Discover the Belle Époque sites of Paris

Close your eyes and think of Paris: the Tour Eiffel standing tall over the whole city, the exuberant façade of La Samaritaine, the iconic metro entrances with their dark green wrought-iron railings and retro lamps. They all date from the Belle Époque, which literally means the beautiful era, a 40-year period of fizzing excitement and innovation which has marked the city ever since. And if you know where to look, you can still discover the Belle Epoque sites of Paris…

The Belle Époque

When World War One broke out, Parisians knew it was the end of an era. For 40 years, since the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, life had been good. People had crowded into the shops and cafés of the Grands Boulevards created by Haussmann. Advances in technology saw the metro – opened in 1900 – replace horse-drawn carriages. And creativity was everywhere, in the art of Matisse and Toulouse-Lautrec, in the newly opened cinemas and in the city’s cabarets and dance halls. It really was a Belle Époque.

The Eiffel Tower, the tallest structure in the world at the time, was designed to impress with the very latest in engineering. 500 workers assembled 18,000 carefully numbered pieces to create a daring beauty which towered over the city and announced to the world that a new era had arrived. (Eiffel Tower podcast). The Gare d’Orsay, opened in 1900, was the first station in the world built for electric trains, another signal that Paris was in the forefront of progress. Visiting the Musée d’Orsay today, you can still see traces of the building’s heritage, for example in the beautiful Art Nouveau station clock which dominates the restaurant.

Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau architecture is found all over Paris today. As new metro stations opened in the early 1900s, many of their entrances were designed in Hector Guimard’s iconic style, with elegant cast-iron railings, sometimes roofed over by decorative iron and glass canopies. Art Nouveau first appeared in about 1890, featuring curved designs, often inspired by nature. You can find it on the façade of La Samaritaine and in Belle Époque era restaurants, and at 29 Avenue Rapp, a stone’s throw from the Eiffel Tower is one of the most impressive art nouveau doors ever created.

A good example is Le Boullion Julien in the Rue du Faubourg St-Denis, a monument historique where a mahogany bar and tables sit under a glass canopied ceiling and huge mirrors line the walls. The decorations include brass fittings, intricate plaster mouldings and designs featuring peacocks, flowers and – on the ceiling! – herons. Many of the Bouillon restaurants which opened in the 19th century to offer quality food at affordable prices, can still be visited today, a chance to go back in time and enjoy impeccable waiter service in art nouveau surroundings.

The city’s grandest Belle Époque restaurant is Le Train Bleu at the Gare de Lyon, which opened in 1901 as a station buffet. Its extravagant décor, designed to attract well-to-do customers wanting to dine before travelling south for the summer, was art nouveau taken to the very dizziest of heights. The golden ceiling is punctuated by chandeliers, the walls are covered in paintings. The tables are impeccably laid with the crispest of white tablecloths, the heaviest of proper cutlery and the shiniest of glasses. The very finest brasserie cuisine is served and if you find the prices a little higher than elsewhere, remind yourself that you are in a restaurant where Brigitte Bardot and Jean Cocteau chose to treat themselves.

If you want to wander an area of Paris and find the Belle Époque today, then here are three ideas.

A Belle Époque Grand Vista

Stroll across the Alexandre III bridge, from the left bank towards the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais. The bridge was built in 1900, its single elegant arch a technical triumph and its elaborate decorations fully Belle Époque in their exuberance: pairs of stately street-lamps line it, the decorations include dozens of carvings and gold-plated statues. And the vista is Belle Époque too, for it was built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900 to lead visitors across the Seine to two new exhibition halls which would showcase the latest in art and design, namely the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais.

The Grand Palais was another feat of engineering. The vast, elegant domed roof is supported by an iron and steel frame which looks light and airy, but in fact contains more metal than the Eiffel Tower! Normally used for large scale exhibitions, it is currently closed for renovation and not due to reopen until 2024. But the Petit Palais, which houses the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts, is open as usual and entry to the permanent exhibition is free, meaning it’s easy to have a look around the beautiful interior with its spiral staircases and curved iron railings, stained glass windows and ceiling murals. Its café, where a columned patio curves around a little garden, is always worth a visit.

Shopping à la Belle Époque

Wander the area around the Opéra. The Opéra Garnier itself, opened in 1875, harks back to the grandeur of the 2nd Empire, but the ‘Grands Boulevards’ with their exclusive cafes and shops were very much at the centre of Belle Époque excitement. It was here, in Boulevard des Capucines in 1895, that the public first paid to see the films of the Lumière Brothers – the beginnings of cinema in Paris – and grand new department stores were springing up, two of which you can still visit today.

At Printemps in Boulevard Haussmann, you can catch a little of the atmosphere by eating under a huge and beautiful stained-glass canopy at the 6th floor restaurant, the Bleue Coupole. The interior of the Galéries Lafayette, which originally opened in 1895, is very Belle Époque, especially the glorious central dome, visible from every floor, an exquisite 1000 square metres of art nouveau stained- glass. On the 2nd floor, there is a walkway out into the central space underneath the dome, so you can admire it. And – better still! – there’s a café with a ‘Vue sur Coupole’, perched on the side of the shop where you can enjoy classy little sandwiches and cakes while taking it all in. This chance for ‘un snacking raffiné, (a refined snack) is so popular, that you are asked to stay no longer than an hour!

Don’t forget Montmartre

The entrance to the Abbesses metro station is one of the city’s best kept examples of art nouveau. Its spectacular glazed canopy and elegant dark green wrought-iron railings sing Belle Époque, as do the surrounding old-fashioned street-lamps. Montmartre was very lively then too, a place where artists and musicians gathered in the cafes and revellers flocked to dance halls and cabarets like Le Chat Noir, the Moulin Rouge and the Follies Bergères.

Across the road from the station is one of the city’s few art nouveau churches, St Jean de Montmartre. It too was built at the turn of the century, using the newest techniques. Abbot Sobaux wanted his church to suit the new, industrial era, so he approved its structure of reinforced concrete with a red brick façade, meaning locals refer to it affectionately as Notre Dame des Briques. Inside, the décor is very art nouveau: patterned brick, relieved by ceramics in bronze, blue and gold.

The Musée de Montmarte covers a wide span of the area’s history, and you can learn lots about the Belle Époque there. There are early photographs of the Moulin Rouge and its well-known dancers, including La Goulue. There’s a whole collection of period posters for venues like Le Chat Noir, by Toulouse-Lautrec and others, and a section on the new – for the time! –shadow puppet shows, produced, for example in 1896 at the Boîte à Musique on the Boulevard de Clichy.

Any of these strolls will take you back to the Belle Époque, as indeed will just keeping your eyes open as you wander the streets of Paris.

Marian Jones is a former teacher of French now travel writer with a podcast – City Breaks, bringing listeners and readers the background history and culture which will inform their travels in l’Hexagone. citybreakspodcast.co.uk