Two tall Paris landmarks

One of the things I wanted  — and managed — to do while I was in Paris last week was to go up to the top of a major landmark called the Tour Montparnasse. It's a 1970s-era "skyscraper" or gratte-ciel that many people wish had never been built. It's a blot on the city, they say. That's it on the left.

The fact is, though, that you can get some of the best views of Paris and all its other, more admired monuments from on top of the 689-foot-tall Montparnasse tower. One monument that you can see from up there is the one that you can't see if you go up to the top of the other tall Paris landmark: La Tour Eiffel. For that view alone, people should be glad the Tour Montparnasse was built.

Of course, a lot of people in Paris thought that the Tour Eiffel was a blot on the city when it was built in the late 1800s. Now it's the symbol of the city and known world-wide.

I was lucky to get a fairly clear if very windy day for my outing. I wanted to take panoramic and long telephoto shots with my two recently acquired 30x zoom cameras, one a Panasonic and the other a Canon. My friends Evelyn and Lewis went up to the Montparnasse Tower's 56th-floor observation deck with me.

Above is the famous view. At the bottom of the photo you see the Ecole Militaire and then the parade grounds called Le Champs de Mars. Then there's the Eiffel Tower, with the Palais de Chaillot and the Place du Trocadéro just behind it, on the other side of the Seine. In the distance is the modern quartier d'affaires or financial district called La Défense, with it's 1970s- and 1980s-vintage high rise buildings.