This was a memorable day indeed!
We drove in to Paris to the hotel, then I went to return the car - that was a mighty saga! The parking return is inside a limited traffic zone, so Android Auto kept rerouting me away from there to a nearby place where I could park, but of course I couldn't return the car without actually getting it to the office in the forbidden zone. Ultimately I drove in anyway and it was resolved with help from two nice Frenchwomen who pointed out the tiny Avis sign to the underground parking garage. After five days of happy motoring through the French countryside, this rude welcome to the bustling city of Paris was enough to make me happy to be rid of the car! Then I took a taxi back to the hotel.
The Hôtel Choiseul Opera is so called because it is near the Palais Garnier opera house and the Opera metro station. It's also near the Place Vendome, home of the Hotel Ritz, and some very fancy shopping there and at the Place de la Madeleine.
We had a couple of hours to shop around, so we went to Place de la Madeleine and visited boutiques like Maille mustard (yes, a shop about mustard - expensive mustard in cute stoneware jars) and Patrick Roger chocolates (on a hot day they won't sell you certain chocolates unless you show that you have a cooler to protect the precious product). There was a very pretty flower market.
From there we went to the Place Vendôme, where we had reservations for high tea at the Hôtel Ritz. The Place Vendôme is an open plaza surrounding a tall green column that depicts French military history topped by a statue of Napoleon as a Roman emperor. The streets are lined with the most "ritzy" boutiques in Paris - Cartier, Chanel, Dior, etc.
Cesar Ritz established the hotel here in 1898, and ten years later it was being frequented by Proust as he was writing La Recherche (a common shorthand name for that massive novel). The place where he preferred to work is now called the Salon Proust. It has a portrait of him hanging at one end, so of course I had to get a selfie! There are also four framed handwritten pages of his first drafts, complete with line-outs and marginalia and little sketches. It was thrilling to me to be there!
I had seen Combray, the setting for the first book, and the second book was set at the Grand Hotel in Cabourg that we visited on Day 2. In book three he's a young man being introduced into Parisian society and the salon culture. He's starry-eyed and infatuated with everything. In book four he's a little older and he's seeing the seamy underside of that culture, the petty backbiting and foolish gossip, silly scandals with grave consequences. He got a lot of material for those two books in that room!
Lorna and Melissa were nearly as thrilled as I was when they saw the tea service coming together! They started with good champagne, then they brought out the tea and asked if we wanted other drinks. Melissa also got a hot chocolate served from a proper chocolate pot! (Tea pots are short and stout, coffee pots are tall and pour from the bottom, chocolate pots are tall and pour from the top.)
I guess a bit of the spirit of the old salon snobs got into me for a moment. I asked our server for a left-handed tea cup. He was perplexed. I showed him that the design on the cup was clearly visible when held with the right hand, but a left-handed person saw no design. He was mortified and I had to reassure him that I was joking.
Then they brought the tray of goodies. It was ample! There were three each of nine different pastries. Everything was represented: chocolate, lemon, fresh berries, caramel, sweet cheese, everything was delicious and there was so much that we took home a box that we ate from for two more mornings.
Afterward we walked around a little to get all that sugar and caffeine metabolizing before freshening up for an 8:00 PM concert at the Palais Garnier. For our last few European vacations I have been exploring the great opera houses of Europe. This trip included the Bayerischer Staatsoper in Munich and the venerable Palais Garnier in Paris. Paris has two opera houses, but this is the grand old one. It was gorgeous and not large, and something of a firetrap in my opinion. Between the aisles there were fold-down seats so they could sell more tickets, but it made it impossible to get from row to row while those seats were occupied, and they somewhat obstructed passage even in the folded position.
The show was not an opera. It was a concert by our favorite mezzosoprano, Elina Garanca. She was accompanied by only Malcolm Martineau on piano. She sang a wide selection of classical pieces for voice, not operatic arias and not popular songs. She started with a set of nine pieces from her native Latvia, then seven from Richard Strauss. After an intermission she sang five from Henri Duparc and finally seven from Sergei Rachmaninov. At the end she stayed on for three encores, ending with her calling card, the Habanera from the opera Carmen, in which she exploded onto the scene as a major performer in 2010.
It was utterly fabulous! Her voice transports us, and it filled the grand old hall. By the time she finished the Habanera, she brought down the house with thundering applause and a standing ovation.
We stayed one night at the Hôtel Choiseul Opera. It was pleasant, in a great location. The room was a little weird and tight, but that's normal in Paris. It had the smallest elevator that I ever saw, about 4 feet by 3 feet wide (me shoulders touched both sides).