Paris, "City of Lights",  the most popular tourist destination in the world, with over 30 million foreign visitors per year.

 

 

Contrary to the  popular belief  that  the French are unfriendly, we found them to be extremely polite. Obviously we had our rude encounters, but I get a steady diet of that every time I hit the side walks here in NYC. 

 

 

 
 

 

 

The sign reads "beware of pickpockets".I never saw any pickpockets but I did lose my wallet and passport.

With over 2 hundred million visitors since its construction, the Eiffel Tower is the most paid 
visited monument in the world. Hey, I don't make this stuff up, if you don't believe me ask the French.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standing outside the Louvre

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notre Dame Cathedral.
Construction began in 1163
and was completed roughly 200 yrs later.

 

 

 

 

 

                 
                                       

Belle of the bell tower, reading  a Victor Hugo novel

 

 

The climb up the bell tower is exhausting and not for the claustrophobic, tight, dark spiral stairs leads to this view of the city

 

 

 

The Arc de Triomphe  stands  at the western end of the  Champs-Elysees and honors those who fought for France, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars, (have the French won any wars since ?)it includes the  tomb of the unknown soldier.

 

 

 

 

Mont Saint Michel{mohn-san-mee-shel'} is a monastery built at the top of a rocky islet that overlooks the sea off the coast of Normandy in northwest France.. Its one cobblestone street climbs  to the towering Benedictine abbey built in the 13th century.

 

 

 

 

Above the ground...

 

 

           ...below the ground
\

as you walk through the ancient catacombs you can imagine the  sounds of chanting 
monks echoing off stone walls and maybe catch a glimpse of shadows lurking in the passageway  ....

 

 

 

  

 

 

D-Day, Omaha Beach 1944

 

    Omaha Beach today  

the stupidity of war never ceases to amaze me

 

 

 

 

"The allied forces
landing on this
shore which they call
Omaha Beach liberate
Evrope -Jvne 6th 1944"

 

 

 Rouen Cathedral( the Church of Jeanne d'Arc )was the subject for a series of paintings by Monet. The Cathedral contains a tomb of Richard the Lionheart's heart.

 

 

Jeanne d'Arc commanded the entire army of a nation at the age of seventeen. After driving out the foreign oppressors Charles VII was restored to the throne .Joan was later captured by the British and handed over to the pro-British Bishop of Beauvals and tried for witchcraft and heresy. My my, imagine that, the BRITS of all people.
 In 1431 she was burned at the stake in the Rouen marketplace. She was nineteen years old. Charles VII, the dog that he was, made no attempt to come to her rescue.

 

 

 

 

 

Retour à paris, tournez à droite !!

 

 

click on the blue coyote paw to track back to the wall