Paris, mostly below

Over the course of several days in Paris for XSL and XML Query Working Group meetings, I found a few hours to explore the city.

Initially, I wondered past Notre Dame

Notre Dame de Paris

and through the Tuileries Gardens.

Aaaahhhh!

I had hoped for interesting photo opportunities, but found the bright, flat glare of an almost uniformly overcast sky difficult to use. I took pictures anyway, of course, but I think the glare won in most of them.

I started by going to the top of Tour Montparnasse, a nearly 60 story office building not far from my hotel, which offers panoramic views from its roof.

View from Tour Montparnasse

On said roof, I happened to notice Sacre Cœur.

Sacre Coeur from Tour Montparnasse

Recalling that it too had a fairly panoramic view of the city, I went to take a look from that vantage.

View from Sacre Coeur

The Dome was open, and I've never been able to resist a few hundred stone steps, so up I went. Nice views, despite the glare. Gargoyles I'd never seen before and, naturally, a view of Tour Montparnasse.

Tour Montparnasse from Sacre Coeur

I came away from my first trip to Paris, in 1998, without a really satisfying picture of the Eiffel Tower. Due, somewhat ironically, to the fact that it was set against the flat glare of a uniformly overcast sky.

That, combined with my ambition to take some good photographs this time, lead to a brief sort of fascination with photographing the tower. I took bunches of them. The best, I think, or at least the most interesting, is the one with the Statue of Liberty.

The Statue of Liberty

I still don't think I've taken a really good photograph of the monument, but I think I'm hooked on its charms. It's interesting, and attractive, and big. Really much bigger than is conveyed in any of the photographs I've taken…so far.

There are more photographs on Flickr.

I went 0 for 3 on geocaches, in case it occurs to you to wonder. One that I sought turned out to be in a cemetery and I just couldn't bring myself to poke around among the monuments in a crowded city cemetery. My French isn't good enough to explain what I was doing, if anyone asked. The second cache was in a little playground just below Sacre Cœur. Unfortunately, it was crowded with elementary school children at recess when I was there. I made a few furtive explorations, but there was just no way to look without drawing attention to myself. By the time I reached the third, I'm afraid dinner was demanding my attention, and after a casual inspection, dinner won. C'est la vie.