Paris : Palas Garnier

To Rue des Martyrs we walked, a few block from Hotel Opera,  Sunday morning, our second day in Paris. Here is  Sebastien Gaudard bakery, across from a cafe that had just opened. The proprietor of the restaurant offered to go across the street to this bakery to get croissants for us but I just got it myself to augment their omelette and cappuccino.  

Rue des Martyrs was a one street shopping village for locals with cheese, wine, bakery, butcher, flower shop and all, in addition to a few cafes, one of which was L'Ariel, more of a lottery hang-out, but bearing my son's name. We had breakfast a block away before heading directly to Palas Garnier opera house for out 10 am tour.  

The Palas Garnier had just been closed for renovation in Feb. 2000 the first time we visited Paris. Four years later, the renovation was complete, and what an undertaking it was! We walked twenty minutes from our breakfast spot to get there, Our tour was well worth the price and our guide was wonderful and knowledgeable. Here are our favorite photos:

In the basement directly under the theater, where the season ticket holders entered the opera, we waited for the tour to begin. One entrance in the basement remained bare and unadorned; it was where the emperor, if he hadn't been overthrown in the revolution, would have entered. 

The famous Medusa statue.  

The grand staircase up to the theater. Read about it in a book much better than I can describe here. We were flabbergasted by the opulence.  

Leona taking a photo of the staircase. We walked through this musical palace in awe of the architecture and adornments. 

Our tour guide explaining the workings of the opera company, how tutus and other props were either stored  for future productions or discarded. It seems like they could have been sold to raise funds instead. 

The opera's open lending library of musical scores and such.

Stage-set mock-ups in the Palas museum

They rent out this hall for high-brow parties when it isn't being a place to see and be seen by other aristocrats during intermission. 

Outside, Paris drizzled most of the time we were there. 

The bust of Garnier, the 35-year-old architect
of this incredible theater. 

The Phantom of the Opera reserved box 5 for himself and unbeknownst guests. To our tour guide's chagrin, I asked questions regarding the novel. "No" she said, "there is no lake under the theater, though there is a large cistern. And there are four box 5's, one on each level, so which one was in the novel is irrelevant," she said.