Monday, October 13, 2014

This afternoon we took care of some business concerning our return flights home. The British Airways office was on the boulevard Haussman, not far from the Grands Magasins so after the BA, we thought that we would go to the Printemps department store for tea. Some of you may remember this store from previous year's blogs. At that time had tea in the 6th floor tearoom which has a marvelous domed roof. It turned out that the afternoon started out with nothing but disaster. When we arrived at the boulevard Haussman, we found that BA was no longer located there, but was only at the airport. So that took care of that. Then we went down the street to the Printemps, went up to the sixth floor and found that the restaurant was closed for a private party. Second disaster.  On the way down in the elevator, I noticed that the pastry shop, Ladurée, had a tearoom on the first floor so we went there. What a stroke of luck. We found a lovely, comfortable tearoom. We had our tea and dessert there. Here is the tearoom and two photos of displays for macarons for which Ladurée is famous. We had four minis and they were delicious.

After tea, we headed off to St. Sulpice where we had decided to have dinner at Le Mâchon d'Henri, one of our favorites. On the way we passed by an old mansion, converted into an office building where Marcel Proust had once lived. See the sign on the building.

Just a bit past the building, we could see down a side street the gare St. Lazare, one of the famous railroad stations in Paris.

We arrived at the restaurant just after seven and were the first there. We managed to get our favorite seat next to the window that looks out on the street, a small one only one block long called la rue Guirsade. It is lined with many small restaurants and cafés. By seven thirty it had started to fill up. Here is what it looks like when empty.

The menu.

Our glasses of wine for dinner.

After dinner we headed back since it had been a rather long and somewhat disappointing early afternoon.