Along the Seine in Paris

Walking from west to east along the Seine in central Paris is always a good experience — especially in good weather. In these photos, you see the Louvre museum on the left, the Pont Royal spanning the river, and the Musée d'Orsay on the right. Since I was walking upriver, the Right Bank is on the left and the Left Bank is on the right. The rental apartment we were spending two weeks in was less than half an hour's walk from the Louvre.

In the distance, you see the Île de la Cité, the spires of the Sainte Chapelle and of Notre-Dame cathedral (as well as its massive bell towers). People stroll along the quais and tour boats full of tourists ply the river. This was in early April and might have been the first pleasant day of springtime, since March is often windy and wet.

Paris 7ème

It was the middle of April and we were walking around in the 7th arrondissment in Paris. It's a neighborhood we had stayed in, in a rental apartment, back in 1996, near the Hôtel des Invalides and not far from the Eiffel Tower. Here are some typical scenes and sights. The 7th is a very upscale part of Paris.

The apartment advertised for sale on the rue Cler was, in U.S. terms, on the fourth floor of a 19th century building. It has two bedrooms, parquet floors, crown moldings, fireplaces, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a separate WC. It's described as being sunny and quiet. The total living space is about 850 ft². The asking price was about $410,000 — the dollar was very strong against the newly introduced euro in April 2002. At today's rate, that €467,000 would cost you about $550,000 U.S.

I just read on a web site that the price of Paris apartments is about €12,000 per square meter of living space these days. At that rate, this same apartment would sell for more than a million U.S. dollars.

A walk through the Saxe-Breteuil market in Paris

It was April 11, 2002 — a Thursday morning. We walked from our rue Mayet rental apartment over to the Place de Breteuil to take a last walk through the big open-air market that sets up there two times a week. That's where I took most of these photos of food products displayed for sale. This slideshow is fairly long — 3½ minutes — and includes 26 images.

Choses vues autour des Invalides

These are photos of some things I saw around the Hôtel des Invalides in Paris. I was there in April of 2002 (and many other times). L'Hôtel des Invalides was built in the late 1600s during the reign of Le Roi Soleil (Louis XIV) as a military and veterans hospital for French soldiers wounded in the wars of the time.