Whenever I travel to a new country, I try to purchase nativity scenes. I will be in Paris next week and was wondering if you knew of any shops that sells nativity scenes. Thanks!

Looking forward to the answers. I like creches also, but didn't see any in Paris.

You can go to

www.pagesjaunes.fr

and enter "creches de Noel".

It will bring up three types of listings;

a. santons, figurines
(Most often, in France, the individual figures are bought one by one; they are not often sold as a "set".)

b. artisanat
(Which can be anything on earth...)

c. articles religieux

Some of the listings have Web sites or short descriptions. You can make yourself a list of the most promising ones; I saw a few in the 6e and 7e arrondissements.

As I recall, there were a number of religious stores near St. Suplice. This was the neighborhood where I found my creche. I was just wandering around which was a joy in itself so I can't tell you exactly where I bought mine. Enjoy the search Deborah

Thank you for your responses. I look foward to exploring the area around St. Suplice,

I responded to this question for someone else about a month ago--try a search (I'm hopeless at that) and I'll see if I can retrieve the message from my e-mail box.

sorry, cumache, my mind goes where my fingers cannot follow, it's St. Sulpice . Watch out, if you go into a religious store those might be real nuns behind the counter funny, my rememberance of the only really rude Parisian was of a French nun in one of the religious shops, she was not very patient with my fumbling understanding of the French franc. Deborah

Sorry about that typo. If you think my French spelling is bad, you should hear my pronounciation (it's atrocious)!

Here's the information I received from a fellow santon-lover:

The shop where we found Santons is called Art et Religion, 12, rue du Vieux Colombier, 75006. The closest Metro is St Sulpice. Another shop that carries them is very near the church of Saint Sulpice in the north side of the square. We found the most selection in the period before Christmas. When we went to look last February, most of the Santons had been replaced with other objects.