Day 5 in Paris: Thursday

We began in the morning with a visit to the Louvre Museum. The weather had been very warm and spring-like yesterday. Today, it has been much colder, damp and windy. Students were free to wander the Louvre for about an hour and they made certain to see the three "hallmarks" of a visit there:

• Venus de Milo (and Alyssa)

• Winged Victor of Samothrace

• Mona Lisa (aka "La Joconde")

Yes, this is the Mona Lisa...and all the insanity of the people trying to get a picture of her.

The kids agree: The painting is smaller than one would imagine and the crowd made it hard to see and appreciate.

We all met up at the Starbucks in the shopping mall called the "Carousel du Louvre" which is located underneath the Louvre:

Since there's a post office down there, we took a moment for a French lesson and practiced mailing letters using just our French speaking skills. Chouette!

Then, we went on a walking tour to see the Opéra Garnier and the original Galeries Lafayette. Unfortunately, the Opéra Garnier was closed to the public for two days for renovations, so we couldn't go in. Here are some of Madame's group in front of the Opéra:

L to R: Becky from Shawnee, Thaïs, Lisa, Alyssa, and Jaci

So, we walked all around the outside of the very impressive Opéra Garnier building. Then, we took a short walk over to Paris' most famous shopping experience at the Galéries Lafayette. We admired literally millions of dollars of luxury goods at the counters for Cartier, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, and Tiffany's. The most impressive part of shopping there is admiring the décor fro the Gilded Age. Here are the amazing domed ceiling and galeries inside the store (hence, the name Galéries Lafayette:

We came out of the Galéries Lafayette and continued out tour around the outside of the Opéra Garnier. We did get to visit the Paris Ballet gift shop there. So, here is a picture of som of our group on the steps of the Paris Ballet shop:  (keen eyes will notice Alyssa has a Tiffany's bag from the Galéries Lafayette!)

L to R: Alyssa, Madame, Thaïs, and Jaci

To complete our "fashionable' visit of Paris, we stopped at Angelina's, the salon where Coco Chanel had tea and cake every day (it is right around the corner from the Faubourg Saint Honoré where all teh fashion houses are located, including Chanel. We had hot chocolate and decadent desserts at Angelina's:

 

Thick and rich hot chocolate, for which Angelina's is famous and 

a decadent berry, almond paste and liqueur-doused trifle

Jaci enjoys her rich, chocolaty dessert --- notice the typically French décor around her.

We had our dinner at Montparnasse where the only skyscraper within Paris' city limits is located:

We ate a traditional Alsatian meal of flammekueches at Flam's. This dish is a lot like pizza, but with a thinner crust and no tomato sauce: