Friday, April 23, 2010

Paris photo post.

(All photos are Sasha's, because I left for Paris with a camera without a memory card. I would like to point out that the lack of memory card was in no way my fault.)

Now then, Paris. Paris is a beautiful city, as is well known to everyone who has visited it. I did visit Paris once when it was gray and rainy, and that time I was not very impressed, but this time our first day in Paris was filled with sunshine, and how can that not be the start of a great mini vacation? I enjoy both extravagant architecture and old streets, as well as bombastic nature scenes. In Oslo I get neither, so it felt very refreshing to visit a truly big city again, with cathedrals, castles that actually look like castles, and all that.

On our way, after a somewhat dramatic start.

There are so many things to do in Paris that I have actually managed to go there four times without visiting Le Louvre or Le musée d'Orsay. But now I've been to both! The second one is actually more interesting, but here is perhaps the ugliest painting (or motive, poor woman) I could find in the Louvre (We were a bit surprised at people taking photos in there, so I thought we should take a photo of this thing. Just because it's ugly).

Lots of people at that place.

Two Russian girls took photos of us outside the Louvre.

We naturally got lost quite a couple of times. Usually at night. Luckily, the first time we were not that very far away from the Tour d'Eiffel, and I don't think you can say that you're lost as long as you can actually see that thing. Right?

During previous visits to Paris, I thought I had been to the flea market at Porte de Clingancourt. But I hadn't. I was always surprised that it was so small, but this time we had some printed instructions that mentioned going past smaller flea market in order to get to the big one. The big one was kind of creepy, and everything was very expensive.



Before going to the Musée d'Orsay, we went to a café that actually served decent coffee. The garcon was clearly amused by us wanting to pay at the wrong moment and returning our empty cups to the counter when we left. Apparently we were doing his job ;) It was a very cozy place, and I really like this picture Sasha took in our little "booth".

A rather fancy cappuccino and the money the garçon didn't want until we left.

The first time I saw these little "bookshops" on the Seine was when I was in Paris for just one day three or so years ago. My friend, who was living in Paris, showed me around Le quartier latin, his fancy school/Palace, a very nice park and these lovely things. We actually found some Russian books this time, but they were very expensive so I didn't buy anything. I bought "Les Russes" here though, and it cost 2,5 euros.

The other side of the river and the middle, from a bridge.

We didn't really do a whole lot of eating in Paris, mostly because we were always walking somewhere. And when we did eat, we didn't always choose the classiest places! The baguettes were very good though, especially after like 10 hours without food.

Russia was rather present in Paris.



Sasha thought I was so colorful she just had to take a photo of me.

Paris Metro. I like it, it's very easy to navigate. But hard to find!

We spent a whole lot of time in shops, but I think that's okay since it's Paris. You can't go to Paris without doing some shopping, especially since it's so cheap for us.
That's all for this time, folks!

7 comments:

  1. Thank you for the travel report - it makes me want to start studying French.

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  2. :) That´s great!!
    Were you at Shakespeare & co?
    J´aimerais retourner à Paris bientôt :)

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  3. What is Shakespeare & co? :) I also want to go back soon!

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  4. C´est une librairie anglophone (même si maintenant tu peux trouver des livres dans toutes les langues) qui se trouve près de Notre Dame (il faut simplement traverser le pont et tu la vois deja) C´est tres emblématique! Les gens qui y vont ont laissé des messages un peu partout pendant des années. Et un plus, tu peux y travailler quelques heures en exchange d´un endroit pour dormir dans la librairie! Il y a un petit lit dans le premier étage! La dame qui a creé cette librarie, Sylvia Beach, a ete la responsable de la publication du Ulysses de Joyce. A un moment donnée tous les grands ecrivains qui vivait à Paris se reunissaient chez Shakespeare and co. Son slogan est: Be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise ... :)
    Si tu as vu le film Before sunset, (deuxieme partie de Before sunrise) tu peux voir cette librairie dans la premiere partie du film :)

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  5. Ouf...pardon pour les fautes, j´ai ecrit tres vite! :)

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  6. Ça a vraiment l'air d'être quelque chose que j'aurais dû visiter ! Il y a vraiment trop de choses à Paris :-) Et je n'ai même pas vu de fautes en le lisant, ne t'inquiète pas pour ça!

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  7. Bon, c´est une bonne excuse pour y retourner ;-)

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