Photo Gallery: Paris Opera House

One of the highlights of my entire trip was visiting the Paris Opera House. The history! The elegance! Though the theater itself was beautiful of course, it was the lobby that was most thrilling. There's a long hallway of gorgeous chandeliers and gold everywhere. So amazing. In terms of the house, the Met still has my heart won - but the stage looked really deep and the seats went way up high. Here are a few snapshots.

And this was random - as I was roaming the Parisian streets I did a double take and saw Nureyev's house!

Photo Gallery: Paris Trip

The second leg of my dream trip to Europe was in Paris. I'm breaking my photos into two separate posts - one for the normal tourist stuff, and one for the bunhead tourist stuff :)

Again I only had two days in this beautiful city, so I crammed in all the sightseeing I possibly could. I must have 800 pictures of the Eiffel Tower alone - what a site! It was quite unbelieveable to be standing in front of it in real life.

I did visit the Louvre but sadly I didn't get to the Musee d'Orsay as I really wanted to see the Degas sculptures :(

Many more photos to come! Next Gallery: Paris Opera House!

Photo Gallery: London Trip

Earlier this summer I made another dream come true - my first trip to Europe! I've been trying to go for several years now and for one reason or another things fell apart last minute. In June I finally had both time and money (at the same time) and treated myself to a two week trip. It was amazing!

I had very little time to hit all the places at the top of my list, so I only got a day or two in each place. I started in London. Here are a few photos from my dance sightseeing :)

Even though we have Freed of London in New York (now 2 locations!) and I stopped wearing Freeds post-surgery, I still had to visit the main store while I was there! It's small and not unlike any NYC dance retailer but...you know...

When I went to try on a leotard there, I saw that their fitting rooms had autographed photos from famous ballerinas who had been there. This was Eva Evdokimova, who passed away not too long ago.

And Carla Fracci.

I really badly wanted to tour the Royal Opera House but didn't plan in advance (even though that was my #1 thing I wanted to do in London...stupid...) so the tour was sold out for both days I was in the city. Sad.

I did go to Buckingham Palace though.

And saw a billboard for Wheeldon's recent new production of Alice in Wonderland at the ROH.

My first day brought serious jetlag, but the second day I took class at Pineapple Dance Studios. Decent class - nothing special.

The West End had mostly all shows that are currently running in New York, but I went to see "Love Never Dies," the sequel to "Phantom of the Opera" that hits Broadway soon.

And then yes, there was the normal tourist sites. Here's the London Eye, though I didn't get to go on it.

And beautiful Big Ben.

Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker poster outside Sadler's Wells.

I saw a very avant-garde performance at Sadler's Wells. I mostly bought the ticket to see the theater :)

It's a cool space!

London reminded me very much of New York - a very walkable city with lots to see and do. I roamed the streets and got caught in the rain and did some shopping. It was smart to have my first stop be an English speaking place.

Photos from Paris and Italy coming soon!