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.
I love getting to see so many different parts of Paris… the classic landmarks, countrysides, parks, shops, street scenes. Bakeries! Today we have street scenes, which I am loving. And the river, the gorgeous Seine River! ~WaterGirl
J R in WV
At the tail end of our only trip to France, primarily to visit and tour cave art in the NE of Spain and SW of France, we took the train from Toulouse to Paris, where we stayed for two nights before flying home on Air France, highly recommended way to cross the Atlantic. The one day we had to sight see in Paris the Louvre was closed, but our hotel was in the neighborhood, so I took pictures of the area around the Louvre, and quite a few in and around Notre Dame, which I submitted quite a while ago.
We ate out for two dinners and two lunches in Paris, all the food was above average for the types of restaurants we visited, in fact all the food in Europe was pretty good. Roadside bar food was competitive with upscale American places, actually. I didn’t take photos of the restaurants, nor of the food, not my style of photography. Take my word, the Michelin starred place we ate just across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower was gorgeous inside and out, as was the food both pretty and delicious — specialized in seafood!
It was a beautiful October day, and we walked or took a pedicab, and didn’t move too far from the hotel, across the street from the Louvre. Until the day we were loose in Paris I didn’t realize our ONE DAY there was the one day each week the famed museum was closed. Oh, well, not like there was nothing else to see!
We had a great time that whole trip. Ancient bones, art, tools, scientists, great food, beautiful scenery, mostly great weather, although that didn’t matter so much when the goals were underground.
I don’t have so much to say about the photos individually. Street scenes in Paris in the neighborhood around the Louvre.
All these photos were taken with a Google Nexus tablet, I burnt up the recharger for the Panasonic camera, so when that battery was exhausted, I just switched to the tablet. I think they came out pretty well, but there isn’t the depth of data to do much enhancement editing.
A walkway through the buildings around the Louvre, with views of art and architecture of the Louvre.
A sculpture garden of the Louvre from the walkway. I’m sure there are hundreds of other famous sculptures in this huge museum, hard to see that they would be much better than this one. Paris is like a fairy tale!
I remember seeing pictures of the combination of modern design with the very old styles of architecture of Paris. The angular pyramids were so controversial at the time, and now they seem to have aged into their location very well.
This picture gives you a sense of the size of this place. I believe the museum extends under the whole plaza, as well in all the buildings around the plaza. Someday I would like to spend a week in Paris, in order to spend a couple of days in this museum, and then to tour around this amazing city, before leaving to tour rural France. The Bucket List grows faster than we can knock items off the list, I guess this is a good thing…
While Paris is chock full of museums and galleries and Cathedrals and history, it is also the seat of government of a major nation. This passageway is access to (IIRC) offices of the State Department, and I’m sure those parking places are worth the weight of the cars in gold. Don’t hold me to that State Dept description, I don’t speak French and it was years ago, but certainly Government at a high level, just look at it!
This is a very fall looking scene, the river is — well, it is what it is, wonderful scenery for an urban landscape. European rivers seem to be closer to their cityscapes than many American cities are. Manhattan is surrounded by rivers, yet you don’t see those rivers like you do the Seine.
This is just a street scene, we’ve crossed the river from the Louvre area into a light commercial district, at least the street level has shops and restaurants… no telling what is in the huge buildings above street level. After lunch here, we took a pedicab down stream to the now burned out Notre Dame Cathedral, pictures from that visit were featured after that tragic fire.
There is a great archaeological dig into Roman-era buildings under a parking deck at Notre Dame, I don’t recall if I’ve submitted photos from that or not. It was hard to get good photos with just the tablet to work with, it’s well lit for eyeballs, not so much for photography. Once they started to build the parking deck and found the ruins under there, they stopped and redesigned the whole project to preserve the ruins, a great job.
Lapassionara
Theses are wonderful. The photo of the river is particularly entrancing. The river seems a bit high, and I thought your observation about the difference between US cities and their rivers was very apt. In the US, everything is designed with the car in mind. In Europe, the cities are older than the car, and the design favors humans.
Dahlia
Lovely photos. It’s too bad the lighting in the Crypte Archeologique wasn’t suitable for photography. That’s one of my favorite places in Paris.
J R in WV
@Dahlia:
Well, it wasn’t impossible… I have photos, I’ll send them in one day soon.
These look OK, it’s hard to mess up photos in Paris, what a wonderland! And a seat of government, too!
randy khan
That sculpture court is kind of eccentric – lots of steps and little plazas here and there, with no obvious way to navigate it. But there’s lot of interesting stuff there. And there’s hardly anyone ever there.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
IIRC, the Louvre has three wings, and I would recommend allocating three days for visiting the Louvre, doing one wing a day (or a half a day) if you want to take a stab at seeing much of the collection without being completely overwhelmed. Even then, the museum is huge (the palace was the biggest in Europe) and you can easily burn out by trying to see too much at once. The first time I went, I looked at each picture in each room (the way I normally look at art in a museum), and after about 6 or 7 rooms, as the size of the project became clear, I started walking through each room, and just stopping if something caught my eye (usually a world-famous painting or sculpture).
And this isn’t even mentioning the numerous other wonderful museums in Paris!
randy khan
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan):
My first time in the Louvre, I made a comment to my art history major girlfriend (now wife) about how it was kind of hard to focus on individual paintings when they hung so many of them in every room.
She said, more or less, that they’re all famous paintings so they all have to be out.
scav
I love that Richelieu side of the Louvre (the Ministry of Finance side, I’m that old). Especially that parts that still look like rooms, the Napoléon III apartments, it just somehow reminds me of the building that was — and it’s a bit less crowded. There are also the roots of the old Louvre castle, down in the basements.
Auntie Anne
I loved those Roman ruins under Notre Dame – it was one of the things my buddy and I did on our own pre-tour. I found them fascinating, and they really gave me a sense of the age of Paris.
J R in WV
@Auntie Anne:
This is so on point. Paris is many centuries old, even the old parts are newer than the founding of the city… I suspect it would be really hard to find parts older than the Roman ruins under the Notre Dame parking deck. But we know the Romans were not the first, they fought the Gauls after all. Just ask Julius Cesar.
I’ll look those photos up, they aren’t bad for what it is.
sdhays
I live that picture of the Seine! The river just shimmers.
@randy khan: My wife and I spent about 10 days in France in 2018, our last trip before the baby. The Louvre was amazing, and it wasn’t even our favorite art museum in Paris. It really is the best of the best of European art up to, what, the 19th century? It’s astonishing how impressive it is, even when you’re expecting it to be impressive.
donatellonerd
gorgeous picture of the Seine. Paris did put highways along the Seine, but not as big as, for example, the FDR in Manhattan. But they’ve had the brains in the last decade to convert them back to parks. btw, if we have finished Paris for now, there are stunning pictures, with a new one daily, at vivreparis in instagram.
Auntie Anne
@J R in WV: I would enjoy seeing them! I am something of a history nut, so seeing Paris’ age was meaningful for me. I felt the same way about London . . . and I’ve spent many happy hours immersed in books about both.
There go two miscreants
I am still enjoying everyone else’s Paris pictures — there have been many from locations where we didn’t go or where I neglected to take a picture.
WaterGirl
I didn’t get the schedule done in time for this post last night, but we have one more week of Paris!
neldob
Wonderful! Brings back good memories which are much needed these dark days.