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| Notre Dame, as seen from across the river | Street musicians and artists are everywhere in Paris. Not bad either! | Notre Dame, seen from the front. Lots of tourists! |
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| Merry-go-rounds are really popular on streets and in parks and they're not that expensive | Henry and Lorna ride this old two story merry-go-round | Many streets are narrow and one-way. Be very careful to watch your footing in Paris streets as dogs tend to leave goodies behind for you to step on. This is an ongoing problem in Paris |
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| White asparagus. Well, I thought it looked a lot like something else. | The Moulin Rouge | The Arc De Triumph. Use the underground passageway to get there as crossing the roundabout is next to impossible. You can pay to climb to the top to get a better view |
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| These are a couple views from the Eiffel Tower. To avoid the lines at the base pillars, buy a ticket and walk to the second level then buy a ticket on the second level to travel to the top. If you can avoid weekends, then all the better. | View of the grassy lawn next to the tower on a sunny weekend |
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| Some typical street scenes. In this case the Metro runs above ground, but it is tastefully integrated into the street scene | One of the tastefully decorated entrances to the Metro at Blanche station | Artists are everywhere and you can get your picture drawn |
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| Another street. Lots of wide sidewalks and traffic isn't that bad | Roudin's museum and the outside gardens -- very nice | Roudin is of course famous for 'Le Pensevr' -- the Thinking Man |
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| Le Musee d'Orsay was once an train station and is quite spacious and airy | Lots of space to wonder around and look at famous paintings | Some of the rooms have beautiful lighting and paintings throughout |
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| A nice carved polar bear in the central portion of the museum | This would be Whistler's Mother | The Louvre. One huge museum that would take days, if not weeks, to go through. Don't even think about trying to cram it all into one day and if you really want to see it all, spread it over a few days |
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| It only took us 10 minutes to find the Mona Lisa | Huge rooms and huge paintings throughout the Louvre will give you a very sore neck | There's a nice park near the Louvre where you can escape. There's also amusement rides there to cool down |
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| A well-preserved tuthmosid obelisk sits at the foot of Champs
d'Elysées. You'll find some more of these on my Egyptian page | From the obelisk you can look down Champs d'Elysées to the Arc De Triumph | Time to hide a Geocache. This is the view from the 'Paris Views for Free' geocache, located on the top of a department store. |
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| Huge tourist ferries run the canals for people to see the sights | The Metropolitan features a little rabbit that warns people not to put their hands on the doors since they might open or close suddenly | More geocaching. This micro cache film canister was hidden in a cemetery under a park bench (note the white clip) |
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| Children eat creme glacée in a small park | Off to Montpellier now. This is the first class compartment of the TGV (Train de Grande Vitesse). | Gare de Montpellier (Montpellier train station) |
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| Montpellier features a huge square in the centre of the city called the Place de la Comédie. This square is always filled with lots of activity, seeing that the city has a large student population | Vendors set up outdoor shops in the morning near the square and sell fresh veggies and clothing |
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| Yumm.. fresh olives. I'll need to pick up some gin later to go with them | As part of the conference I attended, there was a Gala dinner at a ranch outside Montpellier. Part of the entertainment including bull chasing. |
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| Bull was also on the dinner menu. No, not the same bulls that were chased. | Our table after dinner. Everyone was well stuffed and there was lots of nice wines |
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| There was dancing after dinner and everyone kept trying to figure out if the band was French and playing Spanish music or Spanish and talking French when they weren't playing. Well, we where quite close to the Spanish border, so who knows. | Well, yes more geocaching. This is my Montpellier cache hidden at one of the universities about a 20 minute walk from the Place de la Comédie | Of course Montpellier is on the Mediterranean coast and the beaches had a lot of nice scenery |
