A la memoire

I wasn't sure if I would write anything to go with this - rather like my dilemma on how to photograph the things I was feeling in Paris. Although this is a picture, it's a picture of text - so does it count?

Anyway, I started the day, like several others in Paris, by walking out of the hotel into the Marais area west of the Bastille. Past the Place des Vosges and into the Jewish quarter. With plaques like this one of the buildings that say things so matter of fact that hit you like a heavy weight as you pass by and read the words. A pendulum swinging through time from 1942 to 2010, where it hits me. In the head, or in the heart? I wandered through the streets, taking pictures of shops, and people and an old wooden synagogue. Eventually I came to the river and the Pont Neuf - setting of the film with Juliette Binoche and Denis Lavant - a film I loved when I first saw it in the Filmhouse with M in the early 1990s. I took a picture of a tramp in one of the alcoves on the bridge, and I stood on the bridge and looked over the side into the water, and thought a little about jumping or falling, like they do in the film.
I then moved on to the Pont des Arts, and looked at the padlocks on the railings and then watched as some people filmed a scene with a couple dancing in the centre of the bridge - lovers on the Pont des Arts perhaps? A text from J said they were in the Jardin des Plantes so I went to meet her and had a drink in a cafe before going to look for A. We found her close by a group of men arranging some sort of wooden structure - it wasn't clear what it was, but it clearly needed lots of careful lining up with theodolites, animated discussion and leaning on poles. We took some pictures and then some more and a few more of gardeners working in the flower beds, and so by the time we tried to catch up with J she'd not surprisingly gone on ahead so we had some lunch in a cafe before heading for the metro. We went first to Palais Royal (again - it's a great place) and then to somewhere new - the Trocadero with its views of the Eiffel Tower. Very busy with the sellers of tourist tat, and a few hip hop dancers and no end of tourists with cameras, like us I suppose.
We wandered round a bit and got into conversation with a young Korean guy traveling around Europe. A took his picture with her Kiev, and I took a picture of her taking the picture, on the steps, photographer and subject, with the Eiffel tower between them in the background.
Back onto the metro to head to Montmartre for the evening sun. The views across the city from Sacre Coeur were beautiful, with shafts of sunlight picking out distant buildings from the general evening blues and greys. The dome of the Pantheon. The west front of Notre Dame. The gilded dome of des Invalides. We walked up to the Place du Tertre and walked round looking at the artists doing portraits on the street. It was time for something to eat so we went into a cafe and sat there and watched the world go by and talked about this and that. Another great Paris meal - not for the quality of the food but for the quality of the company. Such a feature of my time in Paris.
We walked through Montmartre, passed a cafe terrace covered with wisteria flowers, spilling the scent of flowers onto the street. From the top of some steps, a last view across the evening rooftops before heading down the hill, past bright-lit cafes and restaurants full of people. Down to the bright lights of Pigalle, a visit to a cake shop and a wander down the neon streets.