sights and smells around the madeleine

14 novembre 2012

before we started this walk, alicia and i had to stop in gap to buy scarves. when we got out of the metro at the stop for the madeleine, i swear it was 17 times colder than when we left. and i left without a scarf. i should know by now to not do that here...and i've learned my lesson, i promise.

just outside of the madeleine is a little flower market. it smelled so pretty! i love the flower markets here in paris. they aren't as plentiful as i had imagined they would be, and they are nothing like the flower markets i saw when i was in poland (the polish are obsessed with flowers and use them for every occasion), but it was still pretty great.

 the madeleine itself is a massive church. it has these monumental corinthian columns that surround it. it's pretty unusual for a christian church, but pretty fantastic.

when you step outside of the church, there are awesome views of place de la concorde and the dome of the invalides. it's so fun to be able to put together a little map of paris in my head and know where things go.

the next stop on our list of places to go was ladurée, which is a famous pastry shop. it's especially well known for it's macarons. they compete with pierre hermé to claim the best macarons in paris. i personally like pierre hermé better. but that's just me. we didn't get any pastries because...well i'm not sure why, now that i think about it. that was silly of us. oh well.

after hitting up ladurée (or not hitting it up, as the case may be), we went to the chapelle de l'assomption. it's not a super famous church at all...it's not very easily accessible to tourists. you don't really see it if you're not looking for it. leash and i stopped in for a minute. it was cool because they have a really large polish congregation that meets there, and we had just been in poland. however...it was completely under construction. as in scaffolding everywhere inside the chapel. and i don't think we were even supposed to be inside. so that was awkward.

after visiting the church, we went to the fragonard perfume museum. it is super tiny, and super smelly. now, i love a good perfume as much as the next person, but my nose was going crazy in this little place. it was fun to see all the different perfume bottles, and we enjoyed identifying some smells, but i had to get out of there before too long.

and that was the end of the walk! it was fun and short, and cold, oh, and smelly. but it was really fun!