All the time in Paris

I took this picture standing behind the giant clock face at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris looking over the Seine towards the Louvre, the Opera and Montmartre.Afterwards I looked at the giant golden clock inside the museum in the main hall, which is carved with all sorts of things that decay with time…flowers, fruit, leaves. The clock is really a sort of comment about time, I think. Particularly as it would at one time have been reminding people they had a train to catch.

Paris is actually full of clocks. You only know this if you are a commuter without a watch, or a runner without a Garmin. Which I am (the latter). Unlike London, which only has one useful and prominent clock in the centre for runners to look at, Paris has clocks on most major intersections. They are about 20 foot tall, highly functional with a white face and black functional hands. Nothing like the golden glory at the Musee D’Orsay, but the city clock habit does (in my mind) go along with the severely pruned trees, and the arrow-straight boulevards.