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.
Am in NC
Since a few people in comments asked for more Paris photos, I’m sending another batch. Like the first group, these are mostly details that caught my eye around the city.
Morning shot in Le Marais. Just feels so “Paris” to me.
Walking west of the Eiffel Tower, you get a completely different city, away from the (stunning and iconic) Haussmann buildings. One son loved “old Paris” and the other loved the more modern feel of this section. The facade of this (approx) 15-story building was amazing and played tricks on your your brain.
Another cool building right near the previous one. Another tourist (I’m assuming) walking by took a photo of this building right after I did.
We stayed near the Pompidou Center, which is about to undergo a multi-year restoration. Hard to imagine how revolutionary this building was at the time, since we are now so used to seeing the “guts made visible” style.
Door handle to the massive courtyard doors for the Jewish Art and History Museum in the Marais.
Like Elvis, MJ is everywhere. Go Heels!
View over the city from the roof terrace of the Galleries Lafayette Haussmann, an INSANE Department Store. It is free to go up there, and the panorama is spectacular. You are also directly across from the Palais Garnier (Paris Opera House) and are able to see amazing details of the upper parts of the building up close and personal.
Courtyard of the place we stayed. Younger son LOVED this – that we could be on a somewhat busy street, open a door, and be transported to a completely quiet, green and secret space.
Because it’s Balloon Juice, a duck family doing its thing at the little pond by the Eiffel Tower.
Our gang in front of the Hôtel de Ville. Note the rings for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics!
Baud
Paris is a great city for tourists.
Chris T.
Amusing bit of history about the Eiffel Tower
snippet quote:
Baud
@Chris T.:
Oops.
Kristine
I agree with your son about the courtyard. I love hidden spaces like that as well.
Thank you for sharing your photos.
frosty
It’s cool you could do a family trip with your grown kids. We did the same in 2014 to London Normandy and Paris a few years back and we have another one planned for Hawaii this summer. Like yours, they gave us a different perspective.
Tony Jay
I love Paris. It just feels, smells and sounds exactly like you expect it to. And yeah, that shot up the street is how I envisage it, hanging out of the window watching life happening below and wondering what’s going on behind all of those elegant windows.
We’ve got a day and a night there in August while returning from our train holiday, just enough time for some nice food and a trip to the Van Gogh collection in the Musee D’Orsay.
MomSense
Paris me manque beaucoup beaucoup.
Love seeing your photos.
Lapassionara
@Tony Jay: I love Paris too. I was surprised because I had heard from some that it was “too dirty” and “the people are rude.” All big cities contend with grime and litter, but I saw workers in green vests sweeping the gutters every morning near where we were staying. And as for manners, Parisians really expect you to say “bonjour” when you approach them or walk in their shop. Anyway, I enjoy being there, and the Van Gogh’s at the Musee D’Orsay are fabulous.
Elizabelle
Love your photos. Such a sense of place.
And the hot pink coat is perfect too.
Betsy
Thanks for sharing these! Enjoyed them.
Betty
Good collection to show the various sides of Paris. Nice family photo too.
Raoul Paste
Such an enjoyable post to see over breakfast this morning. Brings back good memories
Tony Jay
@Lapassionara:
I know. I’ve never had a problem with Parisian manners, probably because I’m so bloody polite all the time, possibly because I don’t know enough French (or, more strictly, can’t understand enough spoken French) to get the rudeness.
Also, I’ll forgive just about anything for a warm baguette, a chunk of Emmental and a smoked garlic sausage.
WaterGirl
I’m with your younger son – I love that charming spot, just out of the way of all the busy-ness.
pieceofpeace
The longing to return has remained with me since the 1960s and these pictures show why.
Architecturally stunning, I especially loved the first one, and enjoyed fully all the remainders.
We also travelled with grown sons, and sought out their perspectives and differences at whatever place, often realizing how two generations see or experience the same things, but differently, which is what I loved about it.
Princess
I’m here right now! And yes, the secret key is to say “Bonjour.”
opiejeanne
@Princess: That is the key; they are more formal than we are but the only rude person we encountered on our first trip there was an American woman waiting in line for the Orangerie, to see the enormous Monet lily ponds.
(I am jealous. We had our third trip to Paris all planned and paid for in January 2020 for May of that year, and you know what happened next. We have been hesitant to book another trip, but we’re 73 and 76 now so if we do it had better be pretty soon.)
AM in NC
Loved reading everyone’s Paris experiences. It is a magical place, and I found the people friendly as well. Maybe because last time I was there (2018) I was with my mom and aunt, and it’s easy to be kind to three gray-haired women clearly thrilled to be in your city. And this time, I was with my family, and my boys were raised to be polite to everyone, or else. I also try mightily to speak French in every interaction (badly, but I try) and never assume people can speak English. We are in France, after all.
And, yes to everyone who said traveling with adult/semi-adult kids is really cool. Old enough to have opinions and be interested, and young enough to notice/be impressed by different things than I might
ETA: @Princess, I hope you are having a fantastic time there now!
Andrew Abshier
I stayed in a tiny apartment in the 11th Arrondissement when I was in Paris, close to Canal St. Martin. It was a good place to be based at.
J R in WV
New Orleans has lots of tiny escape spaces too. I think older cities are prone to it more than modern ones. Apartments built around a big courtyard with a garden and fountain, so NOLA. Back in its fishing village era Key West was like that, more tourist spa today.
The bar across from our apartment in Key West, the rooftop garden is a nude spa — not that I’m criticizing that at all !!! It was a great bar back when we lived there in the 1970s — a newly wed sailor from the WV hills and his never seen salt water bride… she had a hard time on the 7 mile bridge, nothing but water all around for miles…
Wag
Great photos. I live Paris, and traveling there Wilton kids is a great experience, both for the kids and the parents.
One of the things I love about Paris are the mini incongruities. The Pompidou center popping up in the middle of town, and easily recognizable from any high vantage point. I remember the initial response to the Eiffel tower with smeared by the initial response to the Pompidou center. Now both are inextricably linked to Paris.
Yutsano
Les canards de Paris!
I really do need to go to my other ancestral homeland some day. But I also want to do Germany around Christmas so…