Paris in brief

 A few Paris photos. There is a full album available here.

Unfortunately I came down with a cold the day after we arrived, so I was not feeling the best. And the weather is probably the worst we have ever experienced in April. Friday afternoon was beautifully warm and sunny, we enjoyed sitting by the pond in the centre of the Luxembourg Gardens. Saturday morning was so wet in the Jardin des Plantes that I never took my camera out - and we realised that even for a short visit, two pairs of jeans would have been a good idea!

Mostly we walked and wandered, so here I'm just going to post no more than a dozen of my favourite photos. 

It was raining on Sunday morning when we went up to the Arc de Triomphe. (In the album, you will see a couple of architectural models from when it was first proposed. There is a model of the first suggestion, and then a reproduction of the final version which is much less fussy. We spent the last afternoon, after we had checked out, visiting an exhibition on the restoration of Notre-Dame in the architecture and heritage museum (https://www.citedelarchitecture.fr/en). There were some really interesting videos interviewing some of the different craftspeople involved in the restoration. 

Montmartre

The rooster from the cathedral spire

Near le Gare du Nord

the city, seen from Montmartre

façade of the Dior building on the Champs Elysees
 

I loved this octopus on the oceanographic institute, but it was hard to get a good photo

along the Seine

Notre-Dame

Montmartre

And finally on Monday, we took the metro from the end of the main section of the Promenade Plantée over to Montmartre. By the time we arrived there the sunshine had come out, the skies were blue, and the day was warming up at last. We sat on the steps in front of the Sacre-Coeur and enjoyed the heat.
The last two photos are the Igor Stravinsky fountain near the Pompidou Centre. Alas, it was drained and dry - so maybe it didn't matter too much that at last my camera battery had run out and my spare was back in the apartment. Then it was back to the apartment to collect our luggage, and off to the Gare de Lyon to take the coach back to the airport.

Promenade Plantee

I've shared photos of this walk, partially along an old disused rail line, before. This was our last day and started out a LOT colder, and very grey and overcast. Walking was a good thing to do.

Paris at night

Previously we've stayed near a metro line which served the Eiffel Tower and visited more than once. This year we hadn't seen it at all except from a distance, so we rectified that on the last night. According to Google Maps we walked about 10 km (7 miles) miles that night - no wonder C was tired afterwards.

We were curious about the onion domes, because we couldn't remember ever having seen them before. They are, in fact, the new Russian Orthodox Cathedral - so in fact we hadn't seen them.