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Published: February 28th 2011
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Saturday 26 February
We spent the morning grazing on very French food: Pims jaffa cakes (eat your heart out Robert and Maxine!), caramel tarts, baguette with ham & salad, baguette with raspberry and rhubarb jam (delicious, you should try it, if you haven't), berry tart and apple and rhubard tart - all with coffees! What a lazy morning, but hey, it was Saturday!
As this was our last day in Paris, we decided to just wander around some areas that we haven't previously seen.
We started off just down
Rue Saint-Denis in another of the
Passages that we like to explore:
Passage du Grand Cerf. Then, being lazy-bones, we caught the Metro to the
Palais Garnier-Opéra. After looking at the outside we decided to head inside - however, 30 seconds in the queue was too much for us, so we bailed out (we've become too accustomed to the speedy access afforded by the Museum Pass)! Just around the corner are the very cool,
Belle Epoque department stores
Galeries Lafayette and
Magasins du Printemps. Both stores have been seriously modernised so you have to look a bit to find the cool old stuff. We couldn't stay inside more than a
few minutes though, because they're sooooo overheated (just long enough to grab a photo - along with dozens of others)! We did manage to withstand the heat in the famous food shop
Fauchon however, and Ali very kindly bought John some belated birthday presents (
foie gras, tapenade, nougat, caramels,
pistou and a bottle of Veuve Clicquot) - talk about spoilt!
Next stop was the
Église Saint-Marie Madeleine (dedicated to Mary Magdalene), which looks more Greek than French with striking similarities to the Parthenon! Apparently, it was styled on a Roman temple in Nîmes, France (the Romans, of course copied the Greeks). There were mobs of people on the steps so we expected it to be crowded inside, but not so. The church is not that impressive inside, with the exception of the altar piece. We then window-shopped the flash clothing shops in
Rue Saint Honoré en route to
Place Vendôme (home to the Ritz and expensive jewellery shops). We didn't buy anything - you know when there are no price tags that you can't afford it! Continuing on, we crossed through the
Jardin Tuilleries (looking a bit sad at this time of year), over the Seine and into the
7th
Arrondissement. It was much quieter there and thus very pleasant wandering among the quirky shops and narrow streets. When the rain and hail arrived, however, we decided it was 'Beer O'Clock'! Ducking into the first bar we came to, we found ourselves watching France play England in the rugby! Neither of us are big followers of rugby (or any sport for that matter) but we were most impressed that they observed a minutes silence for the victims of the Christchurch (New Zealand) earthquake. Perhaps this was because one of the players was a Kiwi, but it was a good gesture nonetheless.
We had (a very early!) dinner (the French sure know how to make
foie gras!) before more wandering in the 6th
Arrondissement, including the tiny square (even though it's round!) in
Rue de Furstemburg. It's very atmospheric at night. We were both pretty tired by this point but it didn't matter - we could sleep standing up on the crowded Metro home! Sadly, we had to pack our bags when we got back to the apartment in preparation for an early departure in the morning.
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Debra Howlett
non-member comment
WOW!
We're not envious - much! It all looks sublime. Lovely to receive your blog. Deb x