Woke up after a good night’s sleep feeling ready and raring to go. The breakfast room was getting a facelift, so the hotel was providing breakfast in your room. We had the basic continental breakfast with tea, bread and pastries – figuring we would get lunch later, while we were out and about.

Today we decided to visit the “Grand Magasins” or big department stores to see their holiday displays. Both the Galeries Lafayette and Printemps are decked out for the holidays with window displays and decorations throughout the stores.

It didn’t take long to get there as we just retraced our steps from last evening. Once at the Aubert station, it was just a five minute walk over to Boulevard Haussmann. We started at Galeries Lafayette.

Galeries Lafayette is celebrating their 130th Christmas. Looking from the outside, I figured it would take my whole allowance just to buy a cookie. It seems like they had displays from every high end designer and luxury product company. But it doesn’t cost anything to look…right ?

First, the animated windows:

Interesting displays with a designer touch. Cute, but lacking that extra holiday feeling.

Inside is their famous Christmas tree hanging under the belle époque dome. This is where the pizazz factor comes in.

What a beautiful sight to see and you can’t miss it. The store is six floors plus the height of the dome and the tree was at least four floors tall. On the top of each hour, the tree lights change color and sparkle brightly. Very nice!

We spiraled our way up the escalators until we arrived at the top floor and then went out on the rooftop terrace. You get a great view of the city from there. I’m sure it would be even nicer on a warm sunny day; however we enjoyed it even with the clouds and grey skies.

Overall, it was a wonderful visit. They certainly make the place look festive. You’ll be so dazzled you probably won’t even feel your credit card burning through your wallet.

Next we went over to check out Printemps.

Printemps is known for their delightful window displays. This year’s theme is the Printemps Express. It’s a magical train ride to Christmas.

Printemps caught our imagination with their delightful, whimsical animated windows. We loved their historical sensibility. Such a delight.

Beautiful and with such a charming theme. It was fun to see the kids looking at the windows in awe and having such a good time.

I know these two kids enjoyed them, remembering seeing the windows at the old AM&A’s department store windows in downtown Buffalo.

There were so many people out and about that we decided not to have lunch there. Instead, we returned to our neighborhood and took a walk to find our way to this evening’s dinner restaurant. It ended up being an easy walk and before heading back to the hotel, we stopped for lunch.

We found a cute little Italian restaurant called Gioia that turned out to be a real treat. We shared a caprese salad, pasta carbonara and a pizza along with a bottle of Montepulciano wine. Everything was delicious and very reasonably priced. Honestly, we would have paid more at home.

Afterwards, we took a slow stroll back to the hotel to relax for a while. Unfortunately, we passed by the Christmas market so we arrived back at the hotel with a hunk of Nougat. That’s nougat with pistachios, almonds and hazelnuts. Yum!

Contrary to what you think, I didn’t dive into the nougat. Actually, I took a nap.

For dinner, we ventured over to Chez Fernand – Christine. It is located in the heart of the 6th arrondisement and is highly regarded for their boeuf bourguignon. It’s tucked away on a small side street and there were people waiting outside to get in when we arrived. They have two seatings each evening at 7:00 and 9:00.

Like lemmings heading towards the sea, we too ordered the boeuf bourguignon. However, we also order a bottle of Nuits St. George to go along. We enjoyed dinner, but it wasn’t the best we’ve ever had.

That said, we had a wonderful time. The seating was very tight and we had a lovely single woman sitting next to us. We ended up chatting while eating to find out she was apartment shopping in Paris. She is a doctor from Los Angeles, originally from Iran, studied in France thirty years ago and loves coming back. We had so much fun talking with her.

The walk back to the hotel afterwards was pleasant and it felt good to just relax for a while before heading to bed. We’ve been listening to an Apple Music smooth jazz Christmas playlist each evening and enjoying it very much.