Here we see the front of the Gare du Nord station. I didn't do a particularly good job of photographing this, did I? No I did not. I really needed to get out the wide-angle lens. Unfortunately this is not the sort of place that you should stop to change camera lenses.

First you will be under assault from supposed taxi drivers willing to helpfully take as much money of yours as they can in exchange for a dodgy trip to who knows where. Second, you will be under assault from motivated activists wanting you to "just sign the petition" for some noble cause or another. But if you're really committed to the cause, then you'll "make a donation", it goes without saying. Pretending to not speak either English or French does not work unless you can speak some really obscure language that the touts have no chance of knowing. Trust me, I know this from experience. Unfortunately my Klingon is too rusty for that to work. Essentially you just want to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible so I did the best I could with my walkabout 12 to 40 mm lens.

The sculptures that adorn the entrance to the station (there are many others over other entrances as well) represent the various cities that trains have departed to (or arrived from) over time. The one on the far left represents the city of Beauvais. Some of the others are hard to make out because of the weathering; the second one appears to be Lisle, though that's in the Dordogne area of in southwestern France, while this station generally serves northern routes. Of course, there is no law to say that it must serve ONLY those routes.

In front of the station we can see a snippet of a rather unusual sculpture by French artist Richard Texier. The name is "Angel Bear". Seen from the correct angle, it does appear to be a bear, and it does have wings. Although the open nature of the sculpture really does make it look more like a pig after the abattoir has extracted all of the tasty bits. It certainly attracts attention though.