Old vs New

Old vs New

It seems there is always a push and pull between the two.

Growing up during dial-up to now having high speed.

No cell phones to having a smart phone.

People seem to forget that there will always be old and new.

One of my favorites things to do is go to antique stores.  Long lost items from different generations.  If you are "lucky" you will find old photos, postcards, dresses, keys, and spoons.

I say the things that I love the most.

These are the details or items that people discard over time.

I knew that we were going to go to Paris about eight months before we were going to leave.  So while  in Chicago for a weekend I visited an antique store to see what treasures I could find.

What I did not expect to find were old pictures from the 40's for the same place that I would be going six months later.

This is where things become tricky.  I had to find the spot that I the pictures were taken, when, how, and about anything around at that time.  The pictures themselves were in very good condition and you could tell that the owner enjoyed them before they were thrown into a box.  When I checked out the man at the counter asked for one dollar each.

To me that was hitting the jackpot!

Flash forward to our plane ride over.  I had put the pictures in my purse so no matter where I was at that time, they would be with me.

I knew where both of the pictures were taken, but didn't know how much had changed in 75 years.

What I found was that the cars, road, surroundings, the people, the trees, all were different.

Nothing was the same, except the statues at the end of the Champs-Elysees.

The statues at the end of that road is called the Horses of Marly.

They have been seen in almost every picture from when Hitler was in Paris to people like myself visiting. I couldn't take a picture from the exact location that the other picture is at due to all of the change, so I moved up to the next intersection.  When I walking and standing in the same places that soldiers had it sent chills up my spine.

This is why I wanted to take these pictures...old vs new.

    The car in the vintage picture is a Citroen.  These cars are all over Paris then and now.  In the 40's production had gone from over 100,000 down to just around 9,000.  Their production plant was bombed not once, but twice limiting their production.  A car used to cost around $800, now one of these cars is around $55,000.

Another picture that I knew that I had to take was one at the Palace of Versailles.  I will have a full blog up about this wonderful place and everything that it offers, but for now a small history lesson about the pools.

The Palace has acres of gardens and fountains, so trying to find the right fountain I thought would be a challenge.  After looking out a window, the fountain that I was looking for was staring back at me.

The pools themselves were built in 1685, but over the years there were sculptures were added around them.  These two pools reflect the sunlight to where the hall of mirrors is inside the Palace.  I spent hours here thinking about how it was walking the gardens during the time that the King and Queen walked them.  Everything around was gold even the smallest of details.  Taking this picture with all of these people on vacation really makes you think about how life was during that time.  Was it easy? What did they do all of the time?  Who came to visit them?  These pools were something that will always stay with me.

Next time that you go somewhere try to think about what it was like when there were no phones, cameras, air conditioning, cars.

When you pass an antique store go in and find your next adventure!

For more pictures follow me on Instagram (gmagoto) for videos follow me on Beme (gdmag)