Isn't It Iconic...

I've spent the last three nights sorting through my Paris pics. 

Yes I took a few. It is such a picturesque city that it's hard to resist whipping out the Nikon every few moments to capture a scene made magic by light, position or just plain novelty.

Going through photos after a trip usually helps me to frame a few armchair tour 'themes' to give Gidday-ers a flavour of my experiences. In this case, these are still percolating away and over the next few posts I'll attempt to re-capture the enchantment this amazing city wrapped around me a decade after my last visit. Delving into nooks and crannies, climbing up and down hills and staircases, reclining in parks, gardens and cafes and negotiating the eponymous - and largely escalator-less - Paris Metro. (A girl's got to work off all that cake and cheese somehow!)

For this post I thought I'd deal with the most iconic Parisian silhouettes. You know, the ones on postcards, in books and Audrey Hepburn movies. The ones that first time visitors circle in their guidebooks, carefully plan into their whirlwind itinerary and diligently tick off to ensure the 'big items' are covered. The same sights I ticked off with great alacrity in 2000 when I first visited and that this time around were subjected to, for the most part, not much more than a point, shoot and cursory nod.

But the interesting thing about Paris is that without any effort at all, these icons pop out of the landscape when least expected. The Eiffel Tower peering over a tree-lined side street in the 7th arrondissement, the magnificent roof of the Palais Garnier from the 'cheerful' self-serve cafeteria at Galeries Lafayette or the rooftop vista sprawling before the window of my 6th floor room in rue Geoffroy Marie.


Imagine my squeal of delight when I flung open the curtains of my 6th floor attic room on Friday afternoon to be greeted by this amazing view of Sacré Coeur over the rooftops. I immediately climbed out onto the tiny balcony and took a shot sans zoom.

So in an effort not to clog up your internet pipes (or whatever those bandwidth thingies are called), I've been playing about with my photos and have created a montage of monuments to share with you.

Just in case these escape you, clockwise from top left is Place de la Concorde, Palais Garnier, Place de la Bastille, Arc de Triomphe and Champs-Élysées at sunset (also the new wallpaper on my mobile phone), Panthéon, Sacré-Coeur, Eiffel Tower and Les Invalides (taken from Place de Breteuil).

I'm so thrilled with the way most of my photos turned out that it was looking like quite a challenge to share my favourites without overkill. So I'm rather chuffed with my efforts at multiple sharing so please be suitably impressed / humour me...

...and I'll be back with more of my Paris peccadillos soon.