I just loaded a photo album from Sunday's Marche Pour la Vie in Paris in the sidebar. [Update: See the photos here. They are no longer in the sidebar.]
What a way to see Paris! We walked from Place de la Republique to the Bastille, including two beautiful Paris monuments in the 2-1/2 to 3 hour event.
I just got home last night from France. I don't post about travel while I am out of town for security reasons (too great a risk of alerting a potential burglar). I will have more photos and posts later.
The Paris "Marche Pour la Vie" was a last minute plan change for me. All of last week, I was in Lyon (where some of the early Christians were martyred), Ars-sur-Forman (for the sanctuary of St. Jean Vianney, the Curé d'Ars) and Paray-le-Monial (with a basilica that was built in the 11th century as part of a Cluniac monastery, and the site of the apparitions of St. Marguerite-Marie Alacoque which originated the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus).
My original plan was to fly home on Saturday the 24th, changing planes that day in Paris. When I realized 2 or 3 weeks before my departure that the Paris March for Life would be the following day, I decided to see if I could reschedule the last leg of my journey. Flying on a frequent flyer ticket, it took a couple of days, but somebody canceled and the flight became available. I have to keep these things inexpensive. I had the reward points to pay for a 2 night stay in Paris, and the hotel was available too, so it was on.
Unfortunately, I was traveling alone. The march would have been a lot more fun if I had known anybody else there, but 2 weeks before departure is a little bit late to start searching for whether anybody from California would like to join me in Paris for the day. The rest of the trip involved visiting some sacred destinations, and I had solitude and the freedom to take my own time wherever I went, but I really would have rather had a traveling companion for the march.
Anyway, the photos turned out better than I had thought possible. My camera was set to take 3 photos quickly each time I pushed the button, in case something blurred, especially since I was walking while taking the photos most of the time. I took my good camera, but it was too large and bulky, and there was always a possibility of rain in the forecast, so I ended up not even taking it out of the case the whole trip.
With rain in the forecast for the day of the march, I carried my umbrella, along with hat and gloves, along with everything else in a tote. If it had been raining, I would not have taken my phone out of my bag, but there was no rain during the march. A few minutes after it concluded, the rain started to fall, and it rained off and on through the rest of the day. The weather, I thought, was providential.
Among the most interesting photographs, I think, were photos I took of a couple of French priests walking together in the march. I think there were 3 of them, although only 2 are in the photos. I shot it twice, giving me 6 photos, all of them perfect like the others except for one thing: There is a strange light surrounding the priests' heads! I didn't see anything like that while I was taking the pictures, and I do not know the source of the light. To be frank, my camera phone does strange things sometimes. Still, the mysterious light around the priests that does not show up in any of the other photographs struck me as quite interesting!
Also, someone else's collection of more than 140 photos from the march can be seen here.
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