Tour of Place de la Concorde and the Louvre

About two months ago, I went on a walking tour of the area of Paris that starts at Place de la Concorde (in the eighth arrondissement/district) and ends at the Louvre (in the first).

The tour wasn't about seeing famous sites; it was about seeing things that most people don't notice.

For example, in Place de la Concorde there is a column on the Hotel de Crillion that is darker than the other columns, because it's made of different stone that was used to replace the original after being destroyed by a tank in world war II. There was also a notice on a building (near the Place de la Concorde) that was put there during world war II as a call to arms. Then there are the sundial marks with the Obelisk of Luxor at the center of the sundial (also in Place de la Concorde).

In the Tuileries, there is a uprooted tree made completely of bronze. The way the roots were made and the detail of the bark, it looks like a tree, but if you take a closer look you can see that it is bronze. The tree is black like iron though it's made of bronze.

Around the outside of the Louvre, you can see carved initials on the walls that indicate which king or emperor built that section. If you look closely you can see N for Napoleon, or L for Louis XIII and XIV, or H for Henri IV, or C for Catherine de Medici (who was Henri's wife), and D for Diane de Poitiers (Henri's mistress).

Near the Louvre there's a stone gargoyle on the outside of a church with the world in its mouth. If you look closely you can see that the world has rats crawling into it to indicate the end of the world.

This is very interesting to me, because I enjoy seeing things that other people haven't seen yet and teaching them about it. Yes, if you go to somewhere like Paris you're going to want to see things like the Eiffel Tower and the Mona Lisa, but I find it just as interesting to explore somewhere new and see unusual things: like the amazing architecture of Paris (and other European cities), or the buildings that have been around for hundreds of years. So I am going to learn and see as much as I can about the world, not just one place.

I hope that when you go somewhere new this helps you to think about what you want to do.
Comments welcome.