrad (because of its location on the plaza named after the WWII battle), it is a former gateway to the city built right before the French Revolution. It functioned as a collection point for duties on goods entering the city for just a few years until the Republic abandoned the practice and decommissioned the building. Over the next two hundred years, it went through a number of unglamorous uses, until a refurbishment in the first decade of this century reincarnated it as a culture-and-dining venue.

Back on the Left Bank, a few blocks away from the Eiffel Tower, the building at 29 Avenue Rapp (aka Immeuble Lavirotte) is a different architectural wonder – a superb Art Nouveau example built in 1901.




It is a residential building as quite a few of its Art Nouveau brethren elsewhere are.

The façade of the Grand Synagogue, built in 1874. It stands on a relatively narrow street, making wide-angle photography of it rather dissatisfying.

There are a number of delightful shopping arcades throughout the center of Paris. These are the twinned Passage des Panoramas and Passage Jouffroy.




Curiously, there are quite a few philatelist establishments here. That has to be a fading pursuit in our e-world…

A couple of colorful shop fronts on the main street of Île Saint-Louis.

… and a surprising shop name in Marais.

Wallace Fountains are a less-celebrated feature of Paris, even though there are a hundred-plus of them providing free drinking water to all passersby for over 150 years. They were financed by the British aristocrat, philanthropist, and avowed Francophile Sir Richard Wallace. Anyone who’s ever been to the amazing Wallace Collection in London would be familiar with the name – yes, same guy. The most common model of these fountains, featuring four caryatids supporting a pointed dome, was conceived by Sir Richard himself. Here is one of them by Marché aux Fleurs.

As an illustration of my mild OCD when it comes to travel planning, I created a separate layer in my online/offline map of Paris with a pin for every single location of a Wallace fountain. It was not just to help with occasional water-bottle refills – that happened more or less organically. I also intended to take pictures of these fountains in various locations, so the map pins were meant to help me find opportunities nearby. Alas, in line with how I never follow through on photographing serial sights, I pointed my camera at this one fountain and not at a single other (even as I filled my water bottle on at least half a dozen occasions).

The last few pictures in this set are assorted street and building perspectives in different parts of town.







This is not the end of our Paris journey yet. There will be at least three more installments of Paris pictures in the coming days, focused on a couple of landmarks and activities.