We spent our last full day in Paris shopping. Finding that the shops around St Severin, near our area, weren’t open until 11:30, we took the metro to Boulevarde Haussmann, the location of the grand department stores Galaries Lafayette and Printemps.
We entered the latter store and spent about an hour and a half there, got hungry, left to search for food, ate pizza, returned, stayed a few hours more, purchased,wandered through the Havre Arcade, bought the most wonderful chocolate (knew this from last time) from the Chocolate Atelier. Don’t try the red streaked chocolate. Hot chilli (yuck)!
Returned to Printemps less than an hour before closure. Purchased some stuff for my beautiful wife, then left as it closed (7:30pm).
Shopping is not one of my favourite activites, but Parisian shops stock good quality items. Some are reasonable in price, others outrageously expensive. Most of it would be the latter if sold in Australia. The clothes seem to fit B a lot better as well.
On the way back we stopped off at the Blanche metro station, admired the brightly lit Moulin Rouge from the outside and picked up some items from the nearby shops. Then we returned to the Odeon metro station.
We really did not want to end off our trip to Paris with a meal from the restaurants around St Michel. The food is of poor quality, the menus too similar and the service atrocious. Fortunately, we found nicer eating places around the northern end of the area around the Odeon and had a very pleasant dinner to end our stay in Paris.
Got to get up very early tomorrow morning (damn you BA for changing the flight times). Off to Japan, where I may not have internet access. I’m glad we are not going straight home. It’s going to be sad to leave Paris. We could spend months here. There is so much to see, so many museums, monuments and gardens. To have the time just to relax and watch the world go by, something Parisians are very good at, would be just wonderful.
Already we are planning our return.