More Pics

Paris has lots of churches...the most famous is Notre Dame, technically a cathedral. But even the most ordinary looking churches can be quite striking inside.

Here's an exterior shot of the St. Paul Saint Louis church in our neighborhood. It's being sandblasted & will look all clean & sparkling when finished. This church traces its direct history to its first Mass celebrated on May 9, 1641.















Just inside, here's a view towards the nave. The rays of sunlight are kinda ethereal.
















A close-up of the altar. I liked the sun casting a shadow of the chandelier on the floor.
















The sculpture work is quite amazing. This is one of maybe a half dozen like it in the church. Directly across from Jesus is another devoted to Mary.















Even the ceilings are beautiful. And there are those Gothic arches we explored last year.

















And of course the obligatory tribute to Jeanne d'Arc (pronounced "zhunn dark"), Joan of Arc to us. This wisp of a girl led the French into battle against the English until the Brits captured her & burned her at the stake.
















When visiting a church, we always take the opportunity to light a candle for the ill & struggling in our family. This candle is especially for Susanne's daughter Karen who had hip replacement surgery the day before we left.

When it comes to divine intervention, we'll take all the help we can get.







=========================



We're always looking for the latest Parisian fashion trends even when worn by the less than fashionable. This year it's bermuda shorts for the men, wedge heels for the ladies. Short shorts are still in style but not seen as often.


















More shorts.

















Shorts & short shorts.

Hey folks, don'tcha know it's pretty lame to be standing on a Paris street corner perusing a wide open map?? At the very least, step off into a corner. Or perhaps refold the map so just a small panel of the area you're in is visible. Or better yet, do what the Parisians do...buy one of the many Paris maps in pocket size book form.

Check out the wedge heels.












One more "people" shot. I am beginning to think that there is a double requirement here in Paris: "She who wears noire must always be on her cell phone."




















I was passing by these college girls just chilling in their dorm room. Considering how they were (un)dressed, I was surprised they stayed for the photo.












======================



My all time favorite (most beautiful) building in Paris is known as the Hotel de Ville. It is the main Paris city hall.

First of all, in France a "Hotel" is also a designation for a public or other notable building. It's not always a place to rent a room. If you're walking towards Notre Dame, you'll walk past Hotel Dieu, a hospital.

Anyhow, the H de V has been on this site since 1357. Through various constructions it eventually looked like this until the Paris Commune when it was badly damaged. It was re-built from 1873 to 1892.

Here is a much better image taken from the Wikipeda website.


What makes this building so beautiful & so unique is that there are a total of 338 statues of historically & 19th century contemporary famous Frenchmen & women displayed on all facades around the building. Some 230 sculptors including Rodin were commissioned to do the work.


Here's a look at one of the facades where you can see multiple sculptures.





















And here's an even closer look.

We have a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle of this building. It took us weeks & weeks to do the darn thing! You can imagine how all the pieces seemed to look the same.
















I'm trying to improve my technique with this blog, closing up some of the open spaces. But there seems to be three versions of how it looks. There's the "compose" mode, the "preview" mode and then, unfortunately there's the "how-it-really-looks-when-published" mode.

Gots to run.