Exploring Paris with Ilford Delta 100 – Part Three

Sacré Coeur sits prominently atop the large Montmartre hill, this view was from the Centre Pompidou. 1/400s 200mm F4.0 with polariser.

To say I packed a lot into my last day in Paris, is perhaps an understatement. Having been unable to go up the Eiffel Tower on my first day due to a strike and spending the weekend with my friends, this was my last opportunity to go up the symbol of the city. However, I’ll elaborate more on that experience next week as I think it warrants its own blog. Keen for more aerial views of the city (and really of any city) I spent the rest of the day visiting Sacré Coeur Basilica, something that had been on my list of places to visit, and Centre Pompidou which had been recommended to me by my Airbnb host.

Coming out of the metro system near the Eiffel Tower, the underside of this bridge was too interesting not to photograph. 1/25s 35mm F1.4.

Much like you can ride around Berlin in Trabants, you can also do tours of Paris in Citroen 2CVs. 1/1000s 35mm F1.4 with polariser +1 stop.

Up close with the white stone of Sacré Coeur. 1/3200s 35mm F1.4 with polariser.

Sacré Coeur sits away from the other major sites in Paris to the North. Being at the top of a hill it is not only visible from the city, but also offers great views of the city looking back. Amazingly the church is not actually that old, with construction starting in 1875 before it was finished on the eve of the First World War and finally consecrated in 1919. Some saw the fall of the French Empire after defeat in the Franco-Prussian war as divine punishment due to a decline in morality following the French Revolution and so Sacré Coeur was built to atone for this, much to the protestation of France’s many socialists which continues even to this day.

Built with some controversy in the late 19th and 20th centuries, it is a popular tourist attraction today. 1/2000s 35mm F1.4 with polariser.

The inside is no less impressive both in scale and design. 1/30s 35mm F1.4.

Paintings, statues and stained glass decorate the interior. 1/25s 35mm F1.4.

There’s two ways to enjoy the basilica. First of all, you can wander around the lower floors free of charge and there’s a great deal of white masonry to be admired inside and out.  Here you can also purchase any souvenirs you so desire at the gift shop. Whilst the view of the city is already very good from the courtyard outside of the basilica, it’s well worth paying the €7 (at least it was then) to climb up to the top for an even better view. As it almost always the case with older buildings the climb up all the steps is a little vigorous but a one-way system means you won’t be clashing with those going in the opposite direction. You don’t have to worry about a time limit either.

Queuing for the top. 1/1000s 35mm F1.4 with polariser.

Climbing up is somewhat steep but there is plenty to admire on the way. 1/2000s 35mm F1.4 with polariser.

Looking out from the viewing area at the top makes you appreciate how much the Eiffel Tower towers over the rest of the city. It’s a completely different skyline to London. In some ways the general view is unchanged from centuries past. 1/3200s 35mm F1.4 with polariser.

Even having been up the Eiffel Tower earlier in the day, I was still in awe of the view, especially as it gives the best context to the Tower itself within the surrounding city. With a bit of patience, you can get a quiet spot to yourself to briefly just sit and drink it all in, which is further enhanced by the architecture that ensconces you. If there is one place I can recommend visiting above all else in Paris it’s here. It’s a gorgeous spot and it won’t break the bank either.  

Tourists enjoying the view. 1/1250s 35mm F1.4 with polariser.

Getting up high also allows for a closer look at some of the masonry. 1/2500s 35mm F1.4 with polariser.

A colourful tourist train brings people up the hill to the entrance. It’s almost comically misplaced amongst its surroundings. 1/1000s 35mm F1.4 with polariser.

I decided to finish the day with a visit to Centre Pompidou to get a good view in the heart of the city itself. The building has a rather strange and wonderful inside out design, with see through pipes on the outside taking you from top to bottom on escalators. It was originally due to close in 2023 for several years of refurbishment but this has now been pushed back to 2025, most likely due to the Olympics this summer, so now’s the time to visit if you don’t want to wait until it is supposed to re-open again in 2030. Given that I arrived at the end of the day I didn’t have the time (or frankly the energy) to look around the exhibits, although I would have liked to have gone around the Norman Foster exhibition that was on at the time (it also houses the largest collection of modern art in Europe for those who are so inclined). Instead, I opted to photograph the interesting structures of the building and to appreciate the view out to Paris’ great landmarks including Notre Dame and Sacré Coeur out on the hill in the distance. In fact, this may well be the best place to get a view of the basilica in the whole city, at least for free.

The Centre Pompidou with its inside out design. 1/2000s 35mm F1.4 with polariser.

Escalators in the pipes take you from top to bottom, it gets very hot here on a sunny day. 1/2000s 35mm F1.4 with polariser.

The crisscrossing structures make for excellent subjects for photography. 1/2000s 35mm F1.4 with polariser.

It is however absolutely roasting inside those plastic pipes on a sunny day as they effectively double up as greenhouses. Better to spend more time on the balcony and in the lobby with air conditioning. Being up high at Sacré Coeur and at Centre Pompidou you also appreciate how the Eiffel Tower has only a single rival on the Parisian skyline, the ever-controversial Montparnasse Tower. Considered one of the ugliest buildings in the world its height and structure is a complete mismatch to the rest of the city’s aesthetics. In fact, the controversy was so fierce after its construction in 1973 that buildings more than seven-storeys high were prohibited from being built for several decades. Despite the ban being no longer in effect, no one seems to have plucked the courage to build another. I didn’t get a chance to go up it on this trip, but I’ve been assured it offers the best views of Paris, because it’s the only place you can’t see the tower itself. Though similar words were said of the Eiffel Tower when it was first built.

Looking at the building from the roof gives you a better appreciation for how it was designed. 1/2000s 35mm F1.4 with polariser.

The view from the roof balcony gives perhaps the best free view of Paris. 1/2000s 35mm F1.4 with polariser.

The Montparnasse Tower and the Eiffel Tower face off across the skyline of Paris. Both buildings have been criticised historically for their ugliness and ill-fitting to the aesthetic of the city. The Eiffel Tower is now the symbol of the city, but Montparnasse is yet to receive anything close to the same appreciation. 1/2000s 35mm F1.4 with polariser.

Up high but close by, I got a better view of the reconstruction of the Notre Dame. 1/400s 140mm F4.0 with polariser.

My friends who’d moved here have been rather unimpressed of the city so far, finding the people there rather rude and the city itself generally unfriendly. But admittedly I liked Paris much more than I expected, it’s a world away from the modern metropolis of London or the freewheeling party city of Berlin. Much of its soul resides in the Ancien Régime and the Napoleonic rule that followed with splashes of republican tendencies thrown in. It’s a city both proud and conflicted by its history which in turn reflects wider French attitudes. Their disdain for Monarchy, and yet reverence for Napoleon, whose body lays in a grand tomb inside Les Invalides and their modern socialist tendencies sitting alongside their insistency to lead a very bourgeois way of life. It’s a curiosity that can’t help but raise a smile, especially for a Brit such as myself.

Inside Centre Pompidou which houses Europe’s largest collection of modern art. 1/40s 35mm F1.4 with polariser.

A stage performance in celebration of the upcoming Olympic Games. 1/2000s 35mm F1.4 with polariser.

It will certainly make for an interesting host for this year’s Olympic Games, for both good and bad reasons. With tensions running high politically I wouldn’t be surprised to see a strike or two and the doubling of metro ticket prices during the games is hardly going to win the city any new friends. But underneath it all the residents will be trucking on, book in one hand and a cigarette in the other, sat amongst centuries of history as the world whistles by, declaring it’s not my problem until Monday.

Next time I visit Paris I’ll make sure to take a boat down the river. 1/1600s 35mm F1.4 with polariser.

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