fancy places

Bonjour tous!
So today one of my American friends and I visited some fancy places!  First we went to Jeu de Paume, which means, literally, Palm Game, which was, according to my Fodor's 2011, a predecessor of tennis.  Anyway, it's a museum specializing in photography, an art form I haven't seen a lot of here.  For months now, Courtney and I have been seeing ads for a retrospective exhibit of Diane Arbus's work there, so we finally decided to go check it out.  It was an interesting exhibit, although I'm not sure I can honestly say that I like her photography.

Jeu de Paume is located in le Jardin des Tuileries, as is L'Orangerie (home to Monet's Water Lilies).

Then we headed to Ladurée, a really posh, fancy, well-known Parisian café since it will be one of our last chances to treat ourselves while we're here!  We split a rose-flavored réligieuse, which is a sort of cream-filled, iced puff-pastry.  Flower-flavored things are always... interesting.  I think I prefer fruits or chocolates, on the whole.  I also had some fun tea.

tea and réligieuse

Courtney and a cross-section of the treat
(There were raspberries inside!)

part of the outside of the café

Next we wandered over to Invalides, which I've already visited (see my post from Halloween).  It was almost closing time there, so we saw Napoléon's tomb briefly, before crossing the river again to check out Place Vendôme, which is renowned for its pricey watch and jewelry stores.  We had a lot of fun window-shopping there!  So many diamonds!  So much gold!  But as we see it, where would we wear a diamond tiara, anyway?

Like many a Parisian place,
there was an (unexplained) column here.

Place Vendôme