A gargoyle atop the Notre Dame thoughtfully ponders, while looking at the Eiffel Tower.

The shot was taken on our second visit to Paris. It was a Saturday, and a busy one at that. We sat and had a pathetically awful coffee at a terrible cafe across the road from the Notre Dame; the girl was extremely rude to us so we decided against more food there. After waiting in line an hour we began the long hike — we weren’t charged, but instead were handed a ticket (this was due to all Parisian monuments being free that weekend — we’re still not sure why, but hey it was free).

After spiraling up, and up, and up, there is a landing which doubles as a gift shop. There is not much to look at besides crappy souvenirs, so we ascended further. The view once you reach the next platform is the shot shown here. This section is where you walk across from one tower to the other, and ascend further. At the top is a massive bell, which requires more climbing along an extremely thin, old, wooden staircase. There were not many people inside but everyone had the same photo of them standing zombie-like in front of the bell. We didn’t.

The stairs down run from top to bottom without pause, and when you’re finished you are disoriented for a few seconds as your brain tries to grasp that you are now walking forwards.

One of the rooms in Napoleon’s Apartments in the Richelieu wing of the Louvre, Paris.

The amount of gilding in these rooms and the sheer opulence of it all is crazy. It’s no wonder Napoleon called himself “Emperor”, rather than “President”.

At the bottom of the hill on which Sacre Coeur stands a two-storey carousel. This is the first such carousel I’d ever seen. We saw another one later in our trip at Marseille.

This shot was taken just as the sun was setting on our first visit to Montmartre.

When we saw the roundabout circling Arc de Triomphe for the first time, we sat and watched the insane traffic for around fifteen minutes.

Cars rush into the roundabout with little regard for others, at all angles. There are twelve large streets that meet here, and we were amazed that there were no accidents in the times we came through this area.

This shot was taken the day we went up the Eiffel Tower. The price to climb the Arc is quite high so we decided to pass. On our return to Paris, we managed to ascend for free and the view of all the streets is amazing. It’s well worth it and if we’d known how good it was, we would have paid the first time.

Nowadays, the room in which the Mona Lisa is located is absolute bedlam. Crowds of people 20 or 30 people deep are all pushing for a look at this — surprisingly small — masterpiece.

We managed to work our way to the front and I snapped a couple of photos, as well as a couple of Justine looking at the painting. Kids are, for some reason, allowed closer than the rest of us. I figured I may as well capture their good fortune.

There are other paintings in this room, but they receive little to no attention. It’s almost sad that such a small painting receives so much attention when there are so many other amazing ones nearby.

This shot was taken our first evening in Paris. Paris was special to us at this stage because it was the first time we’d set foot in a non-English speaking country.

After a couple of hours of walking (including the usual: going in the wrong direction) we found our hotel. We wandered for a while and as we approached the Seine and saw the tower, we decided to head that way.

Nearing the tower, the lights came on and as we closed in I began to snap like a madman. I must have taken two or three hundred shots.

As we left, we crossed the road and stopped at a vendor selling crepes, hot dogs and more. I turned around and immediately knew I had to take this shot. And then we had a hot dog.

Day Forty-Two
Paris
18 September 2007 22:51

Today we had originally planned to visit a castle around half an hour out of Paris but were so tired after yesterday at Disneyland we instead just bummed around Paris.

First, we headed to the Disney Store on Champs Elysee as there were a few things we’d see when we first visited that were curiously no at the Disney Park of Village next door.

After, we headed to Montmatre where we grabbed lunch — again two baguettes with meat and salad — and also bought a suitcase for our rapidly crowing souvenir colleciton.

Back at our hotel, we dumped the suitcase and headed out again.  On our way out the hotel staff gave us a small bottle of red wine; we weren’t sure why.

We walked down to the canals which weren’t far away.  I knew there are canals in France but not right in the middle of Paris itself.  We watched a boat go through a couple of the locks before moving on.

Our next destination was Hotel de Ville which seemed to be closed so we just wanted around the 1st and 2nd suburbs; finding a church we hadn’t seen before, we sat in the park watching some people play a few games of Petanque.

We did some shopping — it seems to be what you do in Paris — before ducking into a supermarket to get some food for dinner.

Tomorrow we head back to London for the second last leg of our trip which, sadly, is coming to a close.  We both agree that we could keep going but all good things must end eventually.