It’s almost impossible to be in Paris very long without starting to accumulate images, memories, moments, that you want to share. And I find that each time I visit Paris, I get a mix of those memories, and new ones, occasionally seeing what I’ve seen before in a new way.
On my most recent visit, for instance, I started to become obsessed with what had been only a curiosity before: masking construction and restoration work on buildings with illustrated curtains, sometimes mimicking the building behind, as above at Saint-Eustache church near Les Halles. But note that it’s also become an occasion for giant ads!
Here are two more: One on the river facade of the Louvre, and the other nearby on the finally-being-reconstructed and turned-into-giant-upscale-mall former building of the Samaritaine department store. On a store, alright, but the ads on museums and churches seem a bit too much.
Obviously, of course, not all the big illustrations on buildings are ads; this wistful character hangs out near the Canal Saint-Martin.
Perspectives that put buildings together, or in odd views, are another favorite for me. Here’s the east face of the Pont Neuf, with the dome of the Institut de France, 500 meters away, and the Eiffel Tower, another 3.5 km past that. Below, two views of Sacre Coeur, one a long telephoto shot from the balcony of the Musée d’Orsay, and the other from a street below the hill.
Here’s another look at the scene in the title image of the imposing gates of the Palace of Justice on the Île de la Cité; here the imposing height and windows of the Sainte Chapelle stand out (as do the crowds waiting in sometimes long lines to enter.)
Not all my favorite, or at least noticed, buildings are famous or monumental. Here’s one in the Clignancourt district of the 18e. And while yes, it is that narrow, there’s a wider section at the corner. But not much.
And here are a pair with narrow facades. The McDonald’s on Rue Saint-Lazare is in an 1892 building listed as a historical monument, and was built in 1892 as an Alsatian-style bierstub. The narrow building at right, on Quai Voltaire, is said by some to be the narrowest private house in Paris. It’s actually a ‘spite house,’ built by the owner of one neighbor to block access by the other through what was an alley before it was a house!
Moving along to sturdier constructions: I’m always amazed at the power that can be expressed just in massive structures, even without facades or decoration. An obvious one is the Eiffel Tower, seen from almost any unusual angle, but the bridges of Paris offer a variety of interesting shots, too.
Elegance attracts, too, whether it is the ornately-simple (I know, but just look at it!) Petit Palais, built for the 1900 World Exhibition or the careful lettering and logo found on a public bathhouse near the former Les Halles markets, or the elegant simplicity of the national symbol on an exterior wall.
And since we’ve come to a national symbol moment, here’s one that I’ve seen over and over just to the right of the entrance of Notre Dame, without ever stepping over to see who it was. This time, however, a school group was gathered around it with a teacher, and I found that it is Charlemagne. The teacher was quite critical because the 19th century statue shows him with the imperial crown he assumed in 1800, accompanied by a vassal who died in 778 and carrying a 14th-century scepter. Always a damned eyewitness in the crowd!
And just for the end, because it has to go somewhere: my favorite yarn-store sign of all time, at fil’Odette in the 20e. We visited it on the last day of our month in France. We were ‘forced’ to eat a pleasant café lunch and explore a new neighborhood while waiting for it to open. C’est la vie!
