During my backpacking days in the early 80s, I developed a fondness for the bustle of European train stations, the excitement of currency change, the stock-broker-like fascination for the names up on the big board, the grandchild-like fascination with the old ladies in southern Europe who would watch your luggage for a small fee as you explored the city or went searching for a place to bed down, and the mild-to-pronounced seediness of the station neighborhood.

Each major station was different in that it represented that city or region or country yet clearly was connected with other places, people, and culture. Not only was the train station of Berlin or Paris or Belgrade or Rome specific in its own right, but the atmosphere of each lent itself to imagining stations, and all that went with them, elsewhere: Brussels, Amsterdam, Vienna, Rome, Prague, etc. Everywhere I went the grand station announced: You have arrived—and tomorrow you can be someplace totally different.

The early 80s was, in a sense, the tail end of post-war train travel, particularly in France where the arrival of the first line of the TGV, the high-speed train, opened between Paris and Lyon in 1981. Extensions and new lines from Paris would follow: south to Nice, Montpellier, Bordeux; west to Brittany, north to the Chunnel, and, since 2007, east to Champagne, Lorraine, Alsace, and Germany.

Paris is unique in Europe in that it sustains four train stations for long-distance regional and international traffic—Nord North, Est/East, Lyon, and Montparnasse—and two for less distant regional traffic—St. Lazare and Austerlitz.

With each new tentacle of the TGV the corresponding train station in Paris has been renovated and modernized. The renovation of Gare de l’Est, the East Station, is the most recent of these.

Hall within west entrance of Gare de l'Est. Photo GLK.

Over the past week I’ve made periodic stops at Gare de l’Est to get a feel for the place. I’ve been there in the morning, in the afternoon (to interview the shop owner), during early evening rush hour, and during late evening downtime. The station is a 15-minute walk from my apartment. My initial intention was to go there once to write an article about a boutique in the station that sells products from the Lorraine region. But then I also decided to mention a shop outside the station, a caterer that sells Alsatian fare. And that turned into the broader investigation about Alsace and Lorraine in Paris that resulted into the article I posted yesterday in this sites Paris/Boutiques section.

Thursday night, leaving friends in the 18th arrondissement who had invited me over for dessert and digestif (one of those city invitations you get when you call a friend at 10pm and find out that he’s in the middle of dinner with another friend), I decided to walk home. It was 1:30am. It was a relatively mild evening, it had stopped raining, I had my coat on, and I had research to do.

On my way home I walk by Gare du Nord and checked out what brasseries were still busy at that hour and how safe the area felt at 2am (quite, it seemed to me that night). From there I wandered around the streets surrounding Gare de l’Est.

Once at home I realized that there was more to write about than I’d put in my boutique article. Among other things, I hadn’t mentioned a famous 40-foot long painting at Gare de l’Est (photo above). So I went back today for more research, which I’ll soon write up for an article in the Paris/Explorations section.

Like other stations, Gare de l’Est and its surroundings have surrendered to progress the excitement, seediness, and currency exchange of French train stations as I remember them from the early 80s. What it has now is history, and a smooth ride to Lorraine and Alsace, and, for me, an easy walk home.

East entrance to Gare de l'Est. Photo GLK.