Invader hunting in both London and Paris - spring has arrived! Click HERE for spring 2025, HERE for 2024,HERE for 2023, HERE for 2022, HERE for 2021, and HERE and HERE for photos from Spring 2020, including our trips to Paris and the Isle of Wight.
We went to London on Sunday in January to celebrate a belated family Christmas in Little Venice and to track down some of the 27 new mosaics that Invader has added in conjunction with his current exhibition..
These are all the Invaders we found on this trip to London. Scroll down to see more in both London and Paris.
Lunch was at a canal side restaurant in Little Venice.
A week or so later, George met up with friend Dan from our USA camp counselor days. He was leading a classics school trip and we started out at Billingsgate Roman House, an archaeological site in Londinium which is normally open one day a week in the summer.
Pottery has shown that the Roman house was erected in the late 2nd century and had at this time a north and an east wing around a courtyard. At this time the house was at the waterfront of the Thames. The rooms in the east wing had underfloor heating. Afterwards, we visited the treasures at the British Museum, including the renowned Elgin Marbles.
Dan was keen to see the Sutton Hoo ship burial, a 7th-century Anglo-Saxon royal treasure trove. The burial was a 27-meter ship containing, among other items, a, iconic helmet, gold jewellery, and weapons, likely for a king. The helmet above, featuring snakes and dragons, inspired the museum guide to take up archaeology as a profession, and features of the cover of Dan’s textbook.
We went on a third trip to London that same week to see Into the Woods at the Bridge Theatre. We had more time to seek out the remaining new Invaders, shown above.
I bought a new umbrella at the famous shop in Bloomsbury.
Dan and I ate eggs Benedict at the Salt and Pepper café. We found ourselves in the same neighbourhood so had cake there, too. A faux Bobby held Tiny Cow outside 221b Baker Street.
The medieval-inspired Into the Woods at the Bridge Theatre was a treat, especially for the lighting, stage design, and costumes. It went on to win eleven Olivier Awards.
Despite the one-star review given by the Guardian, we loved the Triple Trouble exhibition at Newport Street Gallery, which combined new and unseen artwork by our favourite French artist, Invader, with similarly renowned bad boys Damien Hirst and Shepard Fairey. There were collaborative spin paintings and spot artworks, Rubik’s Cube mosaics featuring subjects from science and music as well as tanks, pill cabinets, and lightboxes that blend Hirst’s clinical precision with the irreverence of Invader and Fairey’s street art. It was a great opportunity for us, and completely free, to boot.
The works all went on sale online after the exhibition closed. I can't imagine how much they sell for, but they brought us a lot of pleasure.
There was one, hidden Invader mosaic in the gallery which the guard pointed out to us for flashing. I assume it will stay there after the exhibition closed.
I found the works witty and fun.
Another fine example of Italian entrepreneurs in London: Altamura bakery recreates stone-baked semolina breads just like the ones found in Basilicata. We had a focaccia lunch there and bought loaves of bread to take home, one from our neighbour, who hails from Matera, the famous cave-town in Basilicata. Speaking of neighbours, it's good to see that our former next-door neighbour Adrian Boswell is still selling his wares in London.
London again! This time with a school group to join sixteen other schools in performing my Sicily composition, Voices from the Past at the Royal Academy of Music. What a treat! The piece was written in 2023, on my five-week sabatical in Sicily. The premiere recording is HERE. The London recording of Movement I is HERE.
The sun's out in Boscombe.
For the first time, we visited Paris during the Easter holidays, right at the start of spring. Nick's brother and sister-in-law were in town and we met up at the familiar Le Marché for dinner, including Asian-spiced duck and pached pear with blue cheese.
We've been hunting and flashing Invader's mosaics for several years, in many different countries. On this trip, we made it back into the top 2,000 out of 525,000 players worldwide. Our score of 1998 is also the year we met. Click HERE for our 2025 Invader quest in Munich over Christmas, HEREfor Ljubljana in October 2025, and HERE for our summer 2024 quest in Germany.
After dinner, we walked through the Marais and flashed a couple of Invaders, including a large new one and one we didn't know about. We met a fellow fan, who had searched all over, including Tokyo, but his score was still slightly below ours. The next day, we attended a lunchtime concert by We attended a concert by Natalie Dessay and family at the Théâtre du Châtelet.
The theme of the concert was bird song. The unusual support act in all this was Johnny Rasse, a rather famous French actor and bird whistler, who tweeted along with many of the songs.Dessay's husband and daughter also sang beautifully.
Although it wasn't planned, I couldn't resist the draw of the Sunday organic market on the Boulevard Raspail. We bought roast chicken, cheeses, quiche, apple juice, and desserts for a picnic by the Seine.
We walked from the Saint-Germain area along the Seine to our bench on the Île Saint-Louis, passing new Invaders, joggers, and a Nigella Lawson cover en route.
Our picnics are a tradition we never miss. We had two on this trip.
The next day, we headed for the Porte d-Italie to see the giant Italian-themed Invader there. Also shown are the morels we had with pasta for dinner and a 1950s Ukranian-style mural.
We'd flashed the avocado Invader previously, but the pirate and Ukraine colours ones were new to us.
We visited the Grand Mosque, which was beautiful with wisteria in spring.
From the Mosque, we headed for the Café de la Nouvelle Mairie, as recommended by our guidebook, and discovered the Emily in Paris apartment right across the street.The steak was some of the best I've ever had in Paris.
Art Nouveau, Marie Curie setting things straight, and one of the cute Les Nounours des Gobelins, which started appearing in 2018, courtesty of bookseller Philippe Labourel.
Left Band sights, mainly the edible kind
At the time of our visit, a capybara had escaped from Marwell Zoo and was all over the news. Our Invader quest took us to the Rue de Nil for unforgettable Plaq chocolate and to Montmartre for a new Bugs Bunny mosaic.
When we booked our Montmartre AirBnB, I envisioned us spending many evenings in cafés and restaurants. Instead, we mostly preferred to stay at home, with the windows wide, resting our aching feet. The lemon tart is from the Left Bank La Parisienne, which won Meilleure Baguette de Paris in 2016.
We did our sixth market cooking course with La Cuisine, always our best meal in Paris. I met entrepreneur/owner Jane Bertch, a true American in Paris, who signed my copy of her memoir, The French Ingredient.
This was our second time cooking with French chef, Cyril. The first time was in 2021, just after lockdown. This time, we were prepared for his comic assurance and definitive views. We voted for our choice of scallops, hunter's chicken stew, and crème brûlée. Everything was delicious, as always.
We can see our bench from the window of La Cuisine. I learned from Jane's book that this site was once a gay nightclub with cabins in the cellar.
After our class, we walked through the 1st arrondissement and headed back to our apartment for a light dinner.
The next day, we headed even further north, beyond the périphérique to score our first 100 points of the day. Some of the tiles had come loose and we collected broken shards from the ground, which are now in a keepsake box full of French sand back at home. There was a series of decorated poles along the Bassin de la Villette. I particularly liked this one, which references the ground-breaking 1902 silent science-fiction film, Le Voyage dans la Lune, directed by Georges Méliès.
Shown above: an Invader among street art, a statue of Georges Catroux, pizza lunch, wet joggeurs, and Art Nouveau.
We'd seen the Spock invader before but not flashed it. Click HERE to see his other Spock mosaic in Ravenna. The firemen posed for us. The structure bottom right has had a new paint job since last we saw it.
We discovered the work of Jean-Jacques Henner at an intimate museum dedicated to his work. There was an exhibition of Salome paintings by Henner and his contemporary, Gustave Moreau, while we were there. The Moreau museum is also a fantastic place to visit.
The sunglasses, second from right, surprised us with their modernity.
See inside Printemps HERE. We liked the Delft tiles at the Henner museum.
We discovered the Art Nouveau Théâtre de l'Athénée when searching for the golden Invader outside the Fragonard museum. The walls of the Line 12 platform at Concorde metro station are covered in 49,000 enamel tiles created by artist Françoise Schein in 1991, forming a crossword-like puzzle that spells out the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
Bouquet of Tulips is a metal sculpture by American artist Jeff Koons, which is located outside the Petit Palais. It is one of Koons's largest sculptures, and commemorates the victims of the November 2015 terrorist attacks on Parsian sites including Bataclan. The bouquet features 11 flowers and not a dozen, with the missing 12th meant to represent the victims.
Some of the many, many original artworks on display at the once-in-a-lifetime Matisse, 1941-1954 exhibition at the Grand Palais, last visited in 2010. We were astounded at the comprehensive collection of works, borrowed from museums and private collections around the world.
The original manquette collages Matisse assembled for his Jazz book, whose purpose was to explore colour.
Some of the pin holes were still visible when viewed close-up. We saw the painting, bottom left, in Dusseldorf in 2024.
Towards the end of the exhibition, we saw designs and stained glass from Matisse's glorious chapel in Vence, which we visited in 2006.
The Grand Palais had been closed for rennovation until recently. It was being set up for a concert this time.
Back to our bench for more picnic food. from our familiar Chinese takeaway and the Meilleur Ouvrier de France patisserie in the Marais.
On our return attempt to the European Space Agency in Paris, we finally found the Invader mosaic we hunted for last time. Click HERE to see our Invader visits to the ESA in Germany in 2024.
We made a special trip to the Église Saint-Étienne-du-Mont because it features in Midnight in Paris, one of our favourite films. Owen Wilson's character, Gil, is collected from this spot at midnight by a mysterious vintage car that whisks him back to 1920s Paris to meet his literary heroes.
Tom Hiddleston played F. Scott Fitzgerald in the film, which was directed by Woody Allen.
Our croque monsieur almost made us late for the ballet, but we made it in time. We sought out 2022's best croissant in Paris at Carton, near the Gare du Nord. .
We saw the fantastic flamenco-inspired Ballet Nacional de España at Théâtre du Châtelet. It was a powerful performance, full of foot-stomping, guitar playing, and other cultural references to Spain.
We found this Art Nouveau building in our Top Secret Paris guidebook..
The sparkling Philharmonie, where Invader installed seven new mosaics and announced it during our visit. On Friday morning, we, along with scores of other fans, went there to seek them out. Pictured here in pixels are the Velvet Underground and Daft Punk. On April Fool's Day, it is traditional to stick paper fish onto people's backs as a prank.
We moved back into the Top 2000 with the double Invader, above. We celebrated, below, with a glass of prosecco.
Our final views of this visit to Paris.
