Today was crazy fun!
This is the Paris Opera House, but I’ll get to that later.
This is the amazing bakery we keep going to in the mornings. Everything here is good!
We got this and some baguettes today. It’s a good thing we don’t live here! After we got ready we headed towards the Eiffel Tower to catch the bus tour. We were pleasantly surprised to stumble upon a flea market.
A Paris flea market, yes please!! We got a couple things as keepsakes. A crucifix, small painting and a scarf with Paris stuff on it. Once again we were on our way.
Once we got to the bus the driver told me to scan our tickets on the next bus. I think he was overwhelmed by the number of them. The kids headed straight to the top deck. It was 35 degrees outside and these crazies wanted to sit out in the open.😳
Poland is making them tough! We drove past some really amazing things.
The bus dropped us off at the Paris Opera House. We wanted to go on the guided tour so we got tickets. We had a couple hours before it started so we went to watch the “Paris Story”. It is a movie all about the history of Paris and was one of the many things that was free with our Paris passes.
This movie was so interesting! I wish we would have watched it when we first got here before we did anything else. It explained so much and we really learned a lot. The movie was about and hour long so we still had some time. We went to the lobby and ate our lunches we had made. Baguettes with cheese and meat. Very French of us. Really, I see people walking down the street eating a baguette constantly. After lunch we walked over to the La Madeleine church.
This church was amazing!
We also really like this church because it was warm. If you stood over the vent you could feel the heat coming up. It was a blessing on our cold bodies.
We left there and went back to the Opera House.
This was where we went in. Charles Garnier is the man who designed it for Napoleon the third.
The tour started in here.
If you look close you can see where he signed his name into the building which was unheard of then. It was made in honor of the emperor so the architect should give him all the glory, but he was young and proud so he signed it anyway.
The stairs to go in.
This was the most exciting part for us. As we went in we saw the door to box 5. You Phantom of the Opera fans will know what that is.
This was breath taking. We weren’t allowed to take pictures of the stage because they were doing stuff up there. But it was just all white and not that exciting.
The box on the bottom right is the emperor’s box.
And just two boxes over, left of the pillar is the Phantom’s box, number 5.
The ceiling was changed in the 60's because the smoke from the gas lit chandler had damaged the old one. Here is a picture of what the old one looked like.
I personally like the old one better. Apparently they kept it though so if they want to change it back they can restore it and replace it.
After we were done in the theatre we walked through this library hallway. Lily and I were dying. This picture does not do it justice.
They had a bunch of these paper scenes in the second part. I loved this one.
This is where the people would enter to go to the Opera.
The ceilings are so beautiful here!
We went into this hall next.
This is the other side.
And the ceiling.
This was the only bright and sparkling room in this place. All the other rooms were beautiful but more muted. That was done on purpose so that the women were not out shined by anything else.
The tour was so interesting and we learned so many amazing things about this place. Lily was very excited because Michele and Tim are taking her to see The Phantom of the Opera for her birthday in June and now she feels really connected to it.
When we left there it had started snowing. It was 4:00 and the kids were getting tiered. We decided to head back and relax a little. Instead of taking the tour bus we just got on the tram. Because the guy never scanned our tickets and we barley used it we are going to go back on tomorrow to finish the tour.
When we got home Lily and I decided to go out and walk the Paris streets for a while.
The Eiffel Tower is so pretty lit up. We walked around for a couple hours looking in souvenir shops. Lily wants to get a music box in every country we go. We also stopped and got some groceries.
When we got home everyone bundled up and we headed to the movies. Our family doesn’t go to the movies together often because there is so many of us and it is expensive. But there is one movie that we have all been looking forward to seeing and they had it here in English(with French subtitles).
That was the Lego Batman movie!! It was so good! And now we are back home and everyone one is sleeping except me who could not let the day end without documenting it. It’s 12:06am so actually the day has ended and I am so tired I think I will stop here. I’ll just finish with some pretty pictures of Paris.
