Revision as of 14:48, 17 March 2013

Paris

Paris, the capital of France.

I had a very mild version of Paris syndrome (see here for a better description). Interestingly, not the very first time that I went there—this was with my father—but I believe on the third visit. The city suddenly appeared gross to me, dirty, full of obnoxious and arrogant people. A deep, complete, total disappointment of this place and its people. I can certainly understand it reaches traumatic proportions for delicate foreign visitors.

The most beautiful tribute to Paris that I know is Brel's les prénoms de Paris:

Et savoir que demain

Sera comme aujourd'hui

C'est Paris merveilleux

Most tributes to Paris are tributes to love. Some, equally beautiful, are to freedom and resistance, but in the sight of history, these are farcical. Maybe more believable are those to a realism à la Zola.

Notre-Dame

We never go to Paris without passing by Notre-Dame, the heart of France and one pillar of Catholicism, where the Crown of thorns has been placed by Saint Louis for safekeeping while the Sainte Chapelle was being built (as he died before, it seems the relics remained in the temporary location). Witness of the slaughtering of the wolves of Paris, defaced by Napoléon for his coronation, the resonance chamber for the Requiem of the last French leader, and, of course, the inspiration for a major work of French literature, it is the real symbol of our capital.

Notre-Dame.
The famous facade.
The portal of the last judgment.
Saint-Denis waiting for it.
The temptation of Adam and Eve.
Detail of the snake.
Another figure in great expectation.
What is awaiting us.
Although we'll say we hadn't been warned.
Some are merely artistically interesting.
Others are gripping you by the soul.
Maybe one of the original statue (most were destroyed during the French revolution).
Inside, the scene of Gethsemane.
Fabrice with one of the new bells of Notre-Dame.
Notre-Dame at night.

Sacré-Cœur

A rather odd-looking church to crown Paris, it was built under Mac-Mahon following the popular uprising of la commune to reestablish moral order and monarchy. It is difficult to put it one side or the other: Kitsch or architectural masterpiece, perpetual adoration or touristic trap, national penance or national sin.

Le Sacré-Cœur (and Fabrice).
Nicer view, with warmer colors and with Elena.
The people up there.
From below.
Paris as seen by the Sacré-Cœur. On the right, hiding in eerie colours, the Tour Montparnasse,
that you see again here.

Visits on 2 August (2006) and then again on 16 February (2013).

Le Louvre

Le Louvre.
Palais des Tuileries.
Detail of one of the statues on top from the previous image.
Another one.
A statue grazing the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel.
On the wall of the Jardin des Tuileries.

Colonne Vendôme

The famous copy in bronze of the the Trajan Column (itself in Marble) in Rome to serve as a pedestal to Napoléon who erected it from the cannons captured to the combined armies of Europe.

Sadly, the statue remained that of Napoléon as a Roman emperor, instead of the iconic pause en petit caporal, with the bicorne and in grey-coat with hand-in-waistcoat, which would have been much more dramatic.

Elena and Napoléon.
A thousand cannons melted in the sky.
Detail of the relief.
A lion.
And an imperial eagle.

Tour Eiffel

From the rive droite.
Standing there as if a normal part of the Parisian set.
Elena and the tower.
Below.
Us,
and us again.
The skirt.
A leg.
The moon.

@@ Line 55: / Line 55: @@
 Image:Louvre-feb2013-3.jpg|Le Louvre.
 Image:Louvre-feb2013-1.jpg|Palais des Tuileries.
-Image:Louvre-feb2013-2.jpg|Detail of one of the statues on top.
+Image:Louvre-feb2013-2.jpg|Detail of one of the statues on top from the previous image.
 Image:Louvre-feb2013-4.jpg|Another one.
 Image:Louvre-feb2013-6.jpg|A statue grazing the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel.