~"No Trespassing?"~

In ages gone by, the "signs" that issued the warning "STAY AWAY" had a little more impact than our painted signs of today.

These fancy ironwork 'decorations' definitely keep your neighbor where he belongs.

No going over or through this fence. (alongside the St. Roch church)

The statuary in the Luxembourg Gardens keep the pigeons perched near the ground.
(You see these spikey things everywhere on buildings above entryways.)

No using the light post to get over the wall.

I suppose there are several reasons for keeping someone from using this corner.

On the gate at  Chateau Vaux le Compte

Another guarded corner.

 This fearsome deterrent is on the wall on the tip of Ile de la Cite.

A fence along the Promenade des Invalides.

Note the dividing ironwork between apartment buildings.

I learned about these ironwork deterrents after our trip to Paris.  Next time, I will be more diligent in seeking them out, as they are everywhere and in many forms!!

~Snapshots~

What comes next are some photos that don't fit into the neat categories I've created for most of the posts.

This corner stood out from the rest of the buildings next to it.  I took the photo because I was drawn to the interesting fountain.

When I returned home, I ordered a book that I had read about titled "Five Hundred Buildings of Paris".  What a fabulous reference; beautiful black and white photographs and descriptions of the many notable buildings around the city.  This fountain was one of them.  It is the "Fontaine de la Croix-du-Trahoir" (located in the 1er arr.).  To the French royalty, water was a sign that the city was healthy, working and rich.  That certainly explains all the fountains in Paris.



If you spend much time in the Marais (3rd and 4th arr.) on the Right Bank, no doubt you will see this intersection~Place du Chatelet.  It is a major square with several cafes and two theatres.  The Tour St. Jacques is in the background; it is all that remains of the Church of St. Jacques which was leveled around the French Revolution.

The Place du Chatelet is the site of the former fortress, the Grand Chatelet built by Louis VI to defend the Ile de la Cite.  Later it became a notorious prison.  The area became one of the most dangerous in the city.  Napoleon had the whole area including the Grand Chatelet destroyed to eradicate the criminality.  The fountain was erected to honor Napoleon's victories in Egypt.











This is one of the neatest, most decorative Metro stops~Palais Royale.  As the name suggests it is located in the 1er arr. near the Palais Royale.

We saw a few of these vehicles on previous trips but now they are becoming quite a popular way to see the city and get around.  There quite a variety of "pedi-cabs".

 This next one looks like a SMART car on bicycle wheels.

The lighting isn't very good but you can see at least 4 of these pedi-cabs going down the street.

This is the serene Palais Royale Jardin.  This is such a quiet and beautiful garden; you'd think you were in a small French village but it is right in the center of the 1er arr. at the Palais Royale.  This photo was taken on a Sunday morning.

The beautifully ornate Pont Alexander III bridge.

 A typical Paris newstand~they're everywhere and offer a lot including directions, if you ask politely.

A Paris kiosk

The tabac is also an important place to know.  You can buy stamps and Metro tickets at most.

Every neighborhood has a great little market (or several great markets).

This is a Wallace Fountain.  Given to the city by Sir Richard Wallace to provide the poor with drinking water after the Franco-Prussian war had destroyed most of the aquedacts leading to Paris.  There are about 50 remaining and they are still in use~cold fresh water.

This one is on the Champs Elysees near the Place de la Concorde.

~Cars, Cats & Cable TV~

OK, I can hear you and I can see you rolling your eyes...

We have this game we play~find the smallest car or one that we can't identify.  This little white car fits in the 'smallest' category.

I was surprised to find out that this was a FORD.

I thought this was some sort of a SMART car but it is an AXIAM.

This is definitely the smallest car we've seen so far~in all of our visits.  Woody is trying to find out what it is, but it had no identification (which is often the case).

On this trip we saw a lot of cars being towed.  Again, this is something we hadn't seen on previous trips and always wondered about.  Perhaps they are cracking down on parking violators.

A classic Mustang on display on the Avenue Montaigne.

I'm a cat lover.  I look for cats.

I found these at the weekly stamp market.

This was an artisan's booth at the Richard Lenoir Art Market near the Bastille Metro stop.
I am SO sorry that I didn't buy the blue one!

This is a small pin.

Postcards..."guess who's writing to you"

Decorative boxes in the window display at Laduree.

In a souvenir shop. (I bought the green one.)

Some stenciled wall art.

A door-stop on display outside of a pottery shop.  We had to go in.

More cats at the same shop.

Cable TV ....

Our apartment had a really good cable provider..lots and lots of channels with many in English~really nice for the TV watcher in the family.  We were always able to find something interesting.

I saw this guy and had to grab the camera~does he look like an art critic?

This was the Bahrain channel.  The cartoons were so cute and colorful.

And the voices were hilarious.

This is a channel that we watched frequently LUXE TV.  Most of the programming revolved around fashion.

This segment was an interview with a Belgian hatmaker.

This is MONTAGNE (mountain) TV. It should have been titled extreme mountain TV.

Can you see the speck that is the skier? (above the '11')

This was the extent of American sports coverage. Yankees winning their division.

We saw none of the US Open Tennis matches, but we saw lots of Rugby World Cup.

There were at least 4 fashion channels~showing the runway shows in all the major cities.

So many designers and so many collections.

The French seem to be mesmerized by Texas Hold'em; there were several Poker Channels as well.

But the one that I found most outrageous was....

 'Cleveland Crush'

Womens' LINGERIE Football league.  I never heard of such of such a thing.  (I think these are the women from Roller Derby.)

I think this is a perfect place to END the TV viewing....