As always, first stop in a foreign country is for a Big Mac. The French ones rate pretty highly!
Looking back to the city from the La Defense area. Can you spot the two famous landmarks in the distance?
The Grand Arch in the La Defense area. Very grand, very archy.
La Defense - home to pretty much all of Paris's skyscrapers
The Grand Arch at night
Weird-looking block of flats near where I was staying, looks like something out of Star Wars. Definitely Rebel designed though, not cool enough to be Imperial.
Wall of “I Love Yous” in Montmatre. Couldn't find the wall of “I Hate Your Gutses” though...
Amelie's grocer!
View of the city from Sacre Coeur - smoggy
Looking up at Sacre Coeur. The people!
Moulin Rouge - I didn't see the show though, too pricey! Oh, and somehow I don't think that windmill is powering the neon lights.
The chairs in this park are highly sought-after items and this bozo is using one each just for his arms!
View down the Seine
View toward the Arc de Triomphe from the Champs Elysees - traffic hell.
A hotel. A bit more luxurious than the one I stayed in.
Princess Di tunnel - morbid bugger I am. Surprisingly, the monument on top has nothing to do with her.
Inside ”Les Catacombes“, an underground stash of millions of bones in a maze of tunnels.
The head bone's connected to the ummm, thigh bone? That's all there is, skulls and femurs. Dunno what happened to all the other bits.
Doggy Heaven
Parisians and their weekend pavement cafe culture - wankers.
Some idiot outside The Pantheon.
I walked so far I got a rash all over my shin and calf. I'm naming the condition “Strider's Leg”
What sort of idiot goes to Paris and doesn't go inside the Versailles Palace? Me. The wait to get in was 3 hours in the hot sun, which I didn't really fancy for some strange reason. Just check out that line of people - doesn't really show it in the photo but it goes up, back, then up again.
Top of the Arc de Triomphe. Inside the little discs are the locations of France's great military victories. No mention of Waterloo though...
Paris Metro station. A bit short on the seats, would be like playing musical chairs at rush hour. All I can think is that the idea behind that is the designers of the Metro obviously reckoned the trains are so efficient and regular that there's no time to sit down anyway. Arrogance or confidence? It's a fine line.
From the top of the Arc De Triomphe - very straight roads
Looking down the Champs Elysees - the Louvre is the building right at the end of the road, hard to make out in the smog though
Paris by night. Ahhhhh.
Sunday night down the Champs Elysees
Inside the Louvre
Not sure why loads of folk were taking pictures of this....
Looking up the staircase to the "Winged Victory of Samothrace". Most of these people were rushing up these stairs to see Mona, who is just off to the right when you get to the top. About 2 seconds after taking this photo, so was I!
"Wedding at Cana", the biggest painting in the Louvre. Apparently a lot of people confuse this with the Last Supper, but not me - I'd read my Time Out guide to Paris.
Mona - she gets a whole wall all to herself
Her eyes really do follow you all over the room - the little flirt
Venus de Milo - not sure what all the fuss is about, she looks like a bloke.
The crowd in front of Venus - this was on a Monday, imagine a weekend!
Inside the burial chamber of some Egyptian dude. Can't remember his name, but this dates back to 2,400 B.C.
Heiroglyphics on the wall of the burial chamber. This one depicts the ancient Egyptian game of “Sniff That Guy's Bum”
Eiffel Tower!
Yes, another photo of people queuing up - lines were very long
Eiffel Tower money shot - notice the pasty white Scottish legs
