About 100 feet in front of the cathedral there’s an octagonal plaque engraved with a compass and surrounded by four stones engraved with the words POINT ZÉRO DES ROUTES DE FRANCE. Even when the crowds arrive few will notice this bronze plaque indicating the point from which all roads from the capital are measured. Perhaps one hasn’t truly been to the center of Paris if one hasn’t put a foot—barefoot, shoed, sneakered or sandaled—on Point Zero, a.k.a. Kilometer Zero. It’s a kind of “You are here”—“Vous êtes ici.”

Va-nu-pieds was there. Pausing to reflect on what direction he’ll go in for his summer travels, the Barefoot Photographer steps up to the plate.

Photos © 2012, Va-nu-pieds.
Text by Gary Lee Kraut.

More of Va-nu-pieds’ work can be seen here on France Revisited and here on the photographer’s own site.

The post Va-nu-pieds: Notre-Dame, Early Morning and Point Zero, Early Summer appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

The cusp of spring is prime time for skytrees, and the images below, taken in the third weeks of March, are prime examples of skytrees in Paris: Arc de Triomphe, Notre-Dame, Saint Sulpice and Montmartre/Sacré Coeur by nightfall.

My favorite early spring skytrees were noticed during a recent evening while wandering around Montmartre before meeting friends for dinner.

Dinner too was a treat. We dined at Le Grand 8, a highly recommendable moderately-priced restaurant just downhill from Sacré Coeur on its lesser visited eastern side. There, Kamel Tabti and Stéphane Tomeï and their staff amiably serve simply and well-prepared dishes and natural/organic wines. It’s at once urbane, rustic and homey.

Le Grand 8. 8 rue Lamarck, 18th arrondissement. Tel. 01 42 55 04 55. Metro Anvers. Open for lunch Sat. and Sun. noon-3pm, for dinner Wed-Sun. 7-11:30pm. Reservations are advisable. www.legrand8.fr

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First, here’s a photo by Astrid Smits of the Netherlands who came across this cat and boots while vacationing on a farm in Italy near Casole d’Elsa.

Astrid first met this beautiful female as a kitten last year and laid out a box for her to rest in. Imagine then Astrid’s surprise when she returned to the farm a year later and found that the cat was still fond of the same box even though she’s outgrown it. “One morning,” Astrid wrote, “I got up and looked outside and saw her sleeping in the box, next to my walking shoes.”

This next photo was sent by our number one contributing photographer Va-nu-pieds, a unique vision of an encounter while wandering the streets of Paris.

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