Sweet Disposition: Last Paris Post

On our third and last day in Paris we went to the bakery again (it was so good) and then took it easy by strolling along Avenue des Champs Elysess, which is one of the most famous streets in Paris and even the world. Catherine, Hannah, and I then stopped into Ladurée, which was known for their macaroons, to have lunch. This was the most delicious meal I ate in Paris and was probably the cutest restaurant I’ve ever been in. On the front of the menu, it told some history of the place and we learned that it was actually the very first tearoom in Paris! Here is some of the history that I read about it:

THE LADURÉE STORY

The history of Parisian tea salons is intimately tied to the history of the Ladurée family.

It all began in 1862, when Louis Ernest Ladurée, a miller from France’s southwest, created a bakery at 16 rue Royale in Paris.

During the same year, the first stone of the Garnier Opera was laid, and the area surrounding the Madeleine was rapidly developing into one of the capital’s most important and elegant business districts. The most prestigious names in French luxury goods had already taken up residence in this neighborhood.

In 1871, while Baron Haussmann was giving Paris a ‘‘new face’’, a fire made access to the transformation of the bakery to a pastry shop.

The decoration of the pastry shop was entrusted to Jules Cheret, a famous turn-of-the-century painter and poster artist. M Cheret sought inspiration from the painting techniques used for the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the Garnier Opera.

By incorporating them in his work, he added depth and relief to the ceilings ornamented with cherubic children.

Under the Second Empire, cafes developed and became more and more luxurious. They attracted Parisian high society. Along with the chic restaurants around the Madeleine, they became the showcases of the capital.  The beginning of this century found Paris wrapped up in a frenzy of distraction and going out in public. Parisians flocked to the Universal Exposition. Women were also changing. They wanted to make new acquaintances. Literary salons and literature circles were outmoded.

Ernest Ladurée’s wife, Jeanne Souchard, daughter of a well-known hotelier in Rouen, had the idea of mixing styles: the Parisian café and pastry shop gave birth to one of the first tea salons in town. The “salon de thé” had a definite advantage over the cafés: they permitted ladies to gather in freedom. Jeanne Souchard succeeded in combining the turn-of-the-century trend to modernism with knowledge of the merits of a craft transmitted by her family.

The rue Royale tea room was enlarged in 1930 by Pierre Desfontaines, second cousin of Louis Ernest Ladurée. When he retired, his son, Jean Marie, and his niece, Dominique, presided over the tea salon.

Just look how adorable their website is!

http://www.laduree.fr/en/scene

After lunch I got a box of delicious macaroons! So amazing! After that we walked around Paris a little more until we reached the Louvre, one of the world’s largest museums. It has nearly 35,000 objects from prehistory to the 19^th century and is 652,300 square feet. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, which began as a fortress built in the late 12^th century under Philip II. We were able to see the remnants of the fortress, which was really cool. In 1682, Louis XIV chose to live in the Palace of Versailles, and left the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection. I had heard it takes a full three days just to simply walk through the museums, so we just decided to look at some of the major exhibits such as the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. I wish we could have had time to see more, but I’m glad I was able to check the Mona Lisa off of my bucket list!

After that, we strolled around a little more and then got dinner on Champ-Elysees. After we finished I slid out of the booth and knocked over a glass, which promptly shattered on the floor (I’m the clumsiest person ever). I was so afraid that I was going to get yelled at by one of the waiters (a lot of the waiters seemed to be cranky in Paris) and quickly began offering to sweep it up. However, he told me I only owed him a kiss on the cheek and he would forgive me! Afterwards we went to a gelato place near the Eiffel Tower that we passed by on the first night and helped ourselves to dessert. You could seem them in the back making the gelato in huge barrels. Delicious. We then went back by the Eiffel Tower to watch the light show one more time. Right when it began to get dark outside the entire sky lit up with huge streaks of lighting, While a little frightening, it also made a gorgeous background to the tower. We took a taxi back so that we wouldn’t get caught in the storm and then went to bed to rest up for our early train ride.

I woke up with a terrible migraine in the morning and was then greeted by a screaming baby in the seat next to me on the train. The whole way home. For five hours. The headache continued for a few days after that (I’m convinced it was the screaming baby), hence why I am so behind on my blogs. I still have more to tell about my last week in Antibes, so more to come later!