As I walked by rue Desnouettes, near the south border of the city, I noticed an old courtyard with cobblestones pavement and ivy on the walls.
And there, in a small garden, this clockwork face, still for eternity.

On the right bank, just behind the Hôtel de ville, Saint Gervais’s church comes to light between the surrounding medieval buildings.
The church accomodates since 1653, a great dynasty of french musicians : the Couperin. The huge organ of Louis and François Couperin still remain inside. This family played on this instrument for nearly two hundred years.

Since 1986, the Hôtel de Donon hosts the Musée Cognacq-Jay. At the end of the 19th century, Ernest Cognacq and his wife Marie-Louise Jay build an empire with a general store, La Samaritaine. With this fortune they gathered a large collection of paintings and pieces of furniture from the century of lights.

The masterpiece is an autoportrait of Maurice Quentin de La Tour (1704-1788) who worked primarily with pastels. You can imagine him climbing this stairs.

Musée du Quai Branly.
A hundred meters long slow slope pathway leeds to the entrance of the exhibit.
There was only two people early in the morning…

Dark sky and rainbows are common in Paris, in february or march. It means that spring will be back soon.
Here is one above the Invalides, the place where Napoleon Bonaparte is buried.

The name of the place, the “Bateau-Lavoir”, means the laundry-boat because it looked like boats of laundry women floating on the Seine.

It’s a buildings in Montmartre. A group of artists lived there at the beginning of the 20th century. After the WWI, they started to move mainly to Montparnasse.

Indisputably the most famous resident of the place was Pablo Picasso (1904-1909) where he lived with his dog Frika. He reputedly invented cubism there and painted one of his finest works Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.

Other well-known artists lived in the Bateau-Lavoir:
Max Jacob, Amedeo Modigliani, Guillaume Apollinaire, Georges Braque, Henri Matisse and Jean Cocteau.

The building were destroyed by a fire in 1970 and rebuild shortly after.

Pont Alexandre III is an arch bridge that spans the Seine, connecting the Champs-Élysées quarter and the Invalides and Eiffel Tower Quarter, regarded by many as one of the prettiest in Paris.

The bridge, with its exuberant Art Nouveau lamps, cherubs, nymphs and winged horses at either end, was built between 1896 and 1900. It was named after Tsar Alexander III (father of Nicholas II) of Russia. It was Nicholas II who laid the foundation stone in October 1896. The style of the bridge reflects that of the Grand Palais, to which it leads on the right bank.

(wikipedia)

On the top of the Musee d’Orsay, there is a cafe behind this giant clockwork. Don’t forget Orsay was a railwail station before to become a museum.

After a drink you can get out, turn left and then discover the most famous painting of the 19th century. I mean the impressionist.
Van Gogh, Renoir, Manet, Cezanne, Monet, Pissaro, Sisley and at the end of the gallery, Degas and his unforgettable statue of a dancer of fourteen.

By the exit, there is another clockwork, same as the first one. You can see Paris through the glass of the face.

This new year starts on a classical view of the Moulin rouge, the most famous cabaret in the world.

Best wishes for 2007.

One of those rainy, misty, freezy night spending a few hours carrying the camera bag and this heavy tripod with frozen fingers. And then, as a surprise, a nice shot coming from the memory card.