Refreshement

You will be happy to know that I have nothing to rant about today; we just walked and walked and walked and walked, saw a bunch of stuff and came home.  The nice thing that I discovered today is that I am slowly starting to know where I am in this city.  Street names and metro stops don’t take as long to figure out and my general sense of disorientation is started do dissipate. It’s a very calming feeling.

We did two walks today, the first one was called Small Buildings Need Not Apply: La Défence and was a complete surprise. We didn’t know what to expect and were delighted with what greeted us as we got of the metro.

This short, but interesting walk was essentially the “new” business district of Paris, built essentially in the last 30 years, it feels a bit like Hong Kong, simply because there has been so much construction one in a small area of space in such a relatively short time.  30 years for Paris is hardly on the time line!  These buildings had the surprising effect of just being a refreshing visual relief.  After all the quaint, beautiful, old stone and wrought-iron, and intricate design, this was so clean, simple, spacious and geometric it was deliciously refreshing.  Not that I’m tired of the other, it’s just nice to mix it up.  And, as this is Paris, they don’t make it boring, even these buildings had creative and interesting architecture and we quite enjoyed our hour here.

I'd say look carefully, but I can barely see it myself, (it wasn't hard to see when you were there) but behind me and Kelli waaaayy down the road is the Arc de Triumph....

....and as this is Paris, and everything is organized and symmetrical, the theme is carried through from the old part of town, to the new.  This Grande Arche stands directly across from the old one, creating a straight line from one to the other.  

This actually shows it!

This is a fountain that I wish like anything had been going.  It looks magnificent!

Now, just enjoy some of the buildings, all these pictures have some kind of architecture that looked interesting and extraordinary...

This area of town is also known for it's interesting and modern sculpture.

Just a sculpture!  

They are just colored metal pipes

But they were a great place for a photo shoot!

We were here for a while taking all kinds of pictures!

Modern Park bench

Rather strange statue I won't pretend to understand!

Interesting flower boxes

I call this one "The Kiss à la 21st Century." 

I don't think Rodin has anything to worry about!

I liked how the first building reflected onto the second one!

Very modern fountain 

This is why I love having 20 year old roommates!! I'm standing on a 3 inch sloledge

But they still needed a patina sculpture.

Up close to the Grande Arche; all of Notre Dame Cathedral would fit under that! And...that arch is really an office building!  For 10 Euros we could have ridden the elevator to the top, but 10 Euros will by a lot of gelato, so we passed!

For our most intense excitement on this walk, about 35 minutes into it I realized I didn’t have my purse, and I had no distinct memory of where I had last had it.  But I was lucky, after a quick sprint back to the starting point I found it sitting peacefully by our first picture-taking stop!  I’m feeling pretty lucky today!