Paris: Various and Sundry

After the monuments and statues, the museums and churches, there's still plenty more to Paris that attracts the eye. Here are a few images that caught mine that didn't fit neatly into any other category.

The Catacombs were a grisly treat.  The network of tunnels and caverns beneath the city hold the remains of six million people.  Yup, six million.

I typically prefer to shoot things at an angle rather than straight on, but probably should have gone straight on for this area where skulls had been arranged in the shape of a heart surrounded by tibias.  I don't think the shape is evident enough in this image.

I didn't really get a good shot to show the scale of the place, either.  The walls are just lined with human remains.  It really is unlike anything I've ever seen.

In contrast, the artist-filled Place du Tertre square atop Montmartre is bursting with vivid life.  This gentleman looked like the epitome of the stereotypical "starving artist," showcasing his wares in his paint-splattered overcoat.  Danelle suspects it may have been a bit of an act to get some sympathy purchases, as his hands were apparently quite nicely scrubbed.  We bought one of his paintings anyway, because we're suckers.

This fellow's pieces were a little more stylized.  I was happy to capture him working on one, also looking quite artistic to me with his scarf and long hair framed by the back of canvases on the opposite side of the street.

The Tuileries Gardens were a popular destination even on a weekday afternoon.  The beautiful weather certainly contributed to the number of people who were either passing through or just sitting by a fountain whiling away the day.

Danelle lived on a street just off of Place Victor Hugo when she was young.  Instead of statuary it has a simple fountain in its center, which caught the late afternoon light nicely.

We took The Metro everywhere we went.  Our stop at the Île de la Cité had a lovely flower market outside the entrance.

Paris' famous "locks of love" bridge -- the Pont des Arts -- is in the process of having its famous locks removed.  I didn't realize the "tradition" was so new, having apparently just begun in 2008.  Or that the locks that had accumulated weighed an estimated 45 tons.  I suppose I can understand the need to take them off, given that they were starting to damage the structure.

For not being a photo trip, I was still happy to capture some images of this beautiful city.  And I have to admit it was one the best trips I've ever taken with Danelle, if not the very best.  I guess when your eye isn't glued to a viewfinder, you spend more time looking at what's really important.

Paris: Museums & Churches

One of my favorite things about Paris is how culture radiates off the city like heat off a highway.  So it was we found ourselves in a number of museums and churches over the course of our visit, appreciating art both secular and spiritual in its inspiration.

Both Danelle and I are big Monet fans.  So a stop at the Musee de l'Orangerie to see his masterpiece Water Lilies was a must.

We had beautiful weather every day, which helped make the always beautiful Sacré-Cœur Basilica even more picturesque.

We took a chance on visiting The Louvre, anticipating lengthy lines and waits.  We were pleasantly surprised to find neither, and managed to zip around to see the Venus de Milo ...

... the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Mona Lisa in barely half an hour.  It took longer to find a restroom, frankly.

I never realized that stained glass windows would have hinged sections like this one in Notre Dame.  The practical addition does detract a bit from its grandeur.

I did wait in a long line and climb the 400+ steps to see the gargoyles atop Notre Dame up close.  It was totally worth it.

The logic of adorning a place of heavenly worship with tiny denizens of Hell does escape me a bit.

Because photographers are never happy with their lighting conditions, I have to confess that this is the one day of our visit that I wished we had some heavy clouds and maybe even a little rain to add a bit of gloom and menace to these statues.  But they were still creepy in the sunshine.

A short side trip takes you up some wooden stairs to a belfry inhabited by two very large bells.  No bats that I could find, unfortunately.

A nice view down the Seine from atop the tower.

A short walk from Notre Dame and slightly less well known is the Sainte-Chapelle, a royal medieval Gothic chapel with one of the most extensive collections of 13th-century stained glass in its original location anywhere in the world.

Paris: Monuments & Statues

Paris: Monuments & Statues

Thanks to frequent flyer miles, a little extra cash, and relatives willing to watch our kids and dogs for a week I was blessed with the opportunity to visit Paris with Danelle to celebrate our 24th wedding anniversary. She actually lived there for four years as a young child when IBM transferred her dad there, so it was a bit of a homecoming for her.

This was not a photo trip, but a trip for spending time together. Urban photography isn't my specialty anyway. But in a city as beautiful as Paris, some pictures still had to be taken.  So I only brought one camera body and lens. :)

We elected not to wait in the lines or spend the money to go up the Eiffel Tower.  But we still went down to it just for the experience.  It's a very imposing structure up close, which this angle illustrates to some extent.

Oddly, I was awake before sunrise after our first night.  Thanks to the wonders of jet lag we didn't get up before 10 a.m. any other day.  So I took advantage of the situation to head out in hopes of a sunrise shot of the tower.  While the clouds weren't especially thick, they were too close to the horizon to allow really vibrant color.  The effect was instead more pastel in nature.

Sunset wasn't until just before 10 p.m.  Even when the sky finally got truly dark around 11 p.m., there was still a huge crowd out to see the tower all lit up.

Sunrise in The Trocadero, with the statue of Marshal Foch silhouetted at left.

A gilded bronze statue of Joan of Arc stands in the Place des Pyramides.  I wish I'd shifted my angle just slightly to get some more visual separation between the statue and the building in the background.

Speaking of gilded, the artwork adorning the Paris Opera House is spectacular.

I went out for one sunset shoot, choosing the Arc de Triomphe for the location.  The sky gave a more colorful show than it had for my earlier sunrise excursion.

I shifted position as sunset turned to twilight, and liked what I was able to get once the monument was lit.  I brought my tripod along for just these types of situations.

This is just a lamppost.  A lamppost in the Place de la Concorde, and quite possibly the most ornate lamppost in the world.  But a lamppost nonetheless.

Now that the facepalm has become a gesture of cultural notoriety, this statue of Cain in the Jardins de Tuileries has likely received a bump in its popularity.

More to come!