Extraordinary Light and Shadow in Paris This Weekend

My Fitbit tells me I walked a little over 15 miles in Paris this weekend. But who could resist? At ever turn the clouds seemed to part and the sun shone like a spotlight on some of my favorite places.

Grands Magasins du Printemps - One of the first department stores in Paris, or the world (Bon Marché on the Left Bank being the trend setter in the first half of the 19th century)

Goddesses of dark and light on the Printemps facade

Trinité church on Saturday afternoon

Rue des Renaudes on Sunday morning

Storm clouds behind the Eiffel Tower on Sunday morning

Selfie on Rue de Bellechasse

Crossing the Seine on the Solferino footbridge, looking at the Louvre with the stormy sky above and the muddy water below.

Strollers along the Seine with Notre Dame de Paris in the background

Coming out of the subterranean passage from the Solferino bridge into the Tuileries Gardens

Storm clouds and blue sky. Looking down the elevated allée a the Denon Wing of the Louvre. I am told this used to be a place for assignations in the more secretive days of gay Paris.

Gorgeous black clouds, but sunlight on the Tuileries Gardens and the Louvre

The trees are only beginning to bud, but the little daisies are up and flowering in the Jardin de Tuileries, looking across from the raised allée toward Rue de Rivoli

Gilded Joan of Arc in Place des Pyramides

Among the maze-like hedges at this end of the Jardin des Tuileries,  man reading a map, a crow protecting his territory, and the Louvre in the background.

Bernini's statue of Louis XIV re-cast in lead at the request of I.M. Pei as an end point to the Grand Axis of Paris

Re-cast statue of the Sun King Louis XIV by Bernini in the Louvre courtyard

The Café Marly in the Richelieu Wing of the Louvre

L'Opéra Garnier

Saint Roch on the Rue Saint-Honoré

In the arcade on Rue Castiglione

At first glance, it looks like this woman is following her shadow, but it's actually someone else doing the same thing.

Looking up La Rue Royale at La Madeleine

Les Invalides

The sun shines on the gold tip of the obelisk in Place de la Concorde. When it stood in Egypt thousands of years ago, it may have had the same brilliance, but the gold was only put on in Paris in about 1989.