Somewhere Along the Road: The Metro (April 24)

It was another healthy start to the day.

This was one of the best pain au chocolat I've ever had - indescribably light and flaky. On my way to the metro, I saw that vandalism had made the name of this shop just perfect for either English

or French speakers.

The metro option was the best for today, as it was another wet and miserable day out. I was going to hop on and off trains to take photos of interesting stations. Ars et metiers is just down the line from my home stop, Republique. It's designed to look like a submarine, a la Jules Verne. Definitely a steam punk vibe happening with those huge cogs.

The portholes have different scenes.

Hotel de Ville has lovely tiled frames for its advertising posters.

If you cross to another line at the same station the tiling changes.

This is a very long ad for the free Doisneau exhibition on at the Hotel de Ville (the lines are ridiculously long, unfortunately).

Another nice bit of tiling.

The Louvre-Rivoli station used to be the main exit for the Louvre Museum, and so it has niches and display cabinets usually filled with artefacts. A new exhibition will be in place for July.

The Tuileries has a series of posters highlighting events from decades throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

At Concorde, line 12, you think you've entered a giant word search puzzle. The letters form the words to the Declaration of the Rights of Man from the French Revolution of 1789.

I like how the punctuation has dropped to the bottom.

Franklin D Roosevelt station is very designer-ish and even has its own gift shop (I know you will be hugely surprised, but opportunities to buy souvenirs pop up everywhere). Chocolate tiles,