Saturday 29 May 1999. We have been zooming around Paris all morning on and off the coach and now as the time approaches lunch, we have two hours free time to explore a little bit on our own.
The coach dropped us at L'Opéra and following the advice of our courier, Monsieur Vallaire, Fran and I went into the large department store, Galeries Lafayette and made our way up several floors to the roof, which is accessible to shoppers and visitors.
The climb up - well, alright it was a ride by a series of escalators or moving stairways! - was rewarded by the view you see in these photographs. A rooftop cafe was serving refreshments, but we resisted as I quite fancied a sit at a pavement cafe and had spotted a few famous names on our travels; Fouquet's, Cafe de la Paix to mention but a couple. So far the photos show the standard views, but for several shots I dug my zoom lens out of the camera bag.
You can see from the first photo above that Paris occupies a particularly flat landscape. The only notable exception is the area of Montmarte where the famous cathedral of Sacre Coeur sits. No, you can't see it here - but we will have a look at it tomorrow.
I took a photo of the tower and by swinging just a little, the gold leaf of the dome of Les Invalides caught the sun and made an irresistable beckoning to the camera! It was quite a while before we realised that our 2 hours out of the coach was being eaten up!
However before we left the Galeries Lafayette, there was something else that Vallaire had told us was worth seeing, and that was the dome and cupola of the store.
They had made a feature out of the dome as each of the floors had a balcony, allowing an uninterrupted view upwards from the ground floor of the store. This is not the full story though, as mosaic, moulding and gold come together to create a stunning interior.
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