Monday, September 4 - Somebody's Got a Case of the Mondays
As usual, neither one of us was able to sleep very well.
We kicked off our day with a visit to the Palais Royal, which is just blocks from our apartment. The Palais Royal has been home to various luminaries over the centuries but now houses the Council of State and Ministry of culture:
Palais Royal and Courtyard
Gardens at Palais Royal
How Many Cheryle's Can You Spot?
Since we were still tired from the flight over and two days of playing tourist, we decided we'd take the "open top" bus tour - which we have found is a a great way to get an overview of a new city and see what you'd like to explore more in depth later on. But by the time we emerged from the OperaMetro station to pick up our tickets at the L'Open Tour office, it was raining. So much for that idea! We ducked into a nearby Starbucks - the nicest one I've ever seen - and talked about what to do next.
Poor Michael was suffering the most, as I think he got even less sleep than me. I had spied a Mango department store across the street (my radar for good shopping is spot-on) and I popped into the storeand found so many things I could have bought, if I was on an unlimited budget. However, even though everything was fitting and looking really cute, I managed to restrain myself and got just a few items.
After my shopping spree I went back to the Starbucks and Michael was still not feeling very well. However, since we were in the area we decided to go check out the Galeries Lafayette - it felt a bit like Harrod's although the prices were more accessible. The interior of the store was really the main attraction, as you can from the photos here:
By this time, we were starving and so enjoyed a nice meal in the Galeries Lafayette Cafe on the sixth floor, featuring a view of the Eiffel Tower. However, after lunch the effects of sleep deprivation were really starting to kick in, and so we headed back to the apartment for yet another three hour nap.
We woke up just in time to catch the last run of the L'Open Tour bus and rode it around until they kicked everyone off at the Champs-Elysees. We weren't that far from home though, so decided to just hoof it through the Tuileries - pretty, but not as nice as the Jardin du Luxembourg.
Later that evening, I wanted to catch up on blogging duties and do some ironing, and so Michael took the Metro out to La Defense - one of Paris'biggest business districts.He used a tripod to capture these absolutely amazing photos of the Grande Arche and surrounding area:
He then took some night photos of the Arc de Triomphe, and this is my favorite:
I was still dead tired and so I think we both turned in by 1am. We were feeling kind of low at this point, like we didn't do much, but were excited for Tuesday's main activitiy - a Segway Tour of Paris!
