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EU01 :: Paris (Part One) :: 89 photos

  • Thread starter Christopher DeWolf
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Christopher DeWolf

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you last heard from me in june, when i was about to leave with my girlfriend, the indominatable mlle. laine, for europe. six weeks, seven destinations, eleven plane rides: we're back. it wasn't quite a whirlwind tour, since we had about a week to soak up each place, except for lisbon.

i am preparing ten threads that i will post in august and september. this is the second.

KILGORE IN EUROPE :: Photo Schedule

01 -- LONDON (Part One)
02 -- PARIS (Part One)
03 -- ROME
04 -- MADRID (Part One)
05 -- PARIS (Part Two)
06 -- LISBON
07 -- MADRID (Part Two)
09 -- PARIS (Part Three)
10 -- LONDON (Part Two

the photos in this series were taken by myself, except for those taken by mlle. laine, which are noted.


PARIS
part one

what to say about paris? after all, it's paris. few cities are seen by outsiders in such clear and unambiguous terms. paris is the city of light, the city of romance. recently its image in the north american media has been redrawn as a white, wealthy city surrounded by poor, unstable immigrant suburbs. in some small way, each stereotype is true -- but only to an extent. paris is complex. as a city, it is 28 square miles of the world's most seamlessly dense urban fabric. beyond its walls (or rather, the périphérique highway, which serves as a visual and psychological reminder that there is indeed a division between paris and its suburbs) sprawls an enormous metropolitan area that is even harder to pin down than paris itself.

despite its compactness and relative architectural homogeneity, paris manages to feel completely different depending on the neighbourhood in which you find yourself. the marais cannot be mistaken for chinatown, which in term is totally different than its sister chinese neighbourhood in belleville. the riotous, african goutte d'or is nothing at all like its bourgeois neighbour montmartre. in paris, three blocks can span continents. outsiders might hold a romantic amélie poulain vision of paris; more well-informed people might hold the popular black-beur-blanc notion of the city. but the reality is so much more complicated than that, and not just in terms of culture or ethnicity.

of all the cities we visited on this trip, only madrid was more enjoyable than paris. the culture of the flâneur is alive and well in paris. on hot summer evenings, cafes are full, people stroll in the streets and sit in squares and the banks of the seine fill up with colonies of picknickers, couples and bottles of wine. yes, this happens in many large cities -- but nowhere have i felt that people use and appreciate their city as well as in paris.


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7 - photo by laine tam
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26 - photo by laine tam
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Your photos are awesome... you should make some sort of compilation of them.

Oh, Paris is awesome too.

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Has any other city been as relentlessly planned as Paris? It is picture postcard perfect, but don't dare sit on the grass (if you can find any)!
 
actually, every patch of grass i saw had been enthusiastically claimed by picknickers and canoodling couples. i was a bit surprised because i had heard that sitting on the grass was forbidden, but the city must have relaxed those laws recently. (maybe it was part of delanoe's reforms.)

if i can find them i have some photos of people very enthusiastically sprawled across the lawns of place des vosges.
 
That's odd, I don't recall there being lawns in the Place des Vosges, only gravel. I can only picture lawns with public access in the bois.
 
Beautiful photos, beautiful city and some styling people I might add.
 
These images certainly put to rest the myth that all Parisians are stylish and elegant, don't they?

Unless they're all tourists.
 
That's odd, I don't recall there being lawns in the Place des Vosges, only gravel. I can only picture lawns with public access in the bois.

oh, there was definitely grass...

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in fact, the only parks in which there were no people sitting on the grass were the jardins de luxembourg and des plantes. otherwise, people were making abundant use of the lawns at sacré-coeur and various neighbourhood parks scattered around.
 
Well I guess these examples belie my impression. I haven't been in about 5 years so my memory's a little foggy.
 

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