Eight Unrelated Things from Paris
While the longer Paris posts on the Vélib bike-sharing system, rubber-tire metros and the and the high-speed line to Strasbourg are in the works, here are 8 completely unrelated photos from Paris:
Canal Saint-Martin. I have heard about this canal first from some in-flight magazine, but it is now famous of Amélie throwing rocks into and the Médecins du Monde accommodating homeless people in tents here as part of their awareness campaign.
Go Away, really. We have already seen the controversial Do Not Enter signs in Budapest. Now the Parisiens tried to make the signage clearer, hope this works.
Très rapide. Designing high-speed moving walkways have been a struggle since 1970. In 2003, we saw such a system being installed at Montparnasse-Bienvenüe, but by the time I returned, it is again under maintenance. (Here is a picture from the meantime when it was operating.)
Bubbles attacking train stations. After the famous railway station mod in Strasbourg (which is just brilliant: the station looks super modern or really old depending on lighting conditions), the Saint-Lazar station in Paris has its own bubble. It is not large enough to fit the station itself inside, though. (This is the new terminus for both the newest RER and Métro lines, E and 14 respectively.)
Turn down the heat. The City of Paris advocates that if you decrease your temperature in your appartment by just 1 degrees (Celsius), you could save 7% of money/gas.
Shining tower. In the souvenir stores around Paris, they have been selling all these mini-Eiffel Towers with annoying blinking “Christmas tree” lights for a long time. But since around 2002, such system is installed on the very tower itself.
Now decide for yourself if you like it or not, but 15 seconds of exposure gives you a pretty well-lit tower.
I know there are not many things more cliché than a photo of the Eiffel tower, but my camera has a mode of taking-night-photos-of-the-Eiffel-tower (according to the icon) so I had to use it.
Smoothies. These are the cool things these days, apparently.
Journey Planner in Paris. I am a big fan of Google Transit which calculates directions for you on the Washington, Zürich and other transit systems, but here is an analog version from the Paris Metro.
More pictures on Flickr (click here if you cannot see below):
February 14th, 2009 at 17:07
[...] spagblog « Eight Unrelated Things from Paris [...]
February 24th, 2009 at 12:31
[...] tire railway was first pioneered in Paris after WWII. The idea (which sounds a bit odd at first, as it is combining the inefficiency of road [...]
March 25th, 2009 at 15:40
Interesting stuff.
Something else you might find interesting about Paris is that it’s technically illegal to photograph the Eiffel tower at night, but not during the day. France, unfortunately does not admit the right of <a href=freedom of panorama, so I guess that makes for a lot of flickr outlaws.
March 26th, 2009 at 08:51
wow that weird, thanks for the info! i am not sure if i’ve heard this before or just having déja vu. good luck to the paris police on enforcing this rule