Today we only had the Olympic Skateboarding Women’s Final on the docket, so we headed out to check a few more things off Leann’s bucket list :-)
First, we headed to the Arc de Triomphe. Though you can get on top, it was (as one can imagine) a queue of epic proportions and spendy, so we took a few photos. We also wound up heading to a “Pharmacie” on the corner, which was one of the most bougie things we’d ever seen LOL. (The cafe outside was by Moët & Chandon and the restaurant in their basement has a Michelin star, so that tells you something.)
They have a bakery that contains “the” thing from each boulangerie or patisserie all around Paris – for example the Mont Blanc from Angelina, the Miche from Poilane, etc. One could just go to the drugstore each day and have “the” thing from a baker somewhere in town!
I stopped myself from purchasing a purse shaped like a croissant LOL They did have quite an amazing array of books, gift-type-things, reading glasses…(I guess you can tell what took my “squirrel” attention in there.)
It was a bit difficult to get into the Opera, but it’s been Leann’s favorite place so far. I think she was trying to figure out why I was really pressing for her to see it – Now she knows LOL. It is undergoing a lot of construction, and there are signs if you have already purchased a ticket – but not if you don’t have one. I finally saw a guard by a side door, and asked where to get tickets. There was a sign next to him that very specifically said in French, basically, “No ticket, no entry.” He looked at me a bit like I was stupid, but pointed in the door at which he sat, and said we had to scan through security, then the ticket purchasing booth was on the other side, in a hallway. Again – not quite sure what the “No ticket, no entry” sign was about, but it definitely *did* keep the visitors down inside!
We saw the Chagall ceiling from one of the boxes, and some of the costumes where they are “remaking” operas to be more modern. This reminded me a bit of the S.F. Opera performance I went to a month or so ago of the Magic Flute, which might have been my favorite performance of that opera ever.
In the area that for “having snacks, walking around and being seen” (per the sign) – on the other side of the building from the actual audience area – we found a “clock” that was quite amazing. It indicated the month via the “short” hand, and the “long” hand pointed at the day (Tuesday) and date (6th). We were curious what happened in leap years…?
Leann said that it was all she could do not to start singing “Masquerade” from Phantom of the Opera on the entry stairs :-)
After the Opera, we visited the Galeries Lafayette, one of the first “malls” ever. Again, I think Leann was trying to figure out why I wanted her to see a mall, until we walked in. :-) The stained glass ceiling, etc is just So Parisian LOL. In the photo you can see that they have a glass walkway to go out and take photos from!
From there, we walked past the Louis Vuitton store that is being remodeled. It is wrapped up like an enormous LV trunk. (The jumping gold horse is from LV). Then past the Hermes store, where we stopped ourselves from walking in and purchasing the $$$$ dog bandanas they had in the window. Finally, we had lunch at a cafe. We didn’t quite head far enough off the “spendy path” – this was one of our most expensive lunches and we only had some “pommes frites,” a charcuterie plate, and “citron presse”!
We then headed over to the Skateboarding venue, which is in the Place de la Concorde. It’s SO WEIRD to see the Champs Elysees as a “footpath” as it were – with zero cars!
We tried to go to a few spots that I wanted to visit, but it was impossible given all the road closures, barriers, etc. We had a blast at Skateboarding, and Leann found out belatedly that a guy at her work knew a ton of the skaters, including the American (who unfortunately didn’t do great), and the U.K and Australian, who took first and third!
The obelisk that you see in the photos is where folks were beheaded during the French Revolution. This whole area looks SO DIFFERENT with all the Olympics “venues”! Besides the Skateboarding, we were able to see a duo breakdancing outside the breakdancing arena. This area has the 3 on 3 basketball, BMX bikes, breakdancing, and skateboarding. Obviously they can’t leave anything up here, but hopefully they will move the skateboarding/BMX “areas” somewhere that kids can use them. (Then again, perhaps they are like venues for the World’s Fair, etc that are not meant to be permanent installations.)
Back home, and we discovered THE sweetest note and some amazing profiteroles (or so I thought they were called – more on that tomorrow!) from the hotel! When we checked in, the reservation guy was super surprised that we were here for eleven days. I guess the hotel gave us a thank you in the best way possible – patisserie!
Back to our Very Favorite pizzeria next door, then caught the blog up a bit (I’m 2 days behind due to bad photo uploading), and called it a night!
Step count for Tuesday: 12,293
Spoiler Alert – Step count for Wednesday: 13,539, HOWEVER, Leann climbed 27 flights of stairs :-) (For my week, I have 85 floors climbed per my watch – has to be the Metro – and 14.16 miles walked.)