Third Day of Paris Workshop
Breakfast is essential. Arnie usually gets the French breakfast with two croissants and a baguette with jam, AND the obligatory coffee. I go for the American breakfast with an omelette, light and fluffy as only the French can do, and a café au lait. Orange juice on both counts.
Critiques follow and the images shown are really great. Everyone is pleased.
Given all yesterday’s extensive walking we opt for a Batobus day. We can get on and off the boat as whim dictates, and it gives everyone a different vantage point. We head downhill to a market, and on the way, we see the light making the cobble stones glow. I love the circular utility covers that dot the streets.
Down the street a few blocks, colorful tile tables with wine themes sit in the sun, finished coffee cups left behind.
The market we are heading for, alas, is not the one that is open today. I pop into a shop for some photographs, with permission, of course, and the lady tells me that tomorrow will be the day. I thank her by buying a couple of hair clips. She has been delightful and gracious.
On the Batobus, I am struck by the Tricouleur, as the French flag is often called. I like the way the light shines through it and I want to give it an airy feeling of of flapping in the breezes.
Our first stop is the Louvre with its juxtaposition of classic architecture and modern glass pyramids. I remember when they were built and the intensive and often vitriolic debate they caused, some people loving them, others offended by the intrusion of such “ugly” structures. I love sitting by them, watching the people go by.
Having given our participants the assignment of photographing the Louvre without photographing the Louvre, Arnie and I did our own. I loved the way that the pyramid morphed into the sky, a hint of the classic building in a reflection.
We continue on to la Tour Eiffel, but no one has asked our permission to install major construction, closing the restaurant we have in mind for lunch. Ah well, what can we do, so we walk to the other side of hte place and fine a nice place, albeit without the classic view of the tower. It is not as though any of us has not seen it before. It is relaxing, and we enjoy the quiet time, getting up now and then to make a photograph, watching, always watching, for an opportunity that strikes us.
The hords of people and lines at the tower, not to mention the hawkers of cheap, tinny Eiffel Tower models, are inhibiting, and we have no wish to subject ourselves to the madding crowd, so we catch the Batobus back toward the Louvre stop.
Meandering up the streets, we stop to look into gallery windows, checking out ones we want to visit.
We are too late for a picnic supper in the gardins, so we settle for gooey cheeses on our balcony overlooking the Pantheon. The brie with truffles and camembert with calvados-soaked apples is tasty, but very messy on the wrapper papers. Definitely not photo worthy. But we are content, and we drift off to bed.
Next: In Paris
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