After a nice sleep-in and a delicious breakfast at the hotel, at noon we started our tour of the most famous sights of Paris. A certain someone said we should take a metro to Concorde in order to get to the first one, The Eiffel Tour. We got out at Concorde, spotted the tower in the distance and started walking towards it. And we walked... and walked... and after a while lost the sight of the Eiffel Tower and weren't sure which way to walk. We were in between two grand buildings, Grand Palais and Petit Palais. Both were grand, really, but this is a detail from the building of Grand Palais.
Another detail nearby.
We found ourselves on the map, realised that the Eiffel Tower was actually on the other side of the river, and started walking towards one of the bridges. On the bridge we saw a wedding couple being photographed. I got so excited about the prospect of a random photo opportunity of a bride and groom on a bridge with the Eiffel Tower in the background that I smashed my camera into my face and broke my specs. Not that I broke the glass, but I did drop one of the lenses, and I lost the little screw that holds the frame together and the lens in its place.
So there I was crawling on the pavement looking for the screw, and in the meantime, the photo opportunity was over.
I can see without my glasses, but not that well, so we thought - whilst still heading towards the Eiffel Tower - we'd look for an optician and get my glasses fixed. On the way we saw a cool car...
...Erik Satie conservatory...
Some quality Parisian parking...
I was getting sore feet (my plantar fasciitis is quite bad at the moment) so I sent Miles on a mission to find an optician, and he found one! I got my glasses fixed and could see well again. So we carried on walking...
And finally! There it is!
Miles had brought along my comedy lens (Sigma 8mm fisheye) and offered me to use it... Can you guess my exact location where I took this photo?
Yup, directly below the tower. Same with a normal wide angle lens.
There were huge queues for both the lift and the stairs, so we decided not to go up, and just hung around for a while and took some photos.
Then we started walking towards the next location. But not before I took some photos where I could fit the whole Eiffel Tower in.
One with the comedy lens...
Both the above and the next photo have been HDR processed with Photomatix Pro. In the next one, quite a lot of stray light got into the lens barrel (because I was pointing the lens straight up into the sky light) and the HDR software decided that more detail should be revealed in the barrel area. I quite like the result, especially as the photo itself if mainly green and I liked the contrasting colour the HDR processing gave the barrel part of the image, so I left it as it is.
We stopped for a light lunch and came across this nifty invention:
After lunch, across The Seine again.
Past flowers...
...and arrived at the Jardin de Tuileries (place of the famous Manet painting Music in the Tuileries)
I fell in love with the shape of these leaves.
At the end of the long gardens we approached the next sight...
Lots of triangles.
Detail from the above photo.
Miles had booked us for dinner in a different part of town, so we started our way there.
We were early (and thirsty) so we stopped at a café for a Mojito. I never knew Paris cafés do cocktails... but they were sooo tasty! This one sure counts towards my five a day?
Dinner! At Ambassade d'Auvergne. Yum.
Miles had booked another thing for today - a live gig. So after dinner we travelled to the next venue... past Centre Pompidou...
...into Duc des Lombards.
The Kandinsky Effect. They were completely fab!
And that was the end of the long and fun day!
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