Paris: The Birthday Trip - Day 8 (part 1)
The Palais Garnier (the old Paris Opera) in the day's first light.
 A beautiful lamp at the Palais Garnier. |
Saturday, August 3, 2013
The architecture of Paris is displayed to beautiful effect in the early morning light when the sun has risen just high enough to begin to penetrate to street level. The raking sunlight enhances detail and creates soft, mysterious, and inviting shadows. Modern architecture simply can’t, in my opinion, compete with the beautiful combination of sunlight and the Beaux Arts aesthetic. These few photos of the Palais Garnier and Paris streets should be ample justification for that sentiment. Although much of our home city was built during this period, it can’t even begin to compete with Paris architecture. |
 A tribute to Bach at the Palais Garnier. |
| Paris street. Early morning. | Looking toward Sacre Coeur. | Apartments. |
The Haussmann-isation of Paris was controversial both for its results and the reasons for its implementation (see Georges-Eugène Haussmann in Wikipedia) but as we stroll along in the early morning light we find ourselves wanting to be surrounded by it, immersed in it, forever. That won’t happen, of course, so we are walking constantly and simply trying to absorb as much as we can.
| An entrance to one of the 'passages couverts'. | Hotel entrance inside one of the covered passageways. | We were startled to find this 'person' looking at us from a shop window as we strolled through a covered passageway. |
The 'passages couverts' or ‘covered passageways’ are private glass-covered roads, some of which are open to the public. They may contain any combination of shops including luxury shops, bookshops, antique dealers, toyshops etc. Most are protected sites. This [PDF] provides a more detailed description. The wax figure peering out from behind the curtain in the window, above right, was quite startling (and more than a little creepy).
| Lafayette Galleries. | Dome, Lafayette Galleries. | A view from the roof of Lafayette Galleries. |
What can we say about the Lafayette Galleries? This is what all shopping should be like. The stunning glass dome, Art Nouveaux staircase, upscale shops, the vertigo-inducing view from the upper balconies (where we stopped for coffee, juice, and pastry) …what can we say? And that’s just the main building - there are two more: another features men’s fashions and a gourmet food shop and yet another building concentrates on the latest home furnishings. And then there is the view from the roof…
I bought a fountain pen here (one of our few Paris souvenirs). No, not one of those fountain pens. Mine was quite inexpensive and I use it everyday.
Previously: Day 1, Day 2 (part 1), Day 2 (part 2), Day 2 (part 3), Day 3 (part 1) Day 3 (part 2), Day 4 (part 1), Day 4 (part 2),
Day 5 (part 1), Day 5 (part 2), Day 5 (part 3), Day 6, Day 7 (part1), Day 7 (part2),
Next: Day 8 (part 2)