Les Grands Magasins

Our favorite department store in the world is the Bazar de l'hotel de Ville, known generally as the BHV, on Rivoli, just across from, you guessed it, the Hotel de Ville. Printemps and Galeries Lafayette are fine if you're crazy rich. Actually affordable and useful things are at the BHV, and our favorite department, apart from kitchenware, is the basement hardware store, which is always fascinating. We breezed right through the huge electrical, plumbing, lighting, garden, tools, paints, and other usual departments to hit some of the more interesting curiosities.

For example, shoe and leather care...Paris has hundreds of shoe repair shops,
yet there apparently is something in the Gallic spirit about DIY shoe care; this
is one of four rows of various kinds and colors of shoe polish 

Shoe repair materials

A whole wall of inserts

Shoe horns, ranging in price from 8E to, well, the ones that probably belong at
Galeries Lafayette

A wall of leather

A bit of the brush department

More brushes

Wood landscaping items

Probably won't find these at Ace or Home Depot

A smidgeon of the sign department

Your own Paris street sign for only 199E

You rang, Monsieur?

And the piece de resistance: Parisian mousetraps (piege a
souris); Parisian mice are very fashion-conscious

Meanwhile, up on the 3rd floor, hundreds of different wine bottle openers to choose
from; Chateau Screwtop has never caught on here

And your own apero guillotine, which I do want

Our party, Penelope, Rebecca, Vicki, and me, elected to
walk to our next department store, Le Bon Marche, beyond
St. Germain de Pres...and so among the many interesting
establishments encountered on the left side was this academic
regalia store

And the very popular Maison Georges Larnicol chocolate store;
the life-sized Egyptian chocolate thing marks the appearance of
the Two-Tank-Amen exhibit at the Parc Villette

Eventually we got to the Bon and our goal, its grande epicerie Paris, that is,
its food hall; unfortunately, I was so engrossed marveling at what they had, and
didn't have, I forgot to take any pix

Among the many beautiful buildings along the way, the Lutetia (the Roman
name for Paris, a convenient ford)