{"id":3045,"date":"2011-10-28T16:49:40","date_gmt":"2011-10-28T21:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/?p=3045"},"modified":"2011-11-23T18:36:41","modified_gmt":"2011-11-23T23:36:41","slug":"opera-house-the-louvre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/?p=3045","title":{"rendered":"Opera House & The Louvre"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday \u2013 October 28, 2011<\/span><\/p>\n

Our hotel, Le Relais du Louvre, is really a very charming place to stay in Paris. I agree with everyone on Trip Advisor who stated that all the people at the reception desk are very nice, friendly, and very helpful. \u00a0They seem to be genuinely kind.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span>One of the Entrances to the Louvre Museum<\/p>\n

That said, I can lodge my complaint about our neighbors who played their television too loud until 2:00 AM last night and kept us awake!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span>Metro Station Near Comedie Francaise<\/p>\n

I abandoned any idea of getting an early start in the morning and slept until about nine o’clock. When I awoke, I peeked outside through the window between the curtains. Yes<\/strong>, Paris was still there! It’s so exciting!! Being in Paris is soooo much fun!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span>Palais Garnier Opera House<\/p>\n

We tried a different cafe for cafe au lait and pain au chocolate. I wondered how long it would take to have coffee and a croissant in a different cafe every day and never repeat. So far, all the cafe au laits have been different but all very good and tasty.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span>Grand Staircase in the Opera House<\/p>\n

We had decided to explore a different arrondissement today and walked up to rue St. Honore and turned left. There are many shops and restaurants along this narrow busy street.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span>Interior of Paris Opera House<\/p>\n

We saw several Metro stations which seem to have been restored with interesting artistic entrances. Some have the beautiful old Art Nouveau green metalwork which resembles flowers and stems.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span>View of Place de l’Opera from the Balcony<\/p>\n

We passed the entrance to Le Louvre museum and saw the famous Comedie Francaise Theater. The traffic was heavy and the sidewalks were full of people. The weather is very mild for this time of year and everyone seems to be outdoors. Today the temperature is about 64 degrees. The sky is overcast and gray, but there is only a 30% chance of rain.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span>Golden Auditorium of the Garnier Opera House<\/p>\n

We walked all the way to Place de l’Opera to see the Palais Garnier Opera House. This is a magnificent Beaux-Arts building (built about 1870) which was recently cleaned outside and carefully restored inside to its original grandeur. The Paris Opera company moved out some years ago to a new modern facility near the Bastille. The old Palais Garnier Opera House had been empty, but now they are staging ballets and a few operas again.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span>Marc Chagall Painted Ceiling<\/p>\n

We had toured this building on our last trip to Paris and loved it, so we wanted to see it again. The grand staircase is tres impressive decorated with different kinds of marble and beautiful marble statues. Inside the theater auditorium, the walls are all gold with red plush velvet seats and on the ceiling there is a magnificent circular Chagall painting. There are eight Gobelins tapestries on the walls of an anteroom near the box seats. The building is gorgeous! I am very happy that the French government restored it rather than take it down.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span>Church of the Madeleine<\/p>\n

Afterwards we walked along the narrow rue des Mathurins which is parallel to Boulevard Haussmann. Then we turned left onto the boutique-filled rue Tronchet to the Place de la Madeleine. This is the location of the very impressive Neo-Classical Church of the Madeleine, consecrated in 1842. It has 52 huge Corinthian columns supporting the triangular roof.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span>Maille Speciality Mustard Shop<\/p>\n

There are several famous shops around the Place de la Madeleine. Fauchon is a fun shop for \u201ccontemporary luxury foods\u201d. Maille is for specialty mustards and other condiments. We continued our walk down the rue Royale toward the Place de la Concorde.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span>Interior Courtyard of Louvre Museum<\/p>\n

We debated taking the Metro back to our hotel or continuing to walk and we decided to walk under the covering of the rue de Rivoli. There are many tourists in this area and also gaudy tourist shops selling gaudy souvenirs. We finally reached our hotel to rest and take a break before venturing out again.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Entrance to the Louvre Museum
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

The Louvre Museum is open late on Friday nights until 9:30 PM. Since it’s right across the street from our hotel, we thought it would be fun to go there. The sun was setting and it cast a beautiful warm glow on the building. We walked through the courtyard and into the central glass-pyramid ticket area. We decided to purchase a four-day \u201cMuseum Pass\u201d because there were many more museums that we wanted to see in Paris.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span>Inside Looking Out<\/p>\n

There are three main sections in the Louvre: Richelieu, Sully, and Denon. All the sections seemed to have French paintings and a wide variety of art from all parts of the world. We chose the Richelieu section because neither of us had ever been to that section before. We took the elevator to the top floor and worked our way down to the ground level. Suffice to say that there is a lot to see in the Louvre and a week is probably not enough time to enjoy all the incredible works of art.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span>View of Paris From the Louvre<\/p>\n

We walked many miles today and we saw a great deal of the center of Paris and one section of the Louvre. Ahhhh Paris……. Magnifique!!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday \u2013 October 28, 2011 Our hotel, Le Relais du Louvre, is really a very charming place to stay in Paris. I agree with everyone on Trip Advisor who stated that all the people at the reception desk are very nice, friendly, and very helpful. \u00a0They seem to be genuinely kind. One of the Entrances […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-france","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3045"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3063,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3045\/revisions\/3063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}