3 capital cities in 3 days. Day 1 : Paris.

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What can you do in Paris on a Sunday morning at 6 am ? The night-clubs are closing, a few cafés are opening where the still awaken party animals are going to have their morning coffee. I wanted to take a photo of 2 buildings for a biography I am writing, 1 at 2km from the coach station on the right bank of the Seine, and another one on Saint-Louis island. I went there with the help of the GPS on my phone. Even if I know Paris quite well, a GPS saves me a lot of footsteps, and it bluffed me this time by making me go through a long hall inside the Lyon railway station. I would never have thought to do that. Installing an offline GPS on your phone is a good tip I can give. Another good tip I can give you if you want to visit Paris, is to schedule to be in Paris on the first Sunday of the month, because the entrance to most of the national monuments and national museums is free this day (since January the free entrance to the Louvre is now on the first Saturday evening of the month), and you will save a lot on visits. Feb 3rd was the first Sunday of the month, but in February there are not a lot of exhibitions to see in museums, and I had decided to visit a few monuments. But the first one was opening at 9 am, and I had ended my photo job at 7h30. From Saint-Louis island to Cité island there is only a bridge to cross, and I went to the first Sunday mass in Notre-Dame cathedral, at 8 am (left photo). A good place to kill an hour : a chair, less cold than outdoors, and... it is Notre-Dame ! At 9 am the entrance to the towers of Notre-Dame was free this day, but I feel a bit old to climb all these stairs. I had decided to start my visits by the Conciergerie. I went first back to Saint-Louis to see the birds market on Lépine square (top left). It is less known than the flowers market on Cité island, but there are thousands of birds to sell every Sunday there, and all these birds singing put me in a good mood. A must see. The Conciergerie is a monument underrated by tourists, and it is difficult to understand. The first room after the entrance, the «Salle des Gens d’Armes» (top 2), is the largest room from the Middle-Age remaining in Europe. Then there are the giant kitchens of king Jean II (14th C), the prison of the Revolution with its cells where was jailed, among others, queen Marie-Antoinette, a chapel to the queen and a little museum dedicated to Marie-Antoinette. And a lot more to visit, it is quite large. Near the Conciergerie, which was quite empty, is the Sainte-Chapelle (top 3). The two levels of this one were overcrowded. It was built in 7 years, and half of the stained-glass windows have fallen during the early 19th C and have been replaced. What all these people are doing there ? With all the respect I have for king Saint-Louis, his chapel is «bling-bling» and somewhere overrated. And the lower floor is full of shops for tourists ! I quickly went out of that. Then I did quite a long walk to the Panthéon, which is a building (previously a church) where France puts the tombs of its great men (and women). You can see inside the crypt the tombs of great philosophers and writers like Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Rousseau, Voltaire... But also of scientists, servicemen... And a few politicians too. The bottom left photo shows one side of the tomb of Voltaire who entered in the Panthéon in 1792. The inscription says : «He fought together atheists and bigots. He inspired tolerance. He claimed for human rights against the servitude of feudalism.» At the upper level of the Panthéon, there is the Foucault pendulum. It is no more the original pendulum, but it may still be useful to prove to those believing that the earth is flat that it is in reality round and that it turns. Somebody disagrees ? I came back to Notre-Dame to lunch in the public garden behind the cathedral. I shared it with a few pigeons that soon were a crowd of pigeons, one even climbed on my knees. I had decided to go to Centre Georges Pompidou in the afternoon. It is together a giant public library opened to everybody and a museum of modern art. The square of the City Hall was invaded by mice in plaster. It was a happening by a Dutch urban artist called «Paris te souris», Paris smiles to you, with a play on the word «souris», meaning also «mouse». I got 2 mice (bottom 2) that I was supposed to put in the square to contribute to this artistic mess, when two security agents of the city came and screamed because this happening had not been authorized. They were not smiling. Well, I kept the mice, and they traveled with me. The plaster is good, they are not broken, maybe my stamped mice will be worth something in the future. After this incident, I cannot chose a better illustration from the Centre Georges Pompidou museum than this little inscription on a corner of the Ben (Vautier) shop, a masterpiece of the permanent collections : «If everything is art, what is the use of museums ?» (bottom 3) I roamed a lot in this one, saw a few exhibitions, watched videos, and ended in the library where I read a comics (I had not enough time for anything else). Then I left to do some shopping for the following day of my trip. Tomorrow, part 2 : London.