Place de l’Opéra

The site of Paris’ world-famous (and original) opera house. It abuts the Grands Boulevards, the eight contiguous ‘Great Boulevards’ – Madeleine, Capucines, Italiens, Montmartre, Poissonnière, Bonne Nouvelle, St-Denis and St-Martin – that stretch from elegant place de la Madeleine in the 8e eastwards to the more plebeian place de la République in the 3e, a distance of just under 3km.

The Grands Boulevards were laid out in the 17th century on the site of obsolete city walls and served as a centre of café and theatre life in the 18th and 19th centuries, reaching the height of fashion during the belle époque. North of the western end of the Grands Boulevards is bd Haussmann (8e and 9e), the heart of the commercial and banking district and known for some of Paris’ most famous department stores, including Galeries Lafayette and Le Printemps.