All superheros considered, I'm in for Tintin. He's got that endearing, enduring retro style, not to mention 'la ligne claire' (the clear line), as Hergé's drawing style came to be called. A collection of Tin Tin book covers, from the French editions. Check into the Hergé Foundation, for all things Tintin. [Tintin images are copyright Hergé/Casterman.]

Two of the architecture treasures of Istanbul
	Hagia Sophia (Ayia Sophia, Santa Sophia, St. Sophia). Originally, Constantinople's Church of the Holy Wisdom, commissioned by Justinian I and constructed from 532-537(!) to the designs of Anthemius of Tralles and Isodorus of Miletus. It was converted to a mosque upon the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453, at which time the four minarets were added, and hundreds of mosaics on the walls were covering over with plaster. Today it is a museum of Byzantine art, revealing both its Islamic heritage -- in the great discs suspended from the vaults, covered with Arabic script -- and its Christian heritage: a cross surmounting the main dome. Another pic.
	Blue Mosque (Ahmediye Cami, Sultanahmet Mosque). Built 1609-1619, by court architect Mehmet Aga, a student of the renowned Sinan (responsible for the Süleymaniye palace). The Ahmedhiye Cami was Aga's way of showing the world he could outdo not only his master but also the Byzantine architects who designed the nearby St. Sophia cathedral, which the Blue Mosque resembles in many ways. Aga outfitted his design with no less than six minarets. The popular name Blue Mosque derives from the exquisite blue Iznik tiles which cover the inside walls.
The Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque face one another across Sultanahmet Square.

I managed to spend two days in May of '96, and then most of a week in June of '97 tramping the streets and visiting the cathedrals and back alleys of Paris. In '96, I stayed at the Hotel des Alpes, on rue des Petites Écuries, in the fascinating but perilous Turkish / Tunisian ghetto, for about $40 a night.

At left is La Basilique du Sacre Coeur, scanned from a postcard. Click it, bandwidth permitting, to see the full size [200K] image. You can also see much of the surrounding Montmartre neighborhood in the foreground - a great place to get lost on a foggy morning.

Un billet du métro... cheap, and good from anywhere to anywhere else within the city.

Simplified street map of the center of Paris, not that you would publicly admit any desire to visit, now that it's clear that France has joined the Axis of Evil.