The river Seine is about to overflow

Traditionally towards the end of March, the water level of the river Seine starts rising. Well, it is happening right now as you can see in this shot. Passers by can still walk down the embankment, but at their own risk of being splashed! Pretty soon they are also going to close the road where they had the Paris Plage event last summer, if you remember.

Where can I find this charming little village?

This won't probably look funny to you if you don't speak French, but if you do, you will probably burst out laughing. This ad that runs in the Metro at the moment promotes a Web site that is well known for selling train tickets. Now this site also sells plane tickets, but fewer people know it. What you see here is a typical sign you can find at the entrance of French villages. Except that here, the name looks typically French, but when you pronounce it, it sounds like... Los Angeles!

Paris cars slaughter!

If you come to Paris these days you will come across a lot of these street signs. The whole city is being transformed in order to reduce the traffic and discourage people from using their car. Sidewalks are being widened, bus lanes are being built and widened too, trees are being planted and a tram is being built around Paris. Needless to say that car drivers (only 50% of the Parisians) are furious while pedestrians are pretty satisfied...


Appel à témoins ! Tous les jours à 9 heures 30 GMT la chaîne de télévision Direct 8 interviewe par webcam interposée des francophones situés à travers le monde. Contactez Elodie qui vous en dira plus et tenez-moi au courant, que je vous regarde...

Eppur' si muove...

I spent more than 40 years in Paris but I had never been into the Panthéon. Last Saturday I did and discovered many beautiful things including this fantastic Foucault's Pendulum - named after the French physicist Léon Foucault - which was originally installed there in 1851 as an experiment to demonstrate the rotation of the earth. Stunning.

When Corneille goes shopping...

Here is another victim of Paris demonstrations! But this time it's pretty funny. It's actually a statue of Pierre Corneille - a famous French tragedy writer - located not far from La Sorbonne university on which the students put a shopping cart. A bit silly, of course, but no dammage nor harm made. Update: Ham, from London Daily Photo just reminded me that it could also be... art.

Daffodils help cancer research

Today, in front of the Pantheon (5th arrondissement) Parisians could, for 2 euros, pick up one of the 60 000 daffodils that had been "planted" in support of the Institut Curie in the fight against cancer. Alternatively, it is also possible to pick a daffodil on the web. So that no one can use the excuse of the rain!

Another monument: the baguette!

Why on earth are all these people queuing at La fournée d'Augustine, 96, rue Raymond Losserand, 14th arrondissement) ? Well, simply because Pierre Thilloux, the baker, won the best baguette award for 2004. And believe me, I tasted it (it's on my way back home from the office), the guy really deserves his prize. Mind you I did not try the most recent winner (Jean-Pierre Cohier – 270, rue Faubourg Saint-Honoré, 8th arrondissement) nor the one of last year (Eric Sana, 3 rue du retrait, 20th arrondissement). Who knows, they might even have better bread...

Hello New York!

Yesterday I received an e-mail from a reader named Liz in New York saying "I discovered your blog a few weeks ago and was so blown away I have been telling everyone about it." And Liz did it so well that ParisDailyPhoto and LondonDailyPhoto were both mentioned in the Manhattan User's Guide. I remembered that we have our own New York Avenue here in Paris, so I thought it would make the perfect greeting photo for those New Yorkers who wound up here for the first time. Start spreading the news...

What's left of Montparnasse

Between WW I and II, the Montparnasse area (14th arrondissement) used to be a hot spot for poets, intellectuals and artists to meet. Now, in my opinion, it has lost its soul and is barely worth a visit. If you go there, however, make sure you don't miss La rue de la Gaité where many theaters are to be seen, like Le théâtre Montparnasse that I photographed here and La rue Montparnasse where you can eat the best crepes of Paris (try Josselin first if you can find a table...).

Pont Sully

As many of you know, right in the middle of Paris runs the river Seine that divides the city in half. To go from one side to the other there are more than 30 magnificent bridges (I've showed several on this blog already). This one, the Pont Sully (named after one of the ministers of King Henry IV) is one of the most recent bridges, although it was completed in 1876. It is located at the tip of île Saint Louis one of the oldest parts of Paris.

Paris Modern Art Museum just reopened

You all know Le Louvre Museum, especially with The DaVinci Code movie about to come out, but there are many more museums to visit in Paris (130 at last count!). One recently reopened: the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (Paris Modern Art Museum) and it is really worth the visit. The back of this museum (outside) is still under construction and that is where I took this photo. The graffiti is real graffiti and not part of the museum, but of course, I wouldn't tell the "artists" that.

A much less political demonstration...

If you love roller skating and if you come to Paris you should definitely consider joining the Sunday afternoon skate that will take you for a large tour in the streets of Paris. Up to 20 000 people can take part in it - you can imagine what effect it has on the traffic! - and it is really fun. If you are the sportive type you might as well join the Friday evening ride which is based on the same principle only ten times faster!

One more demonstration post!

You might have seen it on the news today we had another demonstration in Paris today - and apparently a couple of riots towards the end of the march. I could not help going there and take pictures for PDP... Here is a mosaic but you can see them in more detail on the "making of".

When Paris sleeps

Yesterday evening I had dinner at some friends who live in the 19th arrondissement, on top of the Butte Chaumont. The first thing I did when I arrived to their apartment was to take a picture from their balcony! Here is what it looked like. I thought we could do with a quiet photo after this busy and pretty violent week. By the way, these friends have started a (good) coffee business on the Internet. I thought I would give them a hand with their promotion... have a look!

I almost got killed after I took this one!

Of course I am extremely pleased to greet Venice, Kuala Lumpur, Notre-Dame-de-Bondeville and Bazainville in our Daily photo blog family but, frankly there is only one place on earth where there is all the fun at the moment, it's Paris! I took this shot today in the rue de Rennes (6th arrondissement), especially for you. It shows one of the - many - student demonstrations that took place today. (I sound a bit ironic but providing things are getting a little tense now, I should probably be more serious about all this now...).

(PS: if you're interested in this scene click here, you will see 3 other photos (2 before and 1 after this shot)

Beret, baguette, demonstrations... good old traditions

Who said that the average Frenchman does not wear a beret and eat baguette anymore? Here is a pic I took on Place de la Sorbonne (same spot as yesterday's picture) of a student waiting for the demonstration to start. Thought you'd like it...

PS: problems with blogger. A lot of you are reporting poblems accessing PDP or posting comments. I am sorry for that, it should not last too long but if you want to know more, please visit this.

May '68 is back!

You heard about new riots in Paris right? This time no burned cars in the suburbs, but a much more classic student protest against a new law that the government passed - too difficult to explain here. I took this photo in front of the Sorbonne University yesterday on my way home. It is hard to translate, but it reminds me of the slogan that could be seen in May 1968 (although I was too young to actually remember!). This one is a cute little rhyming slogan to protest the CRS police intervention at the university. Roughly translated it says, "Less Police, more petting (or caressing)"!

The design school that Philippe Starck attended...

This beautiful door belongs to the Ecole Camondo, an interior and product design school - and also an Art deco museum, that you can find on 266 Boulevard Raspail (14th arrondissement). The school building in itself is a modern building (conceived by Cuno Brullmann who also participated in the Pompidou Center) but it is surrounded by these old walls... On top of this door it says "entrance to the workshop".

Ice skating in the middle of Paris

In front of the Paris Town Hall (Hotel de Ville) they not only installed "bobsled tracks" for kids like I showed you earlier in February but also, a free ice rink. Although it is freezing cold these days in Paris they still have to freeze it artificially.

Resting day!

I don't know how many times in your life you received love messages from tens of people around the world but, for me, it was a premiere... And let me tell you it feels good (Ham, from LondonDailyPhoto just warned me it could be very addictive...) ! Needless to say that I am very grateful to you all and to all the other daily photo bloggers for posting a Paris (or France) related photo. Thank you again and, since someone suggested in the comments yesterday that I should take a day off, well I do! That means no caption to go along with this shot!