Paris: Gobelins Summer School - Tour Montparnasse 1

In the days of old, custom existed where young men from Europe finishes their education with the Grand Tour. The journey from France, across the Alps, to the south in Italy served as an education rite of passage. As I was neither born a hundred years ago nor would I necessarily refer to myself as a person of means, a 3 weeks stay in Paris did just well for me. For an animation student, the Gobelins Summer School could hardly be a better way to turn the page into another chapter of my life.

La Ville-Lumière (or "The City of Lights") are filled with so much delights and wonderful things that I will need a series of posts to even begin to sketch the surface of that amazing experience.

And I shall start with one of my favorite series of pictures yet. To wait for the clouds to part, the sun to set, and the lights to be lit, 210 meters above in the sky looking down on almost everything else can be a sublime experience. Long have I not been standing so high up, at times shivering in the chilling wind, and doing nothing but drinking the changing colors of the sky and feasting upon the ever changing shadows across an urban landscape filled with famous buildings in every direction you look.

This is the from the Tour Montparnasse (around 9 - 11pm)
Behold now, how the light changes over the City of Lights.
From intimidating and foreboding rolling storm clouds, everything can change!

Slowly, the ray broke through as the clouds parted.

Here you can see the Luxembourg Garden, Pompidou Center and the Notre Dame, to name a few.

The horizontal green line are none other than the massive Louvre. Sacré-Coeur is visible on the green patch near the top left.

A better view of Louvre (in the shadow) and Sacré-Coeur (in the light)

The dome shaped building is the Panthéon.

Gare Montparnasse (train station) is the building at the bottom right corner.

The wonderful part begins with the sun inching closer to the horizon.

Let's take a break, have a hot coffee to thaw your finger as warmth begin to recede with the sun. The best part will be followed up in the next entry.

here to continue.