Thursday, April 12, 2007

Is Paris the most beautiful European city at the moment?

Side view of Notre DameMyself and boyfriend number 1 spent Easter weekend in Paris. We stayed in our favourite hotel in the 4eme arrondissement as usual, and thanks in part to the excellent weather we had a great time.

Île Saint-Louis (left), and Île de la Cité (right)Wandering around the streets, I was struck by how beautiful the city seemed. And then it struck me. All the building cleaning and renovation that has been going on in recent years has now been completed. Ever since my first visit with boyfriend number 1 in the early 1990's Notre Dame had been covered in ugly scaffolding, but now it's all gone. The external renovation of the Louvre is now also complete, so with it's glass pyramid it looks magnificent. All the other buildings and smaller churches also look generally clean and renovated now, and the cumulative effect was quite impressive. Always cover your large erections in white plasticThe only renovation going on that I spotted was that of the Tour St Jacques, but even there, the scaffolding was hidden from view behind a curious white plastic that covered the entire structure. All the other significant European cities that I can think, including London, still have far too much scaffolding, renovation or other building works. But Paris, for the moment at least, looks really beautiful.

2 comments:

Monty said...

You British are so fortunate to be able to pop over to Paris for the weekend! ...sigh...

Great pix by the way!

Anonymous said...

Paris is probably the most beautiful major city in the world.

London is a beautiful city, but is more of a business and functional city than the artistic and cultural Paris.

London is more like Europe's New York.

The largest city in Europe is Moscow.