| French post offices (bureaux de poste or PTTs) – look for bright yellow-and-blue La Poste signs – are generally open from 8am to 7pm Monday to Friday, and 8am to noon on Saturday. However, Paris's main office, at 52 rue du Louvre, 1er (M° Étienne-Marcel), is open 24 hours (for all postal services, but not banking and money changing). It's the best place to have your mail sent, unless you have a particular branch office in mind. Poste restante letters should be addressed (preferably with the surname first, underlined and in capitals) to Poste Restante, 52 rue du Louvre, 75001 Paris (tel 01.40.28.76.00). To collect your mail, you need a passport or other convincing ID, and there'll be a charge of around €0.46 for every letter. You should ask for all your names to be checked, as filing systems are not brilliant. Most post offices now have yellow-coloured guichet automatiques – automatic machines that weigh your letter or package and give you the correct stamps (timbres), as well as sticky labels and tape, saving you a lot of time queuing for counter service. Instructions are in English and French. You'll need small change; there should be a machine that can change notes. Standard letters (20g or less) and postcards within France and to European Union countries cost €0.46, to North America €0.67 and to Australia and New Zealand €0.79. For sending letters, remember that you can also buy stamps from tabacs. For further information on postal rates, among other things, log on to the post office website www.laposte.fr. You can send faxes from post offices: the official French word is télécopie, but "fax" is commonplace. You can also use the Internet at post offices, change money, and make photocopies and phone calls. To post your letter on the street, look for the bright yellow post boxes.
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