TUILERIES AND OPERA The 19th-century grandeur of Baron Haussmann's Grands Boulevards offsets the bustle of bankers, theater-goers, sightseers and shoppers who frequent the area around the Opera.
In the neighbourhood, a profusion of shops and department stores draws the crowds. Much of the area's older character is found in the early 19th-century shopping arcades, with elaborate steel and glass roofs. They are known as "galleries" or "passages" and were restored to their former glory in the 1970s.