Paris

I have one day in Paris to see the beautiful Parisian women, er I mean, the beautiful Parisian landmarks. Anyway it looks like half the women here are tourists. No, make that about 90% from the number of cameras being whipped out.

I remembered to put on my jacket, but I forgot the scarf. It was my one taste of a gloomy northern European autumn day to make me grateful I was going back to spring in Sydney. There was also a cold breeze so I had to duck into arcades or the metro whenever it got too cold in the open. 

If Madrid is an open-air history book, then Paris is an architectural museum. It is the top tourist destination in the world; show a picture of the Tour de Eiffel or the Arc de Triomphe to people and chances are they will recognise them as French landmarks. So I don't really need to caption the pictures; you know these places already. Sorry, no Eiffel or Grand Arch at La Défense—it was foggy and if you cannot see the landmark, then you can't see the ground from them either. Besides, that weekend, as it happened, due to works, metro line 1 terminated at Étoile.

I walked down Boulevard de Champs-Elysées towards Concorde. All the haute couture brands have a shop there. But my favourite shop was the FNAC.  For things you can get from Amazon, stick with Amazon, especially during this time when the greenback is getting a bashing, but FNAC stocks many small EU labels that put out some good compilations. Most of the compilations are lackluster sessions or lesser known works by famous artists, but some bargains can be found. They also have a good selection of world music.

By the way you may have noticed by now that 2 of the pictures aren't of standard Paris landmarks. In fact they are faux landmarks installed as part of the celebration of 50 years of Asterix and his plucky band of resistance fighters.

The last is a reworking of Olympia by Manet. So the French do have a sense of humour.

From Concorde I walked towards the Latin Quarter, which I found more interesting than than the architectural gems on the way.

The Latin Quarter has also a good variety of restaurants. Many of them are tourist traps, but off the busy streets you can find some gems. That evening I went back to the LQ, on my day ticket, to dine at an unpretentious Vietnamese restaurant that made very good phỏ. Afterwards a quick stop at Pigalle (actually Blanche is the closer Metro station) to take a picture of the famous Moulin. (I was too tired and too poor to do anything else, honest.)