You can find a great number of sun dials in Paris, maybe 50 or 60. Here are a few.
Starting from the top left and following the sun on the below patchwork: One can be found on the northern slope of Montmartre (4, Place Dalida, from 1924), one in a courtyard beyond the Bastille (around 80, rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, from 1751) and one close to the St. Gervais St. Protais Church (rue des Barres, from the 17th century?). This church has by the way some more sun dials on its walls. The last one here is from the backyard of the Institute (where the French Academies are housed, Quai de Conti, from the 19th century?). This was the only one I got in sunshine and it was actually about 4.30 pm when I took the photo, so it seems to be fairly correct.
A rather surprising and recent one is the one you can also see on the top picture. It’s made by Salvador Dalí in 1966 for some friends who had a shop here those days. You can find it on 27 rue St. Jacques. The shape is a scallop, obviously referring to the name of the street; a scallop is called “Coquille Saint Jacques” in French.Finally, the best sun dials might be some of the towers you find in Paris and some efforts have actually been made to transform the obelisk on Place de la Concorde to one. You can, with good eyes, find some lines and figures on the ground. I wrote about this in a previous post.
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