"Christmas in Paris" a Paris Travel Page by OiKnow

For years I dreamed about going to Paris for Christmas. I took a year of French in High School and developed a life long love of France. I had been to Paris in mid winter in 1991 and had dreamed of going back. I talked about how nice it would be to experience the holiday season in Paris, engulfed in the joys of a different culture and far enough away from home to be freed from obligations to family and friends. After many years of talking I finally planned it. I booked frequent flyer free seats 10 months in advance. I spent months looking at hotels and booked when I found a reduced price on a hotel that fit my criteria. I brushed up on my French and away we went.

The Church plays a significant role in the lives of the French people, and seldom more so then at Christmas. We visited Notre Dame on Christmas Eve. There was a huge tree decorated out front, and the police were setting up barricades and metal detectors in preparation for the attendance of dignitaries at the Christmas Services. We watched the final rehearsal for Christmas Eve Mass and the first Mass was just starting as we finished our visit and moved on. The church was filled with locals and visitors, no doubt more locals then usual for a Friday afternoon. I really like Notre Dame. It is huge, but wonderfully proportioned. The space feels very human in scale. It has dark spooky corners, as a real church of it’s era should. It is interesting to think of the history that the space has witnessed. Churches are a great treasury of art, architecture and culture, and are generally a tremendous bargain. Even if you are not a person of faith, a visit to a major church can be an uplifting way to take a look at the culture of a community.

Paris was wonderful at Christmas. Several of the large department stores were decorated heavily for the holiday. Some of the streets and many of the market areas had decorations up for the holidays. The florist shops had wonderful small Christmas trees (in scale to the typical Paris apartment.) Peire Noel was around, but not plastered on every surface like his North American brother Santa. Food plays a huge role in the celebration of Christmas. The shops and markets had incredible specialty items in stock for the holiday. On Christmas-eve day the markets were packed and busy. Most businesses and many restaurants closed early, 6:00 -7:00 on Christmas Eve. A tip to the wise, make plans for dinner on Christmas-eve. You either need to eat early, or know where restaurants are going to be open late (areas with large numbers of tourists.) We did not plan ahead, and ended up having a quick sandwich in a small bar near the Galleries Lafayette. It was the only place we found open in about three blocks that are normally overflowing with places to eat. A couple of blocks farther down into an area with more hotels and there were other restaurants open. The only day that we had breakfast at the hotel was Christmas day. We preferred to try a different bakery each day, but the neighborhood bakeries were mostly closed on Christmas morning and breakfast at the hotel was suddenly a good value at 10 euros per person. We left the hotel and took the metro to the Eiffel Tower (the metro ran a standard weekend schedule on Christmas day, meaning that there was a train about every 8 minutes on most lines.) We had advance tickets to ride the elevators in the tower. We took our time, the weather was cold but the views were great. We stopped coming down see the ice rink on the first level (about 400 feet above the street.) We had not made plans for Christmas Dinner. I decided to be optimistic and ask at Altitude 95, the nice formal restaurant on the 1st level of the Eiffel Tower if they could seat us for dinner. The host fussed that I had not made reservations. I did my best innocent tourist and said, "yes, sorry, I was just hoping." He pouted, blew out, stared at me, then he turned asked one of the hostesses if she could squeeze in two for the 1:00 seating. She said yes, and we made it into the 1:00 seating for Christmas dinner at about 1:15. They offered a 4 course prix fix menu at 60 euro per person and the option of ordering ala carte. We elected to take the menu. The food was wonderful, the service relaxed and professional, the view was very memorable and the bragging rights justified the bill.