Paris Part One

We spent the first week of May in the center of Paris and walked a lot and took an awful lot of photographs. Our apartment was on the Ille St Louis, which was a very convenient and quiet location, busy during the day but very quiet through the night.

This is the doorway to our apartment, conveniently located between a cheese store and a very nice restaurant.

Our daily climb, 65 steps to the third floor apartment.

Quite close to where we stayed was a large hospital, confusingly called Hotel Dieu, the first hospital in Paris, established in 651.

Notre Dame was a short walk for us, it is a tourist destination and is often quite crowded but always worth the visit. The lines to climb up to the tower level were always long, and we know the staircase is narrow and a bazillian steps, (thanks Pat and John)

The view from the Seine.

We were fortunate to be walking by with the full moon shining through a thin layer of cloud.

Many buildings are lit at night.

The Seine was in flood during our stay making the navigation for the tour boats, a challenge.

Many of the bridges have all of these padlocks attached to them. Couples buy a padlock, attach it to these bridges to signify the "locking" of

their love for each other. In fact we learned that one bridge, the iron bridge, has so many locks attached that it is in some danger of collapse, so adding more locks is now illegal.

Padlocks everywhere,

An innovative solution to the delivery of small items. These folks can really maneuver through the traffic.

Parkng is an issue, just like most big cities, but I am not sure how these cars got "unparked", I just hope these car owners know each other.

Of course, Paris is full of amazing restaurants. This one caught our attention, all of the plating of the large shared seafood plate were prepared "on the street". We would have liked to eat there but were a bit put off by the large share platter that cost about $250. It is probably worth a return visit.

There are all varieties of food available and we found this Tibetan restaurant close by with food we like and prices much more in line with our plans.
More to come soon, Paris Part Two.