Paree by night

This past Tuesday evening we went out for one more walk down by the Seine before heading back to Saint-Aignan on the train the next morning. The weather was clear and chilly. I took my camera (the Canon s70) of course and shot a bunch of night pictures — there was plenty of room left on the flash card.


We walked past cafés with empty terrasses. It was a little too chilly to sit out after dark, but I'm sure the outdoor seating areas had been full of people in the afternoon, when it was sunny.

[Caution! Anecdote...] While we were in Paris, we had one lunch outdoors, by the way. It was hamburgers with cole slaw, French fries, and some red Rhône wine at a place called Breakfast in America in the rue des Écoles on the Left Bank. I can recommend it for the hamburgers, but if you don't live in France you probably don't want to sacrifice one of your French meals just to eat a burger. Oh, and we had coffee or a glass of wine at outdoor cafés several times during the week. The weather was not bad for early April. [End of anecdotal content.]

The Café Rive Droite is at Les Halles, in the big pedestrian area surrounding the Forum des Halles shopping gallery.

We walked across the north branch of the Seine and crossed the Île de la Cité, passing in front of Notre Dame cathedral.

Looking down the river from the Right bank, the Île de la Cité is on the left, and just past the Pont au Change are the buildings of the Conciergerie.

As we walked along the river, we went past the Conciergerie.

From the Pont Neuf, we overlooked the tour boats that dock at the west end of the island. The building in the background is the Hôtel de la Monnaie, on the Left Bank.

This is a view of the Place Saint-Michel on the Left Bank and the Pont Saint-Michel as seen from across the south branch of the river, on the Île de la Cité near Notre Dame.

Looking east from the Pont Neuf, you see the Hôtel de Ville and a tower of the Église Saint-Gervais on the Right Bank (on the left in this picture), the Pont au Change, and the administrative and historic buildings on the Île de la Cité (on the right).

This is the view downriver from the Pont Neuf. The dome on the left is the Institut (where the French academy and other academies meet) on the Left Bank. In the distance is the Tour Eiffel, and on the Right Bank you can see the buildings of the Louvre. You can just barely make out the Pont des Arts in the dark.


In the evening, the Eiffel Tower is turned into a big colorful sparkler for ten minutes every hour on the hour. After our walk, we went and had a good-bye cognac (a calvados and a vieille prune, actually) at a café at Châtelet. Our next scheduled trip to Paris will be in late May, for the Roland Garros tennis matches.