The Arnold's

Wednesday, July 1, 2026

Opera!

We headed to the Opera and got there early and asked if we could start early and thankfully it was a yes! We each had a tablet and headphones for an interactive tour. It was stunning and we didn’t get to see it all because they had to get everyone out at 2 pm. Thankfully we went in early because we still didn’t see everything but did see a lot! We stopped for lunch and ate in a cute little neighborhood park. We then went to see if we could see Napoleon’s tomb but you had a buy a ticket for a much bigger tour. Bummer! We walked around a bit before heading back to the hotel for laundry and dinner. We have had a surprising amount of Italian and opted for Vietnamese tonight. We then got gelato and macarons for desert! Yum!

This made me a little sad. It was the center art in the opera but the original art work seemed to be much more in line with the style of the surroundings. Both very famous but this just seemed out of place.

My dad was practicing his ballet moves!

This is the park where we had lunch!

Matt's desert!

Long day but so worth it!

We took the morning easy and then headed to the Arc to get on the hop on hop off but we just stayed on and used their horrible headphones to listen to the history of the city. It was warm but not insane. We then went to a store and got lunch and went and did some souvenir shopping. We headed back to the hotel but explored the shopping center by the hotel and found a big grocery store! And plenty of other stores. We had dinner and headed back to the city, walking along the river before our river cruise in the dark. We had an amazing time on the river cruise (it started at 10:45 because the sunset is so late) and got to see the Eiffel Tower twinkle! And the Olympic flame in the air! The boat we were on was in the parade of athletes during the opening ceremonies and had the countries of Hong Kong, Honduras and Hungary. We made it back to the hotel and in bed before 1 am!