My Cartesian mind loves that science can nowadays explain that sailors mistook manatees (or dugongs) for mermaids.

But my poetic mind loves to think that mermaids really exist in a corner of our collective imagination...

Many of the chateaux and museums I will take you to have paintings and sculptures depicting mermaids (and I have a knack for spotting them). If you want, I will tell you their whole story from their first appearance in Homer's Odyssey (8th century BC) where they were creatures half-women/half-birds and they were called "Sirens", until the Middle Ages where, through Nordic influence, they were assimilated to creatures half-women/half-fish which were then called "mermaids" in English but which are still called "Sirens" in most European countries (like France) up to this day.

All pictures on this page were taken on Place de la Concorde in Paris.