Today, the Saint Lazare station is one of the largest in Paris, and in terms of the number of passengers carried, it ranks second in Europe, because more than 100 million people pass through it a year.
How it all began
In 1837, the first single-track railway line was laid, connecting Paris and the commune of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. A small wooden station building appeared. It was a temporary structure that was later destroyed. Just four years later, a new station was built in Paris, but it was also made of wood and did not last long.
The railway service in France was actively developing, additional lines were being laid, which meant that a spacious building was required that could accommodate the increased number of passengers. The new Parisian station appeared in 1853. Thanks to the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889, the building was expanded and acquired the appearance it has today.
The impressionists forever glorified the station
As luck would have it, famous artists lived in the area around the Saint-Lazare station at the end of the 19th century. Many of them depicted the landmark in their paintings, making Saint-Lazare truly famous. Edouard Manet captured it in the painting “The Railway”. Gustave Caillebotte in his canvases “The Bridge of Europe” and “On the Bridge of Europe” depicted an iron bridge stretching over a marshalling yard.
But most of all, the building of the Parisian station inspired the painter Claude Monet. He captured Saint-Lazare on 12 of his canvases! Claude Monet's studio was located near the station. He was so fascinated by the aesthetics of industrialization, the dynamism of the era associated with technical progress, that Monet constantly depicted rails, locomotives, and movement in his paintings. At the artist's request, the drivers threw coal into the firebox so that the train could release more steam - the play of light and shadow that appeared in the clouds of steam impressed the artist. Thanks to Monet’s unique brushwork technique, the sun’s reflections are perfectly conveyed in the paintings, and the locomotives seem to be the living embodiment of the era of industrialization and technological progress.
The Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris became such a frequent element in Impressionist paintings that in 1998 the Musée d'Orsay and the National Gallery of Art in Washington organized an exhibition under the sonorous title “Manet, Monet and the Gare Saint-Lazare.” Writers also paid attention to the famous landmark. So Emile Zola mentions him in the novel “The Animal Man”, and Roland Sadon’s book is called “Gare Saint-Lazare”.
The Paris train station still inspires artists today. In front of the main entrance, passengers' attention is attracted by an unusual sculpture - a lot of suitcases stacked on top of each other. Contemporary sculptor Armand Pierre Fernandez called his work “The Eternal Storage Chamber.” The Parisians treated this work with a degree of irony, renaming it “Monument to an Absent-Minded Passenger.”
We continue to explore Paris. 9th arrondissement of Paris, Gare Saint-Lazare area. Diaries of a trip to Paris
This time, going to Paris, we decided to choose a hotel somewhere in the Opera area, perhaps a little closer to Montmartre. The main purpose of the trip was to attend events related to one of the most vibrant autumn French festivals - the Harvest Festival, which takes place annually in mid-October and all events take place in Montmartre. We decided to choose a hotel so that Montmartre and other main Parisian attractions were within walking distance, spent a long time sorting through the options and settled on a budget option (we needed either a large triple room or two separate rooms) of accommodation at the Hotel De Dieppe, because the choice was available rooms at reasonable prices were sooooo limited. To be honest, the hotel is so-so, suitable for those who care about their travel budget: the rooms are small, but clean. The stairs are narrow and steep, but the staff is cool :) But the hotel has one big plus - location! Directly opposite the hotel is the Saint-Lazare train station (in the evening it is absolutely calm), so there is a large transport hub right here: RER trains and the metro - you can get to anywhere in Paris (the metro is 50 meters away). The area is full of cafes and restaurants, only 200 meters from an excellent large grocery store and the most famous Parisian department stores.
Well, now some photos of the surrounding area. Place Saint-Lazare: the main attraction is a cool stele made from a clock
There are several Starbucks, Hippopotamus, a couple of pizzerias around, and there are countless French cafes. Sometimes young people in the square organize various flash mobs, here is a short video:
All streets in this area bear the names of cities. We lived on Rue d'Amsterdam. It doesn't look much like Amsterdam, except for the presence of a couple of elderly prostitutes in the alley behind the hotel :)
Near Budapest Square with a small cozy park
In general, the surrounding area is not particularly remarkable... In the morning at 6-7 o'clock in the narrow adjacent streets there are quite a lot of homeless people (although there are plenty of them throughout Paris, even in the center) and there is a persistent smell of ammonia everywhere. By 8 o'clock the homeless people have disappeared, the streets have already been cleaned and nowhere stinks. And there is nothing for a tourist to do on the street before 9 o’clock in the morning; anyway, nothing is open yet, except that the eateries open early...
On the streets, pedestrians, cars, buses and the ubiquitous scooters. The usual Parisian bustle. But if you look into the courtyard...
Peace and grace...
This is such a neighborhood - not enough romance, but it’s convenient. In the same building as our hotel there is the Grand Hotel du Havre, if proximity to the metro, a normal hall and fairly comfortable rooms are important to you, then I advise you to take a closer look at this hotel. If the distance of 200-250 meters to the metro is not important, pay attention to the Villathena Hotel, the hotel has very good reviews and the prices are quite affordable.
The station is located in the northwestern part of the city. More than 160 thousand passengers a day use its services every day, making it one of the largest stations not only in France, but throughout Western Europe. Since 2006, passenger traffic at the station has been steadily increasing by 12% per year. The interval between trains during peak hours is only 28 seconds, and up to 1,600 trains pass through the station during the day. Its doors are open for passengers from 05:00 to 01:15.
Train directions
Most trains heading north-west to Normandy cities depart from Gare Saint-Lazare. For example, it will take about three hours to get to Rouen for 20 €. A ticket to Le Havre or the resort towns of Trouville and Deauville will cost approximately 32 €. Trains also depart from its platforms to Churbourg, Dieppe, Honfleurud, and commuter passenger transportation is carried out in the western part of the Ile-de-France department.
The main routes followed by trains from Paris include:
- branch to Le Havre
- branch to Versailles-Rive-Droite
- branch to Saint-Germain-en-Laye
- branch to Emont-Eaubonne
- branch to Manti (Mantes-Station)
For passenger transportation, 27 railway tracks are regularly used, divided into 5 groups:
- paths 1-4 used for trains traveling from/to: Versailles-Rive-Droite and Saint-Nom-la-Bretêche;
- paths 5-8: Nantes (Nanterre-Université), Maisons-Laffitte and Cergy-le-Haut;
- paths 9-12: Ermont-Eaubonne, Cormeilles-en-Parisis;
- paths 13-17: Mantes, Évreux, Vernon;
- paths 18-27: Mantes, Pontoise and Gisors.
All tracks are located perpendicular to the station building, which greatly simplifies access to trains for passengers.
Transport accessibility of the station
Buses. The oldest train station in Paris is connected to various areas of the city by more than fifteen city bus routes. The operating hours of the machines on the line are from 6:05-22:30, the ticket price is 6 €.
Bus stops are located on the streets:
- Roman Court (Cour de Rome): No. 20, 26, 53, 80
- Saint-Lazare (Rue Saint-Lazare): No. 22, 94
- Havre Square (pl. du Havre): No. 81, 95
- Square G. Péri (pl. Gabriel Péri): No. 21, 24, 32, 43, 66
- La Arcade (r. de l’Arcade): No. 27, 29
- Rocher (r. du Rocher): No. 28
Night buses. At night, two transport companies are engaged in transporting passengers along 11 routes to the Saint-Lazare train station: Noctilien Transilien SNCF and Noctilien RATP.
The operating hours of the routes are from 00:30 to 5:30, the ticket price is 7.6-8.0 €. You can pay for your ticket from the driver or using your Paris Visite e-ticket.
Route stops are located on the streets:
- Roman Court (Cour de Rome: No. 2, 16, 150, 151, 152, 154;
- Saint-Lazare (Rue Saint-Lazare): No. 53, 153;
- La Arcade (r. de l’Arcade): No. 51, 52;
- G. Peri Square (pl. Gabriel Péri): No. 1, 15.
Metro. Five metro lines converge in the area of the Saint-Lazare train station: 3, 9, 12, 13, 14. Taking into account the RER E line, one of the largest interchange hubs in the world is located here. All lines are connected to each other by a complex system of transitions, which can only be understood with the help of signs. You can enter the Saint-Lazare station either through the entrance at the Le Havre courtyard, or from the station building itself by going down to the lower level.
PER. Urban rail transport (Metro+RER) is the most convenient way to get to Saint-Lazare Station. It surpasses bus service due to its speed, and taxis in terms of cost of travel. Moreover, the metro ticket is valid on commuter trains of the RER network and allows you to make one transfer within 80 minutes. Metro operating hours are from 6:00 to 00:40. The cost of one trip is 1.8 €, a pass for 10 trips is 14.10 € (also valid on the RER, buses and trams).
Parking
The Resaplace car park in front of Gare Saint-Lazare is open daily from 05:00 to 01:00. There is no charge for the first 15 minutes of parking. The minimum fee for 15 minutes is 1 €, the maximum for 12 hours is 14 €. Clients are also offered packages of motorcycle security services for the duration of an evening visit (8 €) and for different periods from 3 (48 €) to 8 days (90 €). Separate parking areas are allocated for storing motorcycles and bicycles.
Additional services include car washing. provision of a lift for the disabled, video surveillance, phone charger, luggage trolleys, shoe shine machine, sale of city maps, drinks and confectionery. There is an information screen with train schedules at the parking lot.
Services, shops and restaurants
The old station building can hardly cope with the huge flow of passengers. Due to an acute shortage of available space, the Saint-Lazare station does not have full-fledged waiting rooms. Instead, there are several small recreation areas where you can wait for the train to leave, connect to the Internet and use an electrical outlet. Such areas are located not only in the building, but also directly on the street under a canopy. For the same reason, there is no luggage storage at the station and porter services are not provided.
Unfortunately, sometimes it happens that a tourist gets seriously injured during a trip and finds it difficult to move independently - then SNCF escort service agents will come to his aid. The main office of the service is located in the station building opposite track 22, but you can invite an agent using a call button from a special terminal. He will provide, if necessary, a wheelchair, a mobile ramp or an elevator ramp for boarding the train. This service provides support and security for children aged 4 to 14 years and people with disabilities.
The Lost and Found service will help you return your things that were forgotten somewhere absent-mindedly at the station. To contact them you need to go to the office, near track 27 and write a statement or call 36-35-22 at the station Call Center and indicate the reason for the call (connection cost 0.34 €/min). You can also ask a question on the Internet at www.objets-trouves-sncf.com. The amount of payment for the service when returning a lost item, depending on its value, is 5-10 €.
Ticket offices for domestic flights in the Normandy direction are located on the ground floor to the right of the Cour du Havre. Tickets for international trains can be purchased at the ticket office next to the main entrance. Suburban ticket offices are located in the center of the station at the exit to the platform next to the pharmacy. In addition, train tickets can be purchased at Transilien self-service terminals on platforms, on the street and in the metro.
To exchange cash at the station, you can use the Travelex office, which is located in the left wing of the station near the Roman Court (cour de Rome). The exchange office is open from Monday to Saturday from 08:00 to 19:00, and on Sunday from 10:30 to 17:00.
You can also top up your wallet with cash using 10 terminals located on the platform near track 12, on the street near the Roman Court and the Swatch store, next to the metro station near the Esprit boutique and other places.
The station building houses about 80 different shops. While waiting for the train, you can visit the Jeff de Bruges confectionery and delicatessen store, the Hema fashion accessories boutique, or the Pandora jewelry store, among others.
Before a long journey, you can while away the time in the pleasant interior of a typical Italian coffee shop, Segafredo Zanetti. The establishment's signature drink is espresso brewed from green coffee. The Lazare restaurant, located on the ground floor of the building, invites you to taste the culinary masterpieces of traditional French cuisine.
A little history
The first building of the Saint-Lazare station was built in 1837 on the Place de l’Europe for the opening of the Paris-Saint-Germain railway. Empress Marie-Amelie, wife of Louis Philippe, took part in its opening. It was originally a simple wooden building, which was demolished after just 4 years. Instead, a new station was built on r. de Stockholm, but it turned out to be a temporary building.
For the third time, the Saint-Lazare station was built on its modern site according to the design of the architect E. Flasch in 1842-1853. The station received its fully finished appearance only in 1889. Its reconstruction for the opening of the World Exhibition was carried out according to the design of J. Lichoux.
In the middle of the 19th century. the station had only 14 tracks, but gradually their number was increased to 27. Already in 1924, the first suburban line was electrified, and the process of converting locomotives to electric traction was completed in the 1960s.
Somewhat unexpected was the decision made by the management company SNCF in the spring of 2012 to place a large shopping center on three floors of the station, including 80 shops and about 10 cafes and restaurants. In order to free up space at the station, waiting rooms and storage rooms were eliminated.
How to get there
Address: 13 Rue d'Amsterdam, Paris 75008Telephone: 3635
Website: gares-sncf.com/fr/gare/frpsl/paris-saint-lazare
Metro: Saint-Lazare
RER train: Haussmann-Saint-Lazare
Updated: 07/22/2015
Gare Saint-Lazare is one of the six major train stations in Paris, ranking second in Europe in terms of passenger traffic after Gare du Nord and serving 450,000 passengers per day, metro station (164.25 million people per year) and trains of several lines of Normandy.
The first Saint-Lazare station was 200 m northwest of its current location and was called the Embarcadère des Batignolles. Its opening took place on August 24, 1837 in the presence of Marie-Amelie (wife of King Louis-Philippe of France). The first single-track line led from the station to the commune of Saint Germain-en-Laye. By 1843, Gare Saint-Lazare became the terminus of three railway lines (nine by 1900). In 1854, after expansion, the station had 14 platforms. Trains are now operated on 27 platforms, grouped into six groups according to destination. On April 27, 1924, the internal suburban lines were connected to the contact rail at a voltage of 750 V. In the 1960s, the same lines were connected to the overhead current collection at a voltage of 25 kV.
The Gare Saint-Lazare is depicted in many works of art. This building especially attracted impressionist artists, many of whom lived nearby in the 1870s and 1880s.
Two years after moving to this area (house 4, rue de Saint-Pétersbourg), Edouard Monet exhibited his painting “The Railway” (Le Chemin de Fer) at the Paris Salon of 1874. This painting, now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., depicts a woman with a small dog and a book, sitting in front of an iron grate, and a girl looking at railroad tracks and locomotive steam. The artist painted this picture in the backyard of a house located on the Rue de Rome. During its first showing, this work became the subject of ridicule and criticism.
Gustave Caillebotte also lived a few steps from the station. In 1876 he painted "The Bridge of Europe" (Le Pont de l'Europe) (now in the Petit Palais Museum in Geneva, Switzerland), and in 1876-80 - the canvas "On the Bridge of Europe" ( On the Pont de l'Europe (Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth). The first painting shows a metal bridge structure crossing the painting diagonally to the right, with several human figures to the left of it. The second painting shows a close-up of the iron bridge in all its industrial geometry, with three men standing to the left of it, looking in different directions (the Pont Europa is a huge bridge with iron gratings, looming over the marshalling yard of the newly expanded railway station).
Less famous artists also depicted the Gare Saint-Lazare: Jean Béraud in 1876-78 painted the Place and the Bridge of Europe, and Norbert Goeneutte (1854-1894), who worked in the studio from which it opened a beautiful view of the Bridge of Europe, depicted it in many of his paintings in the late 1880s. One of the paintings, The Pont de l'Europe and Gare Saint-Lazare, dates from about 1888 (now in the Baltimore Museum).
An engraving by Auguste Lamy shows the Place de la Pont de l'Europe at its opening in 1868.
One of the most famous photographs in the world, Derrière la gare de Saint-Lazare, taken in 1932 by Henri Cartier-Bresson, shows the wasteland located behind the station.
In 1998, the Musée D'Orsay and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., organized an exhibition entitled "Manet, Monet and the Gare Saint-Lazare." ).
Gare Saint-Lazare appears in the novels La Bête humaine by Emile Zola and Terminus St-Lazare by Roland Sadaune.
In addition, this structure can be seen in the 1995 film “French Kiss” with Kevin Kline and Meg Ryan. In the final scene in Paris, Kevin Kline's character, pursued by Inspector Jean-Paul Cardon (Jean Reno), attempts to board a train heading south to Cannes.
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| Where | Where | Price | ||
| Gare Lazare (Paris) | Gare de Lyon Paris | from 3255 p. | show | |
| Gare Lazare (Paris) | Paris | from 3698 p. | show | |
| Gare Lazare (Paris) | from 3698 p. | show | ||
| Gare Lazare (Paris) | Paris North Station | from 3698 p. | show | |
| Gare Lazare (Paris) | Paris Orly Airport | from 3698 p. | show | |
| Gare Lazare (Paris) | Gare d'Austerlitz (Paris) | from 3698 p. | show | |
| Gare Lazare (Paris) | Courbevoie | from 4216 p. | show | |
| Gare Lazare (Paris) | Versailles | from 5104 p. | show | |
| Gare Lazare (Paris) | Disneyland Paris | from 5548 p. | show | |
| Gare Lazare (Paris) | Paris Beauvais-Tille Airport | from 6953 p. | show | |
| Gare Lazare (Paris) | Mantes-la-Jolie | from 7397 p. | show | |
| Gare Lazare (Paris) | Giverny | from 10208 p. | show | |
| Where | Where | Price | ||
| Gare de Lyon Paris | Gare Lazare (Paris) | from 3255 p. | show | |
| Paris | Gare Lazare (Paris) | from 3698 p. | show | |
| Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport | Gare Lazare (Paris) | from 3698 p. | show | |
| Paris Orly Airport | Gare Lazare (Paris) | from 3698 p. | show | |
| Paris North Station | Gare Lazare (Paris) | from 3698 p. | show | |
| Gare d'Austerlitz (Paris) | Gare Lazare (Paris) | from 3698 p. | show | |
| Courbevoie | Gare Lazare (Paris) | from 4216 p. | show | |
| Versailles | Gare Lazare (Paris) | from 5104 p. | show | |
| Disneyland Paris | Gare Lazare (Paris) | from 5548 p. | show | |
| Paris Beauvais-Tille Airport | Gare Lazare (Paris) | from 6953 p. | show | |
| Mantes-la-Jolie | Gare Lazare (Paris) | from 7397 p. | show | |
| Giverny | Gare Lazare (Paris) | from 10208 p. | show | |
