09 January 2011

just the same, only different

I woke up to this scene this morning:


Let's go to France! Prune pour la route!  

Pictures of France have already appeared on this site.  Those pictures were taken in June and July 2009 when I was in France conducting research for a now scuttled dissertation project.  I took the following pictures during my first trip to the country in September, 2000.  Within a week of our arrival in Leuven, our faculty advisor took our contingent on a week-long excursion to Paris and northern France.  The four days we spent exploring the city were among the most extraordinary of my year abroad, not just because everything smelled of freshly baked bread and there was stunning architecture on literally every corner.  While Paris continued to dazzle in 2009, nothing compares to the wide-eyed, youthful exuberance of one's first encounter the City of Light.

But enough about me.  Bienvenue à Paris!



Notre-Dame



Paris boasts of hundreds of internationally renown restaurants.  A picnic lunch in the park behind Notre Dame is a dining experience worthy of a Michelen four-star rating.


The Eiffel Tower


A blurry Starry Night over the Rhone @ the Musee d'Orsay


Exquisite floor-to-ceiling stained glass at Sainte-Chapelle.


"There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other.  We always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached.  Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it.  But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy."

- Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast (1964).

No comments:

Post a Comment