I find this kind of thing endlessly, eerily fascinating:
A collection of high quality remastered prints from the dawn of film taken in Belle Époque-era Paris, France from 1896-1900. Slowed down footage to a natural rate and added in sound for ambiance. These films were taken by the Lumière company.
0:08 – Notre-Dame Cathedral (1896)
0:58 – Alma Bridge (1900)
1:37 – Avenue des Champs-Élysées (1899)
2:33 – Place de la Concorde (1897)
3:24 – Passing of a fire brigade (1897)
3:58 – Tuileries Garden (1896)
4:48 – Moving walkway at the Paris Exposition (1900)
5:24 – The Eiffel Tower from the Rives de la Seine à Paris (1897)
If that’s up your horse-trodden alley, check out a similar piece from NYC that I posted earlier in the year:
These are wonderful pictures of a different time of what things looked like over a 120 years ago. The moving sidewalk was a wonder with the neat poles to grab on to. I noted there were no seat belts in the carriages.
Horse collar companies probably didn’t know they would be out of business in a few short years. The streets looked to be made of bricks , the people were mostly thin and everybody looked to be wearing formal clothes with hats and umbrellas. Some men carried canes even though they didn’t seem to need them. I guess they were good for protection and pointing. How very interesting to have a peek into the past.