Paris

Paris is consistently the world's most-visited city, and while it's fairly easy for English-speakers to get what they need, it's harder for speakers of many other languages.

If you're heading to Paris with your family, or even if it's just to appeal to the kid in you, be sure you stop by Les Berges, a mile-long play space on the Left Bank of the Seine River.    

And mind you, that price is for sharing a room. There's an $11,000 single supplement!   So, what do you get for a vacation that costs more than double the median household income in the U.S.? Read on....

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo is planning the next step in her war on congestion and pollution, announcing a plan to at least partially pedestrianize seven of the city's best known "Places" or squares.

China has announced a new bi-annual air show, with the first event to be held in Deyang, in Sichuan Province, in 2017. China is the fastest-growing market for airliners and is also an important manufacturing center for aviation equipment and parts.

Protests by taxi drivers over the illegal but continuing "Uberpop" service and a 3-day strike planned by city bus drivers may tie traffic in knots and leave some visitors and locals stranded.

  'Love Locks,' those padlocks attached to bridges and monuments all over, with the key thrown away to symbolize unbreakable affection, have been the subject of a serious backlash in many cities, and now Paris is ready to move on demands by local campaigners that they be removed.

A plan for fixed-rate taxi fares to and from Paris's two airports has been announced by the government, and it's already drawing cheers from travelers and big jeers from cabbies who believe the proposed rates are wrong and don't impose similar rules on rivals such as Uber.

Strikes and walkouts by public employees are far from rare in Europe. Still, it came as a surprise to many people when the Eiffel Tower closed most of Friday because its employees walked off the job.

No one really knows where it started, but it's spread all over the world in the past few years—"Love Locks" snapped onto railings, especially on bridges.

I have quite a few favorite places in Paris, but I think the Stravinsky Fountain is the only one I've gotten to on every visit. I never get tired of it, or of watching children marvel at it.

The pictures in this gallery are mainly architectural details—rooflines, entrances, windows—noticed in years of walking in cities and having my eye caught by a strong line, an unexpected contrast, an extended shape...I don't even always know what catches me, and, as here, it's often not the most significant building.