Free Day in Paris!!

Today, our last full day in Paris, was an unplanned free day. Joanie and Sandy took the train to Chartes, which is about an hour outside of Paris to see a very famous cathedral. They were off by 10am.  Jan's plan was to spend the day with a vancouver friend who now lives in Paris. The rest of us opted to go shopping.
After a leisurely breakfast we left the hotel about 11. We walked to the metro station, successfully bought a book of 10 tickets and descended into the bowels of Paris.
We saw the light of day again right outside the Galleries Laffeyette. The first department store in Paris built by the Hauseman family.  The building itself is worthy of a tourist stop. Of course at the moment the Paris winter sales are on and prices on all but the new spring collections are slashed up to 70%.......a real  girls dream!!! Marion and I bought gifts for our daughters. The store has a large dome which is open to all floors, it is quite magnificent with painted murals and lots of stained glass.
We had a good look at the sales and the new collections and went to the store Cafe for lunch. Afterwards we took the escalator to the 6th floor and discovered a large rooftop deck where you could look out over surrounding Paris, the opera house, Effiel tower, the arc de triumph and more landmarks. We took a few photos but soon  the cold wind sent us back inside the store.
We were feeling fortunate that we had seen no rain as it had rained through the night.
Having seen enough we descended into the metro and made our way back to  rue San Antoine, where we wandered the shops once more, bought a few scarves, and other items.
Then as happens, even the shoppers get weary and we made our way back to our hotel.
Today is Joan's birthday and we are off to a special restaurant for dinner and champers!
Pre dinner drinks were served in the room of Sandy and Muriel and at just after seven we walked out to our restaurant. It was one that Joanie and Graeme had enjoyed on a previous trip.
The restaurant was quite empty when we artived but that was not to last.  A lovely young girl came to serve us and as the menu was in French we had a little difficulty with some items. She explained as best she could and we were pretty sure we knew what was what! Various items were ordered and mostly were what was expected.....not so with all! Some of us had ordered a starter of chestnut soup....very delicious, some had ordered calamari, which were tasty but appeared on first look to resemble onion rings! The main meals were presented and Sandy got a look of great puzzlement on her face.....she believed she had ordered ️️moules, her plate did not resemble anything like it! When she inquired as to what was on her plate ....it was marrow! The server when explaining the dish had tapped her forearm and we all thought she was miming muscles.....or ️moules (what North Americans call mussels!) sandy decided she could not begin to eat that and it was taken away, instead she received a new meal more to her liking. (She is fast asleep as I write this so cannot remind me of her meal!)
We consumed a couple of bottles of wine and were feeling quite stuffed when the server brought out a birthday cake with candles and a bucket with a bottle of champagne !  Much surprise to all of us, Joan's husband Dave, who was back home in North vancouver had arranged with the restaurant to treat us all. Joan said that explained why he wanted such a detailed itinerary of her trip! Good one Dave!!   A very hearty happy birthday was sung to Joan.
It was a short walk back to our hotel with a little detour to look at a nearby park. On arrival we took care of the hotel bills and confirmed our morning pick up for our flight to Florence .
Look out Italy............here we come!