…as my mom would say.
Our first destination for the day was the old opera house. But that didn’t stop us from getting distracted by some shopping on Rue de Rivoli and at Desigual. But eventually, we finally made it to the Palais Garnier (opera house).
The Palais Garnier is very beautiful and extravagant – I loved the intricate marble Grand Staircase. Chicago’s opera house seems to pale in comparison. Actually, it seems like even Warsaw’s opera is nicer than the Lyric. Or maybe I just didn’t look around enough my one time there.
The other cool thing about Le Palais is the more-modern Chagall-painted ceiling. It’s also nice that you can step outside on the balcony.
Sidenote: As I was looking for links to include, I checked out the Wikipedia page for the Palais Garnier and learned that several buildings in Poland were actually based on the design of this opera house.
Ok, back to my story.
As long as we were by the area, we dropped into Galleries LaFayette to see the gorgeous, colorful dome. Even more gorgeous were all the designer clothes and purses! Besides drooling over the Louis Vuitton, Dior and more, I actually found some cute, more affordable stuff, too. But I didn’t buy anything. For now.
I was feeling quite tired and cranky at this point, so we grabbed some brochures from the tourism office, bought a couple chocolate croissants and headed to Tuileries to sit down. Deja vu! While it felt good to sit down, it was quite chilly, so it was time to move again.
We walked over to the Place Madeleine to pee in the Art Nouveau toilets. I had high expectations, and they were pretty much met. If only all public toilets looked like that!
But of course the (other) real reason we headed to the plac was to see the Ste-Marie Madeleine church. It certainly did have a lot of columns, as advertised.
Since we were in the area, I went ahead and bought a bunch of macaroons from Laduree.
Multiple Destinations 