3 Stars
Located near Saint Lazare station, Passage du Havre is a good alternative for shopping as you can find in one place a lot of renowned brands (Zara, Etam, H&M).
Easily accessible, it is not very crowded (at least in the week days). Women / Men Clothes
Bath and beauty products Affordable prices.
Japanese restaurants in Paris are often expensive and aimed at Japanese tourist or business clientele.
Little Kyoto located between the Gare St-Lazare and the Boulevard Haussman is not of that type. Customers here are Parisiens who work in that commercial area of La Madeleine and Bvd Hausmann with all the large and small shops as well as offices.
At lunch time the restaurant is full, it's better to come early or in the evening.
The cook is a Korean who worked in Japan; the waiters are very kind as well with the many "habitués" as with the tourists, often Asiatic, from the hotels in that area.
As on my trips to Paris I usually stay in the quartier de la Madeleine, I came a dozen times here for dinner.
The food is very good with the usual Japanese sushi, sashimi, maki based on raw fish and the brochettes yakitori. There is no teppan-yaki grill which is considered here as a show. Prices are reasonable.
The menu is in French but the photographs show the composition of the plates.
A very good address if you stay in that area or are shopping at Bvd. Hausmann (Printemps) or at the FNAC and close to the Metro and RER station of St-Lazare. Rue de l'isly is a small street perpendicular to Rue du Havre. Sashimi
The idea of providing protected shopping 'centers' is as old as trading : no one wants the goods to be ruined or the potential custommer deterred by weather conditions. The form may differ depending on the era and the country but such places always and everywhere exist(ed), be they souks, covered markets or shopping malls.
While the wooden galeries du Palais Royal, built in 1786 and destroyed since, are considered as the parisian galeries prototype, the real expansion of the concept occured in the first half of the19th century.
More than 30 passages or galeries have been built since and most of them still exist, each of them having its own personality: from the luxuous shops in Galerie Vivienne and Colbert to the simple passage way like Passage Dauphine, from the fashion designers haunt in Passage du Grand Cerf to the little Indian/Pakistan restaurants' collection in the shaddy Passage Brady; including the more 'classical' Passage Verdeau, Passage Jouffroy and Passage des Panoramas.
After a quasi-disapearance during the 2nd empire (overshadowed by the new 'Grands Magasins'), they found a second youth at the end of the 20th century and continue to change : the Passage du Havre has been renovated and turned into a modern mini-mall, new passages have even been created like the marche Saint Honore (hosting furniture designers)...
But they all have some things in common, the light and the sounds: due to their glass roofs, the natural light, even filtered through pebble-glass differs from any sort of man-made light, and they retain this incredible quality of peace due to muted sounds.
Some more photos here
You can get concert tickets or a Museum Pass at the big fnac store in the shopping center at Forum Les Halles. I have also ordered opera tickets through their website www.fnac.com. Besides tickets, they also sell books, CDs and DVDs, computers, television sets, cameras, video-games, etc.
Actually there are eight fnac stores in Paris, all with ticket sales. Besides the one at Forum Les Halles, they are located:
• at 4, place de la Bastille, near the new opera house
• in the Galerie du Claridge, 74, avenue des Champs-Elysées
• at 77-81, boulevard Saint-Germain
• the 13th arrondissment at 30, avenue d'Italie
• in Paris-Montparnasse at 136, rue de Rennes
• in the Passage du Havre at 109, rue Saint-Lazare
• in the 17th arrondissment at 26-30, avenue des Ternes
Nobody in France seems to know what fnac stands for, not even people who work there, but in fact the initials are for "Fédération nationale d'achats des cadres" because the company was originally founded in 1954 as a purchasing service for civil servants.
Strangely enough, the two founders of fnac were militant Trotskyite Communists, and one of them was even a former bodyguard of Leon Trotsky.
Second photo: Entrance to the fnac store in Forum Les Halles.
Passage du Havre
L'Open Tour, Paris
diagrams on the pedestal
The Vero-Dodat restaurant, very "chic".
Bonjour.
Pardon me for not able to communicate in French. I will be visiting Paris for the first time in Mid Dec ths year. I have been told that the language used at Disneyland Paris is French. I would like to verify this. Merci.
We visited in 2002 - couple of Australians - and had no troubles :-) ie English was fine. I was amused when at the front of lines for rides, when the operators would ask (admittedly in French) how many together and I would answer 'deux' (2 in French) and just from that one word, they would work out we weren't French, clarify 'two?' and thereafter speak to us in English. Enjoy!
We didn't have any problems either - even the shows were in English. Have a great time - don't miss the parade!
My son and I had been to Disney Paris so many many times. English is widely spoken, so , no problem about it.
Yep - French but English is spoken everywhere when taking meals, queuing for rides etc.
The only difference between Paris and , say , Orlando is the way they say "Have a Nice Day" LOLOL
In the southern part of the city, not far form Austerlitz Railway station there is Jardin des Plantes (Botanic Garden). The park is old enough and was founded in the first quarter of XVI century. The Park is very popular among children because here they can see animals in the little zoo (the entrance fee is EUR 5 around as far as I remember it right way :-)).
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Address: 18 rue d'Amsterdam, 9th Arr., Paris, Ile-de-France, 75009, France
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