Follow the Money

Today you faithful readers (I suspect that's Jim and a few of my kids!)  get two posts because last night when we got home from Chartres we had no internet.  The Julienne's changed providers yesterday and apparently in France those kinds of changes go as smoothly as they do in the United Sates.  Just like at home, there was an inordinate amount of time spent unsuccessfully trying to fix the problem, leaving everyone cranky.  It was fun to just watch and not feel responsible!

So today:  We did two walking tours today and both of them had us wandering around areas of town that were primarily consumer oriented, congested, and at times confusing.  It started though with a "quick" trip to the Paris Opera House (think Phantom of the Opera!) where we bought tickets to go see the Tokyo Ballet.  Turns out our tickets are for one of the gala nights and we will be required to be dressed up and apparently there will be champaign for all!  Should be great.  While there we decided to take the tour of the Opera House, and it was another experience in all that is over the top in Paris.  Take a look:

                              I took this picture into a mirror so you could see I was actually there!

But this is what's behind me!!  Not a bad lobby!

I loved this though, the famous library.  Even the floors were singing (creaking)  It was awesome and smelled like old books.

More lobby

The famous chandelier 

Inside the theatre.

After the Opera House we started a tour called Follow the Money.  It was essentially a tour through an area of town that was the center of commerce during the bourgeoisie period, and then in the 1800's was the center of night life and gambling....so if you're interested in that kind of thing.....

But, as luck would have it, we ran into this group of school girls going to see the Louvre.  And we though the Madeline books were just creatively illustrated.  This was so awesome to see!!

Now we begin...

....having fun....

wandering back ally ways

The National Library that no one in my group wanted to go see, so we pretended it wasn't there....

Covered shopping-maybe the inspiration for City Creek, what do you think?

Cute and at least a familiar art form!

Follow the Money is now over and we started  Sights and Smells Around the Madeline. 

This church was kind of cool though.  The Catholics wanted to build a church here, then part way through, Napoleon wanted it to be a monument to honor soldiers, so they changed plans, then later, Louis the XVIII wanted it to be a church, so they changed direction again and ended up with this.  One of it's claims to fame is that the funeral for Chopin was held hear and Mozart's Requiem was performed here, for the funeral,  the first time it was ever performed in a church.

Notice the ceiling not vaulted in the traditional sense.  Thank you Napoleon!

Corinthian columns and roof structure, again signs of secular involvement

Yet again, another famous pastry shop

Then this cracked me up.  The professors said, you can stop by this church if you want, but it doesn't get much traffic, its' so small!  I guess everything is relative, because nothing in the city I come from looks like this!  The ironic thing is that it was one of my favorite parts of the day.  It wasn't as grand as the others, but it was equally as beautiful, but that made it great is they were having a service there, it was in Polish (we think) with singing that was so beautiful, and a dignity that I really loved.  It was like balm to what was by now a frazzled soul!

Last stop was a perfume museum...of darn, it was closed!  Guess it's a good thing I'm not really into perfume!  

Thank heavens for the good music of the day!

So here's a teaser.  Tomorrow, this is what I get to do--tell me you're not excited!!!