PARIS

October 2015

Paris is one of these cities that's probably on almost everyone's bucket list. Having lived in the Netherlands and Belgium for the biggest part of my life, it was fairly easy to pay 'a quick visit'. In this read I'll take you through my favourite parts of 'the city of love'...

The view from the famous 'Sacre Cœur' in the northern part of

Paris towards the city centre

To submerge ourselves in the Paris-style of living, we stayed at an AirBnB top floor apartment with a great view of these iconic chimineas. Although not in use any more - apparently it's forbidden since 2014 to light up your fireplace within Paris to reduce the harmful emission and fine particulates that they emit - this photo genetic Parisian street scene continues to be a timeless image...

Although it's hard to choose, my favourite place in Paris is probably the area around the 'Sacre Cœur'. The fact that this gorgeous basilica is located on top of a hill, makes it in the first place an interesting journey to get there.

Whether you choose to approach it through the park (Square Louis Michel) and the 'main stairs' south of the basilica, or through the backstreets north of the basilica... to me, it always feels like a small pilgrimage. There's always something magical about wondering around in this area ánd at the same time it guarantees a nice workout for the legs.

Well, I must admit that the 'approach' through 'Square Marcel Bleustein Blanchet' in October 2015 filled me with joy, because I was able to take these outstanding pictures - with a little help of the incredible variety of rich autumn colours that the vegetation was showing off at this time of the year.

Right after paying a visit to the 'Sacre Cœur', you can't miss out on Montmartre. Taking in the creative atmosphere, admiring the art that's being created and - to me - enjoying to capture the feelings and emotions that this place transmits is an excellent way to spend an autumn afternoon in Paris.

Another very colourful place in Paris is... Galeries Lafayette, a famous department store that is worth a short peek around the door. In October they already had their Christmas decoration all set up!

And outside, along the Seine river, this splendid colour pallet just continued as if it was meant to be....

Crossing the Alexander III bridge in Beaux Arts style towards the Dôme des Invalides.

As you might know, Napoleon's tomb is located in the Dôme des Invalides, the building in the picture below. During high school, I found it very interesting to study the history around how Napoleon got to power and what his reign meant for Europe.

Autumn colours at Champ Mars (park at the South - East side of the Eiffel Tower).

Details of the Eiffel Tower and the 'Carrousel de la Tour Eiffel' during sunset

The Eiffel Tower just after sunset seen from 'Jardins du Trocadéro'

I remember that, to be able to take this picture, I had to improvise a little with balencing my camera on a bench or a bin located on a traffic island, to keep it still for this long exposure shot - I wasn't up for lugging around my tripod the whole day :-) ... I had always wanted to take this particular picture of the 'Arc De Triomphe' and it was such a pleasure to be able to capture the light beams of the bypassing cars exactly in the way I had imagined it.

The next day, we visited the ever becoming more popular cemetery 'Père Lachaise' in the East part of Paris. Besides being a very nice walk through a leafy environment, it was interesting to see people gathering around the modest grave of Jim Morrison.

Return to Paris' city centre from Pére Lachaise, would maybe be one of the only occasions for me to take the metro in Paris. To me, Paris, among many other cities, is like an open air museum. As you've probably noticed, the fast majority of my pictures are taken outside of tourist attractions where you would have to pay to enter.

In my opinion, there are in fact very few places that charge an entry fee that, in the end, add a lot of extra value to my experience of a city . Of course, there are some exceptions, there are some exquisite museums... But in most cases, I just like to roam around a city, take pics, take in the scenes, the people, watch animals adapting to city life, visit small shops, buy some snacks to eat in a park or enjoy a great meal at a local business.

That is me experiencing a city...

Enjoying city scenes in Paris

Love the randomness of the city!

The people staring at their phone with their sunglasses on, blind for the splendid mural behind them, with its explosion of colour and movement. A bit like the ignorant, headless and tense mannequin on the left of them.

It's very hard to imagine that no one present in this picture would have ever imagined what would happen to the Notre Dame a couple of years later...

And here we teleport ourselves to yet another part of Paris through the 'Tube' at the speed of light.

To end up at one of the highlights of Paris where you have to pay to get in, but that guarantees for a big added value to your experience of this city: la Tour de Montparnasse!

Many people choose to line up for hours to get to the top of the Eiffel Tour (I also had the pleasure to be there in 2003!) to, in the end, not have a great view of the Eiffel Tour... La Tour de Montparnasse is therefore an excellent option. At the 58th floor (209 meters high) this skyscraper provides a magnificent panoramic view of Paris.

And how can one end their photographic journey through Paris in a better than to finalize with a night shot of the Louvre Pyramid... ?

Hope you enjoyed the pics and that you get to enjoy Paris one day!