Virtual Paris
Here's a cool site if you want to visit Paris without leaving your desk/armchair/starbucks drip;
It's actually part of the french yellow pages website, and has a picture of (almost) every building in a whole bunch of French cities. Just plug in the address, and there you are. You even have direction buttons so you can walk down the street.
The only not-so-great part is that all the pictures seem to have been taken at six in the morning, and everything has a fairly lifeless and drab appearance; I used it a bit while trying to find an apartment to rent, but in the end gave up since a) everywhere looked horrible, and b) most apartments don't actually face onto the street - I'd turn up at a place with a beautiful front entrance, only to be led through a maze of passages and courtyards to a 20 sq meter dump overlooking a restaurant's outside toilet.
Anyway, for anyone that wants to burgle me, here's my place - rue d'Enghien - the fifties style laundromat on the ground floor has modernised since the photo, and now looks fairly 80's-ish.
I did try to find some nice tourist views, but the photographer must have had a stiff neck - here's the view of the Arc de Triomphe de la Porte St-Denis which is just down the road from me (the link misses slightly - press the turn 180 degrees arrow!):
This is a fantastic arch, which I always admire every time I go to Monoprix for more cheap wine. It's just a shame you can't stand under it due to the smell of tramp pee and the menacing mob of pigeons.
I then tried Place des Victoires, but this time the photographer took an aversion to looking inwards at the cool statue in the middle, and all you get are the posh buildings around it.
Of course though, they did manage to get the Eiffel Tower right...
