Once we got off of the boat we decided to walk to Place Vendome
photo by OliverN5 on Flickr
so I could show Grammy the Ritz and piece of marble that shows the original Metre.
I actually took this photo
However, I was turned around and didn’t bother to bring a map with me, so we were a little lost and stumbled onto all sorts of things on foot that I had seen already in the car a few nights before. Each time we would get somewhere new we would decide not to take the Metro, but to just keep walking. It was such a beautiful day. But then we got to the point where we were too close to home to take a Metro, but too far to want to continue to walk…ack! Some of what we saw…
We walked from the Eiffel Tower down fancy Avenue Montaigne which is like walking down 5th or Madison—lots of Gucci, Chanel, Dior and the like (and the Canadian Embassy).
photo by Jacques Bravo fotopedia.com
This deposited us right onto the Champs Elysee where Grammy got her first good glimpse of the Arc de Triomphe. We decided to walk down the Champs Elysee since it was such a nice day and this took us past the Theatre Marigny on foot so we we could get a closer look at the jewel box theatre where Cabaret is going to be performed in October.
photo by dm1795 on Flickr
We then walked all the way over to the Luxor Obelisk given to the French by the Egyptians, I believe it is the oldest monument in France at over 3000 years old.
photo by Frederic_WB on Flickr
The Obelisk marks one end of the Champs Elysee and marks the Place de la Concorde which is a famous square where Marie Antoinette was beheaded during the Revolution (gulp).
photo by Brigitte Djajasasmita fotopedia.com
Just beyond the square is the beginning or end (depending on how you look at it) of the Tuileries Garden and the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel which is a smaller version of the Arc de Triomphe (it, of course, was also commissioned by Napoleon), and then the Louvre. So it’s a lovely line of vision to stand at the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel and look over through the Tuileries, past the Obelisk and all the way down the Champs Elysee to see the Arc De Triomphe.
photo by orangebrompton on Flickr
Anyway! We headed north towards the Place Vendome, past the Ritz, past l’Église de la Madeleine,
photo by gwhalin on Flickr
past the crazy cool subway station spider of pearls that marks the Palais Royal stop.
photo by G-rome on Flickr
We went into the gift shop at the Louvre and we bought French Children’s books…
amazon.com
amazon.com
amazon.com
Then we finally landed at St Eustace church where the playground lies that we take the baby to every day. We collapsed on benches while we watched him play with adorable French children.
photo by Jacques Bravo fotopedia.com
PS—maybe I chose wrong, but I thought about going to the Hemingway Bar at the Ritz where, aptly, Hemingway used to go, bla bla bla. There is some guy there (this guy) who makes amazing drinks, bla bla bla. But the cocktails were priced at 30 Euro a piece. Meow meow. That equals 45 US dollars for one drink and the drinks didn’t look that hard to make. One was just a champagne cocktail for heaven’s sake. So I decided I would make a champagne/apple cider cocktail myself when I got home and drink it in the bathtub while I read The Sun Also Rises and project this photo on the wall.
photo by pablo.sanchez on Flickr
