Going to the Eiffel Tower and Shopping in Place de la Madeleine

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Eiffel Tower

This morning we decided to walk to the Eiffel Tower since Katie wanted to get a picture of the trees manicured into squares that line the Champs de Mars leading up to the Eiffel Tower. It is one of her goals in life to take a picture of the square trees in every season, so she now has Winter and Summer covered.

It was a beautiful walk to the Eiffel Tower. The weather was very pleasant, slightly overcast and cool in the morning. We got some wonderful shots leading up to the Eiffel Tower and after passing under it onto the Champs de Mars side.

Afterwards we took the Metro to the Place de la Madeleine. I wanted to go there for two reasons. The first reason was to take a picture of a sign saying Place de la Madeleine for Madeleine and then also to visit a few of the world famous gourmet food shops in that area.

We visited Laduree first and purchased some beautiful macarons packaged in the most lovely boxes. There were some very interesting seasonal flavors available. I'll post a picture of the flavor brochure, the boxes and the macarons when I can. The French are absolutely amazing at creating the most beautiful packaging. I think it makes you feel like the amount of money you are spending is so worth it when you walk out with someone in such a gorgeous box and bag.

Next we walked around the block and browsed in some shops. We then went to the Maille mustard shop and purchased some very unusual mustards. The Maille mustards are made in Dijon and I believe there are only 2 shops: one in Dijon and one in Paris. The mustard flavors will be a surprise for my family!

It was passed lunch time so we were looking for a place to eat lunch but everything was packed with a line out the door. We saw a large cosmetic store that looked like a more spacious and classier version of Sephora. It is called Marionnaud. Well, I think this was the highlight of the day! I loved this store! It had tons of perfume, many major high-end cosmetic lines and many parapharmacy lines of mid to lower priced facial care products. The best thing was that this is the summer sales period so a lot of great items were on sale. Here's a picture of the items I purchased. Everything was 40%-50% off except the box of facial cream and that was about $17.

We were very hungry after shopping at Marionnaud so we found a take out lunch place with a lunch deal, sandwich, drink & dessert for 9.80€. I got a delicious sandwich with cream cheese, smoked salmon and cucumbers along with my favorite drink Coke Zero and an amazing dessert of lady fingers soaked in orange blossom essence topped with rich, sweet fluffy cream and raspberries. We took our lunch to the steps of the church of Mary Magdalene. We saw a crippled pigeon with no toes on either claw but it was still able to walk around. Katie named it Quasimodo. There was also scary looking bully pigeon attacking any pigeons that came in a certain area. There was also a homeless couple living down one side of the church, sheltered by the overhang of the church's eaves. They had 2 dogs and a cat. It was very sad to see.

Afterwards we saw the Hediard and Fauchon stores. I bought some tea for Larry and an empty tin for storing coffee. Again, the packaging is incredible!

We were very tired and laden down with packages so we headed back to the apartment using the Metro. In about 15 minutes we were back in the apartment resting our feet and catching up on blogging.

I'll write about our dinner tomorrow.

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