Marathon of Walks! Part II

Alright here goes the other 3 weeks. We did this all on Friday, yesterday. First we started Marais Walk 2. It was great because we got to eat Falafel for lunch! These chickpea balls! Serve me food like this and I can become a vegetarian. Also this Jewish Synagogue is designed by the Art Nouveau guy Hector Guimard as well, his wife was a Jew. It's supposed to look like an open Torah scroll.


Next we passed by this whole area just full of Jewish people/things/stores/restaurants. You see the stores with Hebrew words, and the men wearing yarmulke. Then we went to a national library, but I didn't think it was that cool as it was closing as we got in (at around 1 pm I think it was their lunch break). I mean the outside was very impressive. A huge mansion and other buildings interconnected!! But then we went to the Musée Cognacq-Jay and saw a lot of cool things. It was a smaller museum but still had a lot of famous people that I learned about in my Art History class such as Greuze and Boucher and Hubert Robert. Oh there were a few paintings by Monet too. Here's some cool furniture:


Picasso museum was closed...and has been for like 2 years and is doing like a 4 year renovation. I guess I'll have to wait till the next time I come back.
Then we did the Grands Boulevards Walk! Which is so titled because Baron Haussmann transformed Paris' old narrow streets into the beautiful Paris it is today. I really enjoyed this short walk because we got to see some pretty architecture and go around the shopping area. First we went to this Printemps store that had a promotion going on for Alice in Wonderland!! It was pretty neat! Also, the other pics are inside Galéries Lafayette. It's a cool department store kind of like Asian style because it's a few floors. But it is definitely the prettiest mall I've been too. And then the pics of me in front of Palais Garnier, the old Paris Opera house. We didn't pay to tour the inside because there were rehearsals and we wouldn't be allowed to see the main thing. The other tourists were dumb and still paid to go in. We'll just buy a ticket to a ballet in a few weeks and then I'll post pics but just from the bookstore I can tell you that it is really beautiful! Interview with a Vampire was filmed here, and The Phantom of the Opera is based on this theatre. There's even a tiny lake at the bottom too!!






Then we saw a Joan of Arc statue and Place Vendôme, which Napoleone celebrates his victories against the Austrians and allies. He melts down the cannons to make this! It's also the place of a lot of really fancy and expensive stores. Chopin lived in the little square and right across the street is the Ritz hotel where Princess Diana left the night of her fatal crash just a few minutes away. Her lover's father owned that Ritz hotel (he might still own it for all I know). The pic with the limousines is the Ritz hotel. Even Ernest Hemingway liked it. Just a few houses to the left of it was where Chopin died. It's not in the pic. And then the tower in the middle is just Napoleon in a Roman costume. And then Joan of Arc. Well I think I will have to add a part 3 and finish the last walk update tomorrow. Too tired.