DON'T JUST BE A TOURIST by Armen Pandola
If you love to shop - and who doesn't - Paris is the place for you. From mortgage-payment cost shoes to fine art, Paris has it. You know all the names that line the Rue Montaigne - here they are with their yearly sales:
Louis Vuitton - $28.6 billion
Chanel - $20 billion
Hermes - $16.4 billion
Gucci - $12.9 billion
Cartier - $7.7 billion
Tiffany - $5.6 billion
Dior - $5.2 billion
Burberry - $5 billion
Prada - $4.8 billion
But in Paris, you can be more that just a shopper - you can be a doer. And at one place, you can be both - Galeries Layfayette. This amazing 'department store' is worth a day in and of itself. All the high-end brand names are there. And you don't have to leave to eat. In the main store is the food court with its magnificent stained glass dome - you have seen nothing like this. Also, in its Maison (home) store across the rue, it has a food emporium with some of the best foods in Paris, sold to take out or eat in - dim sum, pizza, pasta, tacos, hot dogs! It is a great bargain as you can eat food made by some of the best cooks in Paris and still have money to buy that special gift for someone back home or for yourself - yes, just for you.
GL offers tours and classes and I suggest you take one if you are in Paris. This is a way to not just look and see, but get involved and do. Make your vacation an experience, an adventure - a time when you can find parts of yourself you didn't know existed. You can take a walk on the #glasswalk - 9-metre long walkway suspended 16 metres high in mid-air that brings you close to the Dome or learn how to shop like a Parisean or take a class in macaron-making.
I took the wine-tasting class taught by master sommelier, Armando - yes, that is his name. This was a fun-filled two hours as we Armando took us on a virtual tour of all of the great wine regions in France, starting with Champagne. My fellow students were a mother and daughter from New Orleans, a young woman from China and a fellow Philadelphian - actually from Washington DC and only recently moved to Philly! As the wine was pouring, we all loosened up and had a great time learning what wines to pair with what foods and how to properly smell, look at and then taste wine.
After the course, a couple of us went out to dinner at a locally recommended place - Macéo. A couple of the secondary benefits of these classes/tours is that you get to speak with a real local and find the places that tourists don't get to see - and you meet fellow tourists from all over.
Macéo was a great find. We had the menu du soir - or that night's special menu where we had three courses for about $45 - the poélée de champignons (a variety of mushrooms cooked up in a simple sauce), dorade (sea bream) and a dessert that had was a delicious combination of simple cake with fruit sauce.
Next time, more on some other classes and tours I took and a look at the biggest hidden shopping center in Paris.