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Ma Petite Lettre
de Paris
PARIS is preparing Christmas : Since November 1st, Paris prepares Christmas. A majority of streets have been illuminated with Christmas decoration and Christmas lights. The tradition is to take children to the windows of the most known stores: "Le Bon Marché", "Les Galeries Lafayettes", "Le Printemps". Obviously all Paris main stores are ready for Christmas, and it is always a pleasure to go there but personally I prefer to stroll in the merchant streets and to enter in small shops. It is very funny, you have the time to dream in the front of the windows, to enter in warm traditional shops and to chat with the vendors, to compare and to choose. My favorite place are rue du Bac (for gifts, decoration and fashion) in 7th area .It begins at the river Seine and finishes at the Bon Marché. Walking in this street is a pleasure because you can see lot of old houses, and the rue Cler in the 7th area for the traditional French food ! But if you are in Paris for tourism , the best place is the Champs Elysees : each tree is illuminated and with the fairy-wheel Place de la Concorde , the perspective from the Arc de Trimphe is fantastic . Also the Champs Elysées are very nice particularly for the ambiance before Christmas, lot of shops are opened everyday. This year, Christmas and New year Eve are on Tuesday and a lot of stores will be open all the week-end and on Monday. Depending of where you are in France, traditions are not the same: In the North of France, children receive their gifts on December 6th and this is Saint Nicolas who bring the gifts. In the south of France, in Provence, this is in January that the Rois Mages bring the gifts. The most beautiful "Creches de Noel" (nativity scenes) are made in Provence . But Each year, there is a very nice nativity scene in Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral (I will go there and take snaps for you). The Christmas dinner is often an important family event in France either preceded or followed by the midnight church service (beginning in fact at 11pm) and by gifts distribution in front of the tree. For this dinner, we like to eat « living oysters » with just a drop of lemon or vinegar and brown bread with butter. Lemon and vinegar are for the taste but also for checking if the oyster is alive: It must retract in its shell with the lemon acidity. Be careful : It is not so easy and sometimes hazardous to open oysters as these animals do not like to be opened like that ! Anyway, you can ask the fish shop to open them for you or eat them at a restaurant . 6 or 12 are the right number per person . December is a good month to eat oyster because it is a month in « R » . It is recommended not to consume them in May, June, July and August ( no « R » in the words).
Paris to see : "Raphaël, Grâce et Beauté" Among all the current exhibitions in PARIS, may I suggest you one of them at the "Musée du Luxembourg "(located inside the Luxembourg gardens at the center ofParis) : "Raphaël, Grâce et Beauté" from October 10 2001 to january 27 2002. For the very first time in PARIS, a group of the most
important Raphael's paintings and drawings , coming from worldwide,
are presented thu an artistic and unpublished ittinerary. Thsu, instead of
writing too many lines on Raphael (I personally love his work), my
best recommendation is : Come to Paris and see this exhibition.
A bientot. Noelle from PARIS Champ de Mars. You like to read my previous letters: Any comments or feedbacks, please E-Mail
me at: Noelle@babiole.com * |
