(Part
II)
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Friday,
15th of March 2013 (Paris, France)
We
have arrived at Notre Dame ...
Locks
galore ... fancy and plain ... with photos, engravings – offering
an amazing camouflage to the side fence. It was hard not to stop and
look at them, and ... take a few photos of course!
Can
you imagine how much weight this poor fence was carrying! If it was
me, I would have had collapsed by now.
Visiting
outside the tourist season has its pluses and minuses ... like a
lower number of market stalls along the river Seine being a “minus”.
However, I find that for me “pluses” far out grow the “minuses” as they allow me to get a better feel of the local life.
The
one thing that stays the same are the queues to the attractions,
which only vary in length ... very long or extremely long.
Because
of this, I had to be satisfied only with the external view of Notre
Dame.
Kindly enough, the birds were eager to provide an extra on-site entertainment, but they weren't easy to capture as their attention span was just like the one of little children.
I
not only scored some good shots of them, but also a complimentary
neck-ache. Thank God that I am a massage therapist – practitioner
heal thyself.
In addition, there was one other entertaining thing that seemed to follow me ... renovations with scaffoldings.
They
were at Sacré Cœur, at the Tour Eiffel and now Notre Dame.
I
guess this is one of the downfalls of the off peak season and
the photographer must be always prepared for an unexpected challenge!
“Enough
with with the challenge!” ... I felt my stomach voicing its hunger
and so I quickly picked one of the many cafes/restaurants along the main
street.
One
could not return from Paris without a taste of onion soup among so
many other things, so I decided to obey this French travel protocol
and have one – followed by an espresso to counteract the onion
breath.
Nothing
like a hot broth (or a cognac) to make your body temperature sore, at
least for a while.
As
I walked around, my stomach announced that the soup wasn't enough and
I had to find something else to fuel my body.
I
spotted a tuna tartine and a pave (bread roll) with apple and
Camembert cheese at the take away stand at the front of one cafe.
They were both very yummy ... leaving my stomach fully satisfied.
After taking a few extra shots of Notre Dame it was time to return to the boat to continue my adventure along the Seine all the way to Champs-Élysées.
(to
be continued in two weeks)
Photography
by Olga Kulanowska