Thursday, April 16, 2009
My walk through Paris this evening
I walked around Paris for about three hours this evening, from six to nine. We are so far north and west in the time zone that the sun was up for most of the walk and it was still light for all of it. Behold the map of my walk from my modest hotel (the Best Western Astra Opera on rue de Caumartin, which has the highest stars-to-room size ratio in my experience). The black "X" is my approximate starting position, and the crude fumble-thumbled arrows indicate the direction...
As you can see, I am so transportingly lame with the digital imagery tools that I gave up trying to make a map that both resolved to a satisfactory detail and captured my entire journey. But I got most of it, missing only a meandering through a few streets in the Latin Quarter off the Boulevard St. Michel.
The exciting pictures below, a small fraction of the images that fell to my lens, are in chronological order, as it were. There are a lot of them, so apologies to those few of you -- Mom? -- who still rely on dial-up. Sucks to be you.
Looking north on the posh Rue de Royale, back to la Place de la Concorde...
Turning around, looking south down the Rue de Royale (obviously), across la Place de la Concorde. I love this view.
Same direction, this time from the edge of Concorde...
Looking east along the Rue de Rivoli, from the corner of Concorde and the Tuileries...
Standing in the Tuileries Gardens, facing east toward the Louvre. The French get wonderful use out of their glorious public spaces.
One corner of the Louvre, the largest museum in the world, through the blossums...
L'Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Elysee, from the l'Arc de Triomphe du Carousel (the little one)...
Wide angle.
The Seine, looking east toward Ile de Cite, the location of the original settlement of Paris.
La Rue de la Huchette in the Latin Quarter, where we stayed as a family back when I was only 14, looking back toward the "Boule Miche."
The Notre Dame that does not have a football team...
Detail.
L'Hotel de Ville. In other words, the town hall.
L'Opera!
Wish you were here.
I'm flying home on Friday morning, so blogging from me, at least, will be, well, light, unless I can schedule some posts from the airport.
7 Comments:
By 
Elijah, at
Fri Apr 17, 12:24:00 AM:
Recommend Grand Hotel Leveque on Rue Cler for your next stay.
Relatively cheap, clean, great location, nice market on the street, and easy access to Ecole Militaire metro stop
By SR, at
Fri Apr 17, 01:56:00 AM:
Hmmmm. Lot of CO2 coming out of all those cars.
By 
, at
Fri Apr 17, 08:35:00 AM:
I have been there. :)
And the CO2 is pretty disturbing.:)
The Arcade is another hotel in the area that is pretty nice. I use to stay in that area of Paris when my company was based in Courbevoie (western suburb). The pictures are a nice reminder of a stay in 2002 when the weather was perfect and Paris was beautiful.
-David
By , at
Fri Apr 17, 11:18:00 AM:
Are you saying the other "Notre Dame" as in the University has a football team...?
I just thought that ND was in the business of selling out the Catholic faith by honoring a President at their coming commencement event, who is against almost everything the Catholic faith stands for...
By , at
Fri Apr 17, 12:03:00 PM:
Some long-time and loyal readers happen to live in remote rural areas where broadband is not available, so yes, we have to wait and wait for the pictures. Some of them never download. It sucks to be us, but at least we're not French. Ha Ha
By , at
Fri Apr 17, 12:49:00 PM:
At 11:46 AM (CST), your Google bar had three ads, side by side. The one on the right was "aclu.org" with a teaser about CIA torture.
By , at
Fri Apr 17, 09:35:00 PM:
I think that the caption on the top picture is wrong.
That is the Magdalene Church, a few blocks from the Opera House, not the Place de la Concorde.
-Dvid
