France: Paris: Introduction

After three months in France I finally made it to Paris, for what we call the Remembrance Day long weekend.  In France, it's called "Jour de l'Armistice", and most businesses and schools are closed on the 11th of November.  A group of five Brazilian students from my school asked me if I would like to tag along for the long weekend, and we ended up spending 4 wonderful days in Paris.  It's only 2 hours to the Gare de Lyon (where the south-bound trains depart) from Lyon.  Paris has 7 different train stations, each serving a particular direction, and you have to connect between them on the metro.

It's not the prettiest time of year in Paris, but there are certainly a lot fewer tourists, so you can get a better sense of what the city is really like.  Plus, for much of the summer the actual Parisians leave the city for the beach, and Paris is populated by tourists! I'm planning to visit again in May when my family visits, so I should be able to post some new photos in a few months.   

I've broken the photos down into five different themes. Les rues de Paris (Streets of Paris) is mainly shots of beautiful and typically parisian buildings. De l'Arc de Triomphe au Louvre is what you'll see when you walk up the Champs Elysées from the Arc de Triomphe to Place de la Concorde, then continuing up the Tuileries gardens, finishing inside the Louvre (which is actually a nice straight walk). Points de repère (Landmarks) covers major sights in the city, including the Eiffel Tower, the Catacombs, Galleries Lafayette and Sacré-Coeur.  Île de la Cité covers the island of the same name in the middle of the Seine, home to the Sainte-Chapelle and the Notre Dame cathedral. Finally, Versailles includes a selection of photos from our day trip to the massive palace(s) and the surrounding gardens.