So we had to leave at least one night for something cultural instead of just food. We still ended up going home and changing on this night before going out to have a late night Kurdish sandwich at Urfa Durum in La Marais, which we don’t have any pics of, unfortunately.
Here we are leaving our hotel, the Hotel Costes, just off the Champs-Elysses on Rue St. Honore. It draws a crowd of 20-something hipsters and is reminiscent of the Standard in Downtown LA or the W hotel, with models, fashion industry wannabes, etc. It’s difficult with hotels in Paris. If you want to be within walking distance of the boutiques, etc you are paying $1300/night, but I wanted something in between, so our friend Erika from London suggested this place.
The motif here was in line with our opera outing this night.
Here is their link, the rooms go for $650-850/night for a decent room, which despite the prices are still on the small side.
They have an underground pool area, but nothing close to the level of elegance and class like at the Bulgari hotel’s spa area in London, that I had a blog post on earlier.
When it comes to my passions in life, after food, wine, and whiskey, architecture and fashion take a close 2nd place. This post will be short on words and rather loaded with eye candy. I think I can safely say that this is the most amazing opera house in the world. Reminds me of the opera scene in my all-time favorite movie, Life is Beautiful.
This song was our wedding march by the way.
I loved how old fashioned everything was with the warning bells that intermission was about to end, etc. It was a wonderful place, but we were so overdressed. We thought it would be at least a bit fancier, but it was just a bunch of slobs. I wasn’t expecting the best-dressed couple in the house in Paris to be two Americans, it’s usually the other way around.
Look at that amazing marbling in the columns. What a breathtaking building. The opera itself sucked, so we left after intermission, but not before having a photo shoot bonanza with another Chinese mother and daughter who were obsessed as we were with capturing as many photos as possible.
This looks like the Beast’s house in Beauty and the Beast.
There’s one dirty Beast.
I wonder if you can reserve this area for a special event or a ball? You have to become a member here to be able to buy tickets, you can’t just buy tickets for one show.
https://www.operadeparis.fr/en/support-us/friends-of-the-opera
I had to get a Goddamn Membership just for one opera that we walked out of early so we could take these pictures for the blog.
I need to put my Salvatore Ferragamo Ryan Gosling Navy Blue and Black tux to use somehow. I packed this tux and frilled Dolce and Gabbana tuxedo shirt just for the opera, along with my black suede Del Toro-Boswell collaboration tuxedo shoes made bespoke for me by my friend and tailor Waraire Boswell.
http://lifestyle.deltoroshoes.com/blog/page/4/
I just realized that my mustache looks like a second bowtie on my face.
I absolutely love these statues, look at the color contrast, their expressions, the flowiness of the robes made out of pure marble. Good God, I love decadence like this.
Erika showcasing her Alexander McQueen dress. and Gianvito Rossi shoes. The entire dress is hand embroidered.
Amazing statues, I could not stop taking photos of these beautiful works of art, my wife included.
Look at the ceiling, like the Sistine Chapel.
Such elaborate tile work. The intricate details everywhere. The sheer manpower it took to create something like this would cost exponentially more if you were to ever try and recreate something like this today.
This is like my ultimate “fantasy” staircase if I were to ever in my life have anything close to the means to recreate this in my dream retirement chateau in France. Obviously not to this scale, but the layout is my idealized image of luxury.
Reminded me of the Nightfox’s home in Ocean’s 12, played by my favorite “man-crush” Vincent Cassel. We actually ended up meeting Vincent Cassel’s step-mother at Guy Savoy the next night. I will leave the backstory and my obsession with this famous French actor for the next post.
Look at that bronze, fuck, I love it!
Look at the sky in the early evening as we left. I can see why all the great masters came to France to paint, looks like a Van Gough painting.
los pansionistas 