Ahh Paris!  Centuries old, a delight to the eye at every turn, an absolute wonder at myriad levels.  Hard to manage everything in one trip, or even several.  For me, carving out a slice of the city for sight-seeing allows for better appreciation of one or two aspects rather than sensory overload, which can only lead to the blur of confusion and fatique no matter how hard you try!  With my friend Laura here, I take in Place St. Michel across from Notre Dame.  The famous pink columns serve as magestic backdrop to the place where many Sorbonne students meet, where tourists pause to determine the next site on their list, or those with better sense sip at a café and watch the city pass by.  The nearby Rodin museum is a must see, even from the back view (see below) where the Hotel Biron houses much of the famed sculptor's works including 'The Kiss', the ballet dancers, and pieces of his studies of the 'Gates of Hell'.  The outdoor replica is not the original, nor is the 'Thinker' who sits in a lovely rose garden.  Both works are in their original form inside, smaller and more in keeping with the artist's sense of compactness and physionomie.

 

'What is ugly in art is what is false, artificial, what tries to be lovely instead of being expressive'...Rodin