On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Welcome to Paris After Dark!
This is episode 100 of On The Road on my watch, and by total coincidence we’re starting a 3-week trip, to Paris no less! You guys are keeping me busy – good job, everyone.
I know the monuments and churches in Paris are iconic, but the courtyard photo of the hotel pictured below completely captured my heart. So charming, and so beautiful. Exactly what I would have pictured for Paris. I wish I could be in that spot right now. ~WaterGirl
arrieve
These are the most recent pictures I have of Paris, from February 2018. I was on my way home from the Middle East and was breaking up the trip with a few days in Paris.
Any excuse to visit Paris….
Looking out at the city through the clock in the Musée d’Orsay. You can see Sacré-Coeur in the distance.
The main hall in the Musée d’Orsay. This museum contains most of the well-known Impressionist art; one of the advantages of visiting in February is that it was slightly less crowded than usual. The building was originally a train station, and I’ve always loved the contrast between the Beaux Arts architecture and the modern art.
Gargoyles on the exterior of Notre Dame. I’ve always gone to Notre Dame my first day in Paris. It’s not the most beautiful church in Paris, and it was always packed with tourists but there was something about the atmosphere inside that made me feel such joy. I’m not religious, but it definitely felt holy to me.
Some of the beautiful stained glass inside Notre Dame.
The courtyard of the charming hotel I stayed in, near the Jardin du Luxembourg. It was winter, so no sitting outside. The small family owned hotels are one of the things I love most about Paris. I love coming down in the morning to the breakfast room and sitting at a little round table and having my cafe au lait and a baguette with butter and jam. I have had some wonderful meals in Paris, but that’s the food I crave — baguettes, and ice cream from Berthillon and a croque madame on Poilane bread at a cafe.
Some day I’m going to just park myself on a bench outside a Parisian bakery and eat bread until I either explode or have to leave for the airport.
I definitely don’t need any more pictures of the Eiffel Tower, but somehow I can never stop myself.
Open Thread: Vote By Mail – Don’t Wait
SiubhanDuinne
I love Paris in the springtime,
I love Paris in the fall,
I love Paris in the summer, when it sizzles,
I love Paris in the winter, when it drizzles.
Elizabelle
Love these photos. A really good set. Concur about the bread!
rikyrah
Paris ????
Auntie Anne
I ❤️ your pictures! I agree with you about the contrast between the architecture at Musee d’Orsay and the art. It’s sort of Philistine of me, but I have to confess I liked the architecture as much as I did the art.
Wag
It would be a crime to stop yourself taking pictures of the Eiffel Tower. Especially photos as nice as yours here.
WaterGirl
@Wag: I think that’s the nicest photo of the Eiffel Tower that I have ever seen.
Barbara
Really lovely photos, especially the Eiffel Tower. The study in contrast between gray and black of sky and tower and then the organic shape of branches and the tower grid — just really interesting and fresh.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: Wondering what is in the tree to the right. Is it a squirrel’s nest with a view? A lost balloon?
Elizabelle
Those are mostly really crisp photos. Especially the one inside Notre Dame; the beautiful stained glass. And the Musee d’Orsay.
Wondering what kind of camera, although it comes down to arrieve’s skill, does it not? She definitely has an eye, as these photos demonstrate.
arrieve
@Elizabelle: I couldn’t figure out what that was either — maybe a plastic bag that got loose?
Lapassionara
This lifted my spirits. Thank you.
Barbara
@Elizabelle: To be inside ND or Chartres or Sainte Chappelle on a sunny day is a real gift.
arrieve
@Elizabelle:
These photos were taken with a Canon 7D DSLR. It’s not the fanciest but I’ve had it for many years now so we get along. Thank you for your kind comments!
Mary G
Takes me back to happy times when we just gave up on restaurants and ate bread from bakeries & meat from charcuteries on the closest bench for lunch and dinner after the cafe au lait and croissants in our little B & B.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: I was able to get a BIG version of the photo from the media library, and I cropped just “the thing”.
I think it looks like a toy helicopter or something but maybe your eyes will be better than mine. Just sent it by email.
ljt
Beautiful pictures! I also love the Eiffel Tower behind the trees. And the Notre Dame stained glass is stunning. Thank you.
Origuy
The closest I’ve been to Paris is changing planes in CDG. Not the best memory to have of France. Those were lovely pictures, thanks. I’m looking forward to the rest of the series.
Wag
@WaterGirl:
Maybe second nicest. There’s one that I’m pretty fond of…
WaterGirl
I have added a special category for Paris After Dark, so when the series is done we can still find them easily and go through the Paris posts whenever we please.
WaterGirl
@Wag: Is it in your Paris post, by any chance?
scav
Lamp post for the thing in the tree? There’s a regular arc to the right of it that might attach it to the post (which would be just out of frame).
Currants
Oh, what a lift, to see this place. Thank you so much for these lovely photos!
Hoodie
Reminds me of our friends who hosted our boys for two summers in Paris when they were in high school and my oldest when he was at Dauphine for a year. Hope to see them again before too much time passes. Another reason to crawl over broken glass.
Wag
@WaterGirl: Yep.
scav
And I’d want a grand crème in a café on a very damp winter morning.
Tehanu
But weren’t a lot of the paintings in the Musee D’Orsay painted during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, when Beaux Arts architecture was actually happening? We just saw (before the ‘rona) a great exhibition of Manet at the Getty Center in LA and the frames were all heavy, elaborate 1800s-style frames, which I always think is more of a jarring contrast to the pictures than anything. Or vice versa: seeing Old Masters in a modern building.
WaterGirl
@Wag: I confess that the Paris posts have been arriving fast-and-furious so I just pick my favorite photo for the featured image as they arrive (while all the photos are at the top of the media library) and look at the posts in detail once they are scheduled for the upcoming week.
WaterGirl
@Wag: Okay, I just checked. I do remember that one! I instantly chose that photo for the featured image for your post.
It is truly outstanding.
TomatoQueen
Grand merci for these views.
frosty
@Auntie Anne: That’s not Philistine at all! Architecture is art. It’s even better than paintings and sculpture IMHO because you’re inside it – you can live in it!
J R in WV
Are there any photos of the catacombs?
We didn’t have a chance to get into the tombs, but it really interests me… I am not a ghoul!!
WaterGirl
I am headed for bed, but I would say that Paris After Dark has started off with a bang!
WaterGirl
There are two slots left for Paris pics in week 3, so if you’ve been thinking about it, send your pictures in!
Auntie Anne
@J R in WV: Come sit 6 feet away from me . . . I am fascinated by them as well. But my travel buddy was not interested, so we didn’t get to see them.
Elizabelle
@scav: Yes. I think that might be a lamp/streetlight. The arm is too “regular” to be a tree branch, etc.
Auntie Anne
@frosty: I have always been fascinated by architecture. I spend a lot of time gawking at buildings when I visit somewhere new.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I swear I’m going to be on the first plane to Europe, probably Paris, as soon as it’s even reasonably safe, and they’re letting us in
Elizabelle
I am reading Julia Child’s “My Life in Paris.”
It is wonderful. Treat yourself. A memoir of her years there, from 1948 to 1954. She and Paul arrived with their Buick station wagon, transported in the hold of the USS America, on which they sailed through gale force winds in November to reach France. She says they were both adventurous travelers, and two of only five people to show for breakfast one morning when the seas were especially violent.
Illustrated with Paul Child’s B&W photos. He was a very good photographer. They met in Ceylon, during WW2.
Such a life.
Wag
@WaterGirl: My wife gets the credit for it.
BigJimSlade
@Barbara: AAAA-aaaa-aa-AAA-aaaaahhhhhhh-mennnnnnn!
BigJimSlade
(drops mic, or something heavy) ok, that does it. i have to dig out my pictures taken with a crappy 110 camera from 31 years ago. It’s on like donkey kong. (just cuz i love paris)
Redshift
I’m see if I can turn up any pictures of my last trip to Paris. They’re definitely pre-smartphone; if they’re pre-digital, it’s probably hopeless.
donatellonerd
very beautiful. especially the Eiffel tower & the courtyard picture, and the view from the clock at Orsay. Except for the top floor paintings (where the rooms are almost always too crowded), too much time there gives me a headache. As Claude Levi-Strauss also complained. On the ground floor, les “Pompier” paintings make it look like history decided they won.
There go two miscreants
Late to the post, but very nice pix. One of the cool things about the MO is people just hanging out in the area behind the clock. Definitely my favorite museum (of the ones I visited, at least!).
arrieve
@scav: Good call! I found another picture with a slightly different angle and it’s definitely a lamp post.
WaterGirl
arrieve just sent me a crop of the mystery item, which is most definitely a lamp post, clearly shown in this photo.