Paris - Monday and Tuesday

Hello everyone.  We are back home in Australia having had the most wonderful holiday we could imagine.  We seemed to have slipped right back into domestic life, very happy to be sleeping in our own beds and not living out of a suitcase.  Before too much more time passes I have one remaining post on the last two days we spent in Paris.

Tuesday was a designated shopping day.  We walked to the Galeries Lafayette Department Store which is a huge store selling top designer label shoes, handbags, cosmetics and clothing.  It was very glitzy and perhaps just a little bit over the top.

The floor levels are in a circle with a big open space in the middle.

Looking down on the cosmetics and perfume section.

 

This dome in the building is absolutely gorgeous.

I loved these lights in the store.

The Parisian lady's best accessory - a dog.  We couldn't believe our eyes when this lady walked through the store with her dog.  I have images of Sophie in a store like this, they're not good ones.

This photo is not too good as it was taken rather hurriedly after my jaw was picked up off the ground.

On the roof of the store is a terrace which gives very good views of Paris.

After deciding we'd seen enough of Galeries Lafayette Department Store we went on to another department store not far away called Printemps Department Store Paris.  It was very similar to
Galeries Lafayette and I found some very, very comfortable Italian leather shoes.  As we were wandering around we came across this brand of beauty products.

I tried one of the tester hand creams and it was quite hideous.  My brothers cowshed smells better!!  :)  We also saw this brand name.

After an amusing few hours in the shops we had some lunch at Brioche Doree the French equivilent of a fast food outlet only the food is superior in taste and price to that found at McDonald's etc.  For about 8 Euro we had a combination meal of a chicken and salad baguette, a sweet item which could be a cookie, a tart, brownie or little pie etc, a cold drink and an espresso coffee.  While sitting in the eating our lunch inside we spent time people watching and I snapped a few photos of Parisians going about their day.

This lady is riding one of the many bikes you can hire in Paris.

We walked back to an arcade opposite our hotel as I had spied a rather lovely jacket but alas the few kilos of bumage and tumage had caught up with me so it remained the property of the lovely little boutique.

After a rest at our hotel we headed off on the Metro to a very special appointment, an appointment with the Eiffel Tower.  We had prebooked our tickets and at 8.00pm we went up to the top avoiding the queue which was incredibly long.  Some people had queued for 2 hours before they went up.  Here are some of the photos we took going up in the lift, on the different levels and coming down.

Underneath

Looking up.

Looking down on the way up.

Going up.

First level

View of Montmartre in the distance.

Close up of the Seine from the first level.

Views from the top level.

Arch de Triumph in the middle of the photo.

Looking down one of the legs of the tower.

On the very top.

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the Eiffel Tower, the views were incredible.  I expected it to be very cold and windy but it was very calm and not too cold.

Tuesday we visited the Musee d' Orsay which is in the centre of Paris, on the banks of the Seine and installed in the former Orsay railway station.  It's a magnificant space and houses a fantastic collection of impressionist and post impressionist paintings.  Photos were not permitted so I've nothing to show in the way of paintings.  We saw paintings by Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Renoir, Cezanne and Vincent van Gogh.  There were works by other painters too.  It was wonderful to see paintings I've only seen in books and on greeting cards like Monet's waterlilies, van Gogh's haystacks etc.

Here are a few photos of the museum.

After a wonderful visit we decided to head to Champs-Elysees to have a drink at the King George Cafe where we visited the first few days we were in Paris.

It was a lovely way to end the afternoon and we finished off with pizza at another restaurant not too far from our hotel.

That evening after our bags were packed for our flight in the morning, we spent a lovely hour or so chatting to Samy the lovely, helpful, welcoming and very friendly night reception attendant who made our stay in Paris so enjoyable and two other English fellas Gordon and Nigel we met when we first stayed at the Hotel Chopin and were guests again. 

The lovely Samy.

 

A quick snap (out of focus sorry) of Nigel on the left and Gordon on the right.  They both work at the Bordeaux University.

So ends our visit to Europe.  We had an amazing time and hopefully will get the chance to visit again sometime.  Thank you everyone for joining us on our holiday.  I hope I haven't bored you too much and will forgive the excessive volume of photos posted, poor grammar and spelling mistakes.

Bye for now,

Anne   xx

P.S.  My next couple of posts will be about some of the lovely things I found on our travels.  They have their own stories attached to them which I hope you will enjoy.