Saturday, February 14, 2009

Back in the City of Light

Walking off the Jetlag
My new approach to the overnight flight is to drop the bags off at the apartment and start walking. Paris cooperated today - it was a beautiful sunny day. I started my walk as if I were going to work - heading towards the subway and stumbled into a beautiful park on the other side of Les Halles.

Eglise St Eustache, yet another large gothic church, was perched on the northern side of the park. It's hard to tell from this shot but I was standing on the top rim of an ampitheater built into the grounds.

A better shot of the church, looking west. That sharp object in the foreground, on the left, is a sun dial.

Further west are some interesting pyramid-shaped greenhouses that rise up from a sunken garden. I walked across one of the many small footbridges that spanned that garden and looked down into the greenhouses. They were filled with tropical plants of various types.

I found myself on rue du Rivoli when I exited the far corner of the park and walked west along it until I reached the Louvre. There is a food court underneath the Louvre, which has a giant inverted pyramid to let in light. I got a hot chocolate and people-watched - check that out here.

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