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Published: October 6th 2013
It had to happen of course; the stint in the city of light...and lovers...had to come to an end eventually!
We began the day with a climb up to Sacre Coeur where the crowds as usual were thick on the ground. It was followed by a wander around the Montmartre area surrounding the Basilica. Then we took the Funicular to Square Louise-Michel and the famous carousel which the kids went on oh so many years ago. This was followed by a lot of walking looking for a Metro which took us through the 'rag trade' area which was very interesting.
Following lunch somewhere or other we went to have a sticky beak at the Paris Opera House known as the Palais Garnier which is the thirteenth theatre to house the Paris Opera since it was founded by Louis XIV in 1669. Built on the orders of Napoleon 111 as part of the Paris reconstruction carried out by Baron Houssmann it was inaugurated in January 1875. And it's so opulent (remember Margot?), full of marble, gold fittings, beautiful paintings etc. etc. I could just imagine what it must have been like in "La Belle Epoch" full of all those beautiful
people in their finery.
Before heading back to Montmartre to a local restaurant - for what turned out to be a delicious meal - we went into "un grand magasin" the Galeries Lafayette on Boulevard Houssmann. In 2009 it recorded earnings of over one billion euros! We helped a bit by buying grandkids pressies there along with hundreds of other shoppers. An hours wait at Gare du Lyon to pick up our TGV tickets for Avignon soon brought us back to reality.
At 4.30am on Sunday 6 October the doorbell rang...Ross had arrived from Tokyo!!!!
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Rachel Everson-Crane
non-member comment
Have fun x
Love the pictures of the opera house xxx Have a good time x x x