Another ramble through my shoebox of Paris scenes, mostly from a visit last September, and mostly focused on quirky vignettes, overlooked nuance, whimsy and sometimes beauty.
Only a few items call for much in the way of explanation… this mirror-inflected view through a doorway at Musee d’Orsay. Not strictly a street scene, though!
Well, as the first sign implies: ‘Whatever…”
Towers by the ton in lower Montmartre….
Lunch and maintenance at the Palais Luxembourg….
Lunch for birds, too, but not the best diet choices… The second flock seems better behaved.
Near Les Halles, ‘Listen’ now has a permanent home, but seems disengaged. Or perhaps just staring at those whimsical colors flying near his home at the Saint-Eustache church.
Not that far away, it seems as if the whimsical Stravinsky Fountain is dry whenever I visit; it’s just across from the building I have to keep explaining to friends is NOT under construction; Renzo Piano designed the Centre Pompidou with the works on the outside. Even when there IS construction, it’s hard to tell.
Construction: a couple ponders an elaborate cutaway of the Palais Garnier, home of the Paris Opera, a building that has never seemed as complicated in life as it turns out to be. Below it, one of my unsung favorites: Town Hall of the 18th, just waiting for a movie role.
And, on the tower between the Town Hall of the 1e and Saint-Germaine l’Auxerrois, what I took to be an elaborate clock until looking at the photo afterwards and realizing it’s a barometer!
The Samaritaine department store has re-opened as a sort of multi-purpose upscale mall/residence/office building, but still with its mix of Art Nouveau and Art Deco exteriors.
Sadly, I’ve lost track of where I saw the lovely vegetable carvings, but the elaborate ironwork tells its own story; it’s part of the pumping plant for the water system in Montmartre. True public art: no museum needed. Below it, a plaque whose Latin I’ve not worked on: truly here it is form, not function that makes it notable!
As in so many cities, they’re everywhere—but not always with so many colors and such careful parking…
Behind the giant and elaborate shim, renovations for a key fashion name along the Champs-Elysees…
A shining light, and a bright dome. The replica of the flame of the Statue of Liberty was a 1989 gift that celebrated the 100th anniversary of the English-language Herald Tribune in Paris; because of its location above the tunnel where Princess Diana died, her fans tend to treat it as a memorial to her. The gleaming domes belong to the Russian cathedral and culture center built just across the river in 2016.
Flowers in the garden of the Carnavalet Museum, and an invitation to Love and Folly. Might they not be one and the same?
A cartful of traffic cones to wrap the day, along with a slow day and too many Eiffel Towers of all sizes and colors.
