Grands Boulevards (18)

Beth and I took this walk a week ago, and spent the majority of our time in the Opéra Garnier, the haunt of the famous, but fictional, phantom of the opera. It's really quite a sight to behold. We actually went to the Opéra initially (what a strange wore, 'initially,' with those three i's at the beginning!) to see if we could get cheap tickets to see a show at the still fully functional opera house. I cannot explain how thrilled I was to learn that both the ballet La Bayadère and the opera Les Contes d'Hoffman were playing while we were in Paris. The cheapest tickets to the Opera were only 8 or 10 euros, and meant free entrance into the architectural masterpiece. It was a dream come true!


That is, until we came to the ticket counter and learned that the ballet was complet--sold out!--and then that the cheapest tickets for the opera were 84 euros.

Fail.

The opera house is, however, spectacularly opulent itself and, I think, well worth the visit. Garnier, the architect, had the unlucky fortune that the opera house's reputation followed him--after the Opéra Garnier, he got little work as people assumed he only built such sumptuous structures and therefore could not afford him! Poor fellow.

The only other significant thing on this walk I can think to mention is Jeanne d'Arc, or as we good anglophones say, Joan of Arc.


The young heroine is a curious figure in French history. She represents, depending on the context: religious piety, the French extreme right party of the Front National, an independent woman ahead of her time... Well, in any case, she was canonized in 1920.