Day Six Paris: Sixième Jour; Christmas Eve Day . 2024

Greetings from the TGV from Paris to Angoulême on Christmas Day. PHOTOS TO COME

Spent a jam-packed Christmas Eve day in misty, moody, drizzly Paris. We have been to Paris many times in the winter and the weather is always very unpredictable. We’ve been here when it’s been beautiful but cold; cold and snow; rainy; sunny; and more. This year it’s been overcast nearly every day, but sometimes wonderful bursts of sun at odd moments. We are headed to Angoulême to have Christmas dinner with family but will return to Paris tonight (very late). Angoulême is supposed to be sunny all day and a bit warmer than Paris (probably in the low 50s.)

Anyway, we got our full value of our day passes on the Paris Metro yesterday as we must have been on about 12 different trains over the course of the day.

We began by heading to see the Lavirotte building, a fantastic circa 1900 apartment building in the 7^th arrondissement—a wonderful example of Art Nouveau architecture. The front façade is decorated with all sorts of sculptures and tiles. Would have loved to see what the inside lobby and the apartments are like. The neighborhood gets wonderful little hidden peeks at the Eiffel Tower, especially of the base of the tower from the sidewalk. It was a bit eerie given that the top of the Tower just disappeared given the dense mist and cloud cover.

From there we headed to see the Samaritaine Building, a luxury department store affectionately referred to by Parisians as “La Samar.” It was built in 1925 and boasts a riveted steel frame supporting a huge glass pyramid in the Art Deco style. It’s a dramatic statement with the whole store (5 floors, I think) sitting under the glass roof with a café and bar at the top level. The escalators are in the center. There is some kind of mural that surrounds the underside of the roof that has a golden-yellow hue, so the entire store seems sunny and bright, despite the rain. Didn’t look at what the store sold, but I think it’s probably like Galleries Lafayette except focused only on the higher end brands, so the clientele is smaller and wealthier. Maybe Galleries Lafayette is like Nordstrom and Samaritaine is like Bergdorf Goodman.  It was pretty quiet given that it was the day before Christmas. By the way, the story of the creation of La Samar is quite interesting including the construction of a pump house in 1607; the opening of a small shop in 1870; a marriage between the owner of the shop and the head female retail assistant in the dressmaking department of Le Bon Marche (a competitor); closure of the store due to fire concerns; rebuilding; and transfer of ownership to a global corporation.

From there we took the Metro to the Gare de l’Est and Chateau d’eau neighborhood which was a far cry from La Samar. The neighborhood is an ethnic stew of Indians and Pakistanis, other diverse Asian cultures… Here one can find haircuts for just nine Euros and lots of street food, spice shops, and assorted tiny shops where you can buy almost anything you can think of—cheap. There are also hundreds of little restaurants that line the streets and the famous “passages” (covered walkway/alleyways). 

Then we were off to the Palais des Glaces which I really wanted to see. It’s an amazing structure that was rebuilt in 1924 and has been used for a variety of performances from circuses to theater (and especially this winter because of the centennial of the reconstruction). In the winter it is used as an ice-skating rink. We walked in the rain for about 1/3 of a mile after getting out of the metro. But we couldn’t find it. Then we checked the address and ostensibly we were right in front of it. Alas, our research was not so thorough. We were standing in front of the “petite” Palais Glaces which has a theater (small) on the second floor where comedy groups perform along with upcoming artists. The actual building/rink was about a 20-minute metro ride in the opposite direction. We might have done it, but it was raining and cold and getting dark, and we had dinner reservations for Christmas Eve.. Moreover, Mike’s back was bothering him. So, a bit disappointed we decided to take a taxi back to the hotel to recharge before heading to dinner. (Next Xmas, we’ll make the Grand Palais a priority!)

After arriving back at the hotel, we headed to Le Christine for dinner.  Le Christine is a small restaurant on a very tiny street at 1 Rue Christine. We had assumed when we made the reservation (which was done very recently after realizing that we would not be going to Geneva for Xmas Eve/Christmas Day) that Le Christine was the restaurant inside Le Relais Christine located on 3 Rue Christine. We knew this very wonderful hotel because about 20 years ago we stayed there for New Years Eve and remembered it well and loved it. But it turns out that the hotel doesn’t do dinner and Restaurant Le Christine has no relation to Relais Christine (except perhaps that they are adjacent to one another). The restaurant was fine and only a 6-minute walk from our hotel; in fact, the dinner was quite good (although overpriced—but then again it was Christmas), but the service was pretentious. 

After dinner we headed by Metro to the Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysee to stroll and see the wonderful Christmas lighting along the boulevard. It was tasteful and fun, with lots of Parisian families doing the same stroll we did. We walked about 2/3 of the way to Place Concorde, along the Champs Elysee and then popped into the Metro to head back to the hotel. By then it was about midnight, and we had a really early and busy next day to tackle (Christmas Day). More on that tomorrow.

Happy holidays

Fern