A couple months ago we took a nice little needed trip over to Paris and got to hang out in the beautiful city of lights.  Since we usually take trips in the winter, it was significantly different than the last time we were there [2007] which had like an hour of sunlight in the entire trip!  It was also incredibly cold...and rainy.

Rather than stay in a hotel this time around we opted to get an apartment for the week and it was one of the best decisions we made.  Not a lot of people even think about going that route, but as long as you're cool with people not coming in your room and making your bed daily it's basically the same thing.  I wanted to stay in/near the Marais like the last trip, but we ended up going with staying on the Île Saint-Louis which is a little island in the middle of the Seine river.  Basically north-central Paris and right across the bridge from the Notre Dame cathedral.

Amazing location, with a crazy old building where levels hadn't been invented yet when they built the stairs and decided to put ragged beams on the ceiling.  We lived on the fifth floor so getting Tanya's preggo body up and down the stairs was a real treat [not to mention my wragged old legs], but it kept us in good shape.  Naturally they didn't have an elevator as it was like a 1600's building, so getting back up after 5-8 mile daily walks made for a painful end.

Here are some photos from our trip, it was a nice little getaway for a destination wedding- photos soon to come for that one!

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PS: Does anyone recognize the above cafe?  I make sure to stop every time I'm in Paris.

UPDATE!  See this beautiful Destination Wedding in Paris now!

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I thought this was pretty funny- Someone decided to use one of my Paris Photos [with credit, thankyou] as a background for their Paris clothing style thing. Actually I'm not quite sure really what it is, but it's pretty amusing.

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Since for some reason I haven't finished posting all my France images, here is my Eiffel Tower photo collection. I love the tower, and have fond memories of walking around Paris and using the tower as a guide to what direction I was headed. I still haven't been to the top of it though.

via wikipedia.org;
The Eiffel Tower is an iron tower built on the Champ de Mars beside the River Seine in Paris, France. It is one of the tallest structures in Paris and possibly one of the most recognized monuments in the world. Named after its designer, engineer Gustave Eiffel, it is the most visited monument in the world; 6,428,441 people visited the tower in 2005 and more than 200,000,000 since its construction. Including the 24 m (78.7 ft) antenna, the structure is 324 m (1,063 ft) high (since 2000), which is equivalent to about 81 levels in a conventional building. In 1902, it was struck by lightning, which meant that 100 metres of the top had to be reconstructed and the lights illuminating the tower had to be replaced, as they were damaged by the high energy of the lightning.

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Still posting Paris photos up! Here are some of my favorite photos from within Paris- The Marais which is in the 3rd and 4th districts along the Seine. It's been my favorite area of Paris for awhile now and I try to stay here every time I go to Paris simply because it's a nice quiet old place without the hustle and bustle of some of the other areas. All the hotels around the Marais are so much fun and still within walking distance of the majority of the sights.

HOTELS WE STAYED AT:
Hotel de Marais - 2 bis, rue Commines, Paris 75003 [pretty bad]
Hôtel Jeanne d'Arc - 3, rue de Jarente 75004 Paris [pretty awesome]

All photos are available as royalty-free stock photos or fine-art prints.
Please click on the images for more information

via wikipedia.org;
Le Marais is a district in Paris, France, traditionally a bourgeois area, but also well-known as a Jewish neighbourhood and for its gay nightlife. It spreads across parts of the 3rd and 4th arrondissements in Paris (on the Rive Droite, or Right Bank, of the Seine).

In the 12th century, the Knights Templar cleared the marshlands to the north of Philippe Auguste's enclosure. From the 16th century onwards, the aristocracy built large residences in the area, a trend which was accelerated by the creation of the Place Royale (which would become the Place des Vosges) by Henri IV in 1605.

The departure of the royal court to Versailles led to a decline in the district. Haussmann's urban redevelopment only marginally affected the Marais through new alignment rules and constructions, lending irregular width to many of the neighborhood's streets.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century and in the first half of the twentieth century, the area surrounding the Rue des Rosiers became home to many Jews from Eastern Europe, further specializing local labour in the clothing industry. The Marais was therefore a target for the Nazis when they controlled the city.

In 1969, Andre Malraux made the Marais the first protected sector), with the area being home to many museums, art galleries and historic sites. As with other parts of Paris, where shops are sold but their front not entirely redone when changing business, this protection measure can lead to certain comical results, such as a shop with a "bakery" front selling shoes.

In 1971 Jim Morrison died in 17 Rue Beautrellis in the Marais.

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Here are some more photos from Paris, specifically from the Pere Lachaise Cemetery over in the 20th arrondissement. For those not in the know, its a famous place for famous dead people- so the rich people buy plots of land there to die in, and then have an amazing castle style monument so people can remember how rich they were. Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, and a bunch of others all hang out in what's called the most famous cemetery in the world!

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I wanted a nice remote place to stay on our France trip, and remote is what I got. Mont Dol turned out to be a real treat, but frankly I had no idea where my hotel was going into the trip. Googlemaps and any of the other online mapping programs don't have Mont Dol's street maps, so you're going into staying there a little blindly. With this said, there's only one main drag going through the town [which is on the side of the mountain]. I had a blast there, and is worth checking out if you're looking for a town near Mont st Michael.

All photos are available as royalty-free stock photos or fine-art prints.

via official brittany tourism site;
Travelling along the bay from Viviers sur Mer and Cherrueix you will see Mont Dol towering on the inland side as Mont Saint Michel stands out in the distance on the sea side. To reach this spectacular village means going slightly inland. The village is at the foot of the Mont Dol which was historically the site of a battle between the Devil and Saint Michael. It is worth driving up to the summit as the views are spectacular. You will also be rewarded by seeing the Capelle Notre-Dame de lEsperance, la Tour Notre-Dame, pictured right and and an old mill. There is also le rocher des griffes du Diable which means the rock formation which it is said was made by the Devils claw mark during his fight with St Michael. It is possible to climb to the top of La Tour Notre-Dame and enjoy the views of the bay and far off Mont Saint Michel.

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One of my favorite movies of all time is 'Amelie' so whenever I go to Paris, it's on my to-do list. I think since the last time I was there [2002] things have died down on the tourist front, but it was a nice treat to go see again.

All photos are available as royalty-free stock photos or fine-art prints.

via wikipedia.org;
Le Fabuleux Destin d Amelie Poulain (The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain), is a 2001 French romantic comedy film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and starring Audrey Tautou. Written by Guillaume Laurant, the film is a whimsical and somewhat idealised depiction of contemporary Parisian life, set in Montmartre. The Two Windmills (French, Les Deux Moulins) is a cafe in the Montmartre area of Paris. It takes its name from the two nearby historical windmills, Moulin Rouge and Moulin de la Galette. The interior consists of a bar area and multiple small tables at which one might sit and enjoy a piping hot espresso. Since it was featured as the workplace of Amelie, tourists and fans have inundated the premises.

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Some of my favorite photos from the France trip were bright and early in the little walled town of Dinan, in Brittany France. It was horribly cold, about 6 in the morning and we were on our way to Rennes to catch a train back to Paris when we stopped to take a few photos.

via wikipedia.org;
Dinan is a walled Breton town and a commune in France. It is one of France's most attractive walled towns. Its geographical setting is quite exceptional. Instead of nestling on the valley floor like Morlaix, most urban development has been on the hillside, overlooking the river Rance.

All photos are available as royalty-free stock photos or fine-art prints.

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Next up is some photos from the old town of Honfleur! I just got finished editing the couple hundred or so photos and hopefully you can see it's old grandeur in it's images. Honfleur looks and feels old, but not in the 'constructed for tourism' way [though, since the point du normandy bridge was constructed, they haven't exactly shied away from taking in the tourist dollar]. Enjoy!

via wikipedia.org;
Located on the estuary of one of the principal rivers of France with a safe harbor and relatively rich hinterland, Honfleur profited from its strategic position from the start of the Hundred Years War. The towns defenses were strengthened by Charles V strengthened the town in order to protect the estuary of the Seine from attacks from the English.

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I'm finally getting around to posting some of these photos I took on the France Roadtrip 2006 back in December. Editing them takes forever, so I'm going to release a gallery here and there, hopefully I'll have them all done soon. In the meantime, here's some good stuff on Honfleur, a nice quaint fishing village on the Normandy coast at the mouth of the Seine. More photos of the town coming up next.

via wikipedia.org;

Honfleur is a harbour commune in the Norman apartement of Calvados, in France, located on the southern bank of the estuary of the Seine, very close to the exit of the Pont de Normandie. It is especially known for its old, beautiful picturesque port, characterized by its houses with slate-covered frontages, painted many times by artists, including in particular Gustave Courbet, Claude Monet and Johan Jongkind, forming the Acole de Honfleur which contributed to the appearance of the Impressionist movement . The Sainte-Catherine church, which has a bell-tower separate from the principal building, is the largest church made out of wood of France.

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via wikipedia:
Mont Saint-Michel is close to the border of Brittany, which has led to Breton claims to the mount. Originally the Couesnon formed the border between the two duchies, and every so often the river would shift its bank, leading to ownership of the mount shifting between them. The river's bed has now been fixed and Mont Saint-Michel is now firmly in Norman hands. It is home to the unusual Benedictine Abbey and steepled church (built between the 11th and 16th centuries) which occupy most of the one-kilometer-diameter clump of rocks jutting out of the waters of the English Channel.

The Mount was connected to the mainland via a thin natural land bridge, which before modernization was covered at high tide and revealed at low tide. Thus, Mont Saint Michel gained a mystical quality, being an island half the time, and being attached to land the other: a tidal island.

However, the insular character of the mount has been compromised by several developments. Over the centuries, the coastal flats have been polderised to create pasture. The coast south of the mount has thus encroached on the distance between the shore and the mount. The Couesnon River has been canalised, reducing the flow of water and thereby encouraging a silting-up of the bay. In 1879, the land bridge was fortified into a true causeway. This prevented the tide from scouring the silt round the mount. Now there are plans to remove the causeway and replace it with a bridge and shuttle.

On 16 June 2006, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin announced a 150 million project (Projet Mont Saint-Michel) to build a hydraulic dam that will help remove the accumulated silt and make Mont Saint-Michel an island again. It is expected to be completed by 2012.

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British Airways has taken its baggage mishandling to new heights. As the Daily Mail reports, the airline has been off-loading its lost luggage (some 28,000 bags) to cheap baggage sorters in Italy thus elongating their vacations from their rightful owners. Italy being Italy, the bags, of course, have been left unsorted with many of them just being shipped back to Heathrow. Some have even stayed in the bel paese enjoying the pasta and meatballs. (Statistically this is probably true though we can't furnish any proof, like ragu-stained Trumi roll-ons). BA's luggage fiasco started on Dec. 29 when a baggage belt broke in Heathrow, fog happened and thousands of bags ended up pulling a Gilligan's Island. BA further stuck its nose into the mess of its own make when it was uncovered that they'd been charging customers 3p a minute to call its baggage helpline. As the Mail notes, the greedy prick prize has got to go to British Midlands, another carrier, that charges callers to its baggage helpline a usurious 7.5p a minute. Shelling out that kind of sterling, I'd expect heavy breathing, dirty talk and an infant crying in the background.

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I started processing pictures, and give you some Mont st. Michel photographs to start with:

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