Window shopping in Paris: caviar anyone?
These last few weeks have flown by: Thanksgiving came and went in a flash and then on Friday November 28th we drove down to Rome to my sister in law's. The next day we all (Lorenzo, the baby and I, plus my sister in law and her fiancé) hopped on a 7a.m. flight to Paris. We all managed to get free plane tickets by using our frequent flier miles with Alitalia, but alas our luggage did not arrive for another 2 days. Oh well, I guess we were expecting to much of poor old Alitalia. We had originally been on a later flight which was cancelled a few days before, so we were lucky to have departed at all.
After arriving in Paris we took the RER train from CDG airport to the city center and then got on the metro. Paris has a great subway system, the only downside is that to get to most of the connecting lines you have to go up and down several flight of stairs. It's really a rabbit warren of tunnels with very few elevators. I guess handicapped people don't take the metro.
Our hotel was located near the Port de Versailles (one of the old city gates on the road to Versailles). We chose the location because Lorenzo's aunt and uncle have there time share apt. nearby.
Crowd in front of Printemps dept. store
After a relaxing morning (sleep!) we headed off towards the big department stores. The storefronts were exquisitely decorated and there were automatons moving in fantastic winter scenes. There were wooden platforms with stairs so that little kids could see the windows up close. We wandered into the
Galeries Lafayette and did some sightseeing and shopping.
Tree under the dome
View from the roof
Back of the Paris opera house (Can you hear the Phantom?)
