France, Day 9, Jardin du Palais Royal

Leaving the opera we headed back to close to the Louvre.  I'm pretty sure this was because it's the script the guide always follows, but since we'd already been there we struck out in a different direction towards Jardin du Palais Royal.  This area was cool for a couple of reasons.  First, the park was a playground of Louis XVI, now it's a great park.  One part always has modern art installations.  The second cool thing is this area was one of the first malls in the world.  The palace was given to some relation of a French king who had a bad gambling habit, so he started to rent out rooms facing the street to vendors to sell from, and the mall was born.