Louvre & Les Halles - Paris - page 262

The Galerie de Valois is the most upmarket arcade with designer boutiques like Stella
McCartney, Pierre Hardy, Didier Ludot and coat-of-arms engraver Guillaumot, at work at
Nos 151 to 154 since 1785. Across the garden, in the Galerie de Montpensier , the Revolu-
tion broke out on a warm mid-July day just three years after the galleries opened in the Café
du Foy. The third arcade, tiny Galerie Beaujolais , is crossed by Passage du Perron , a pas-
sageway above which the writer Colette (1873-1954) lived out the last dozen years of her
life.
Centre Pompidou

SHOPPING MALL

FORUM DES HALLES
( MAP GOOGLE MAP ; www.forumdeshalles.com ; 1 rue Pierre Lescot, 1er;

shops 10am-8pm Mon-

Sat; Châtelet-Les Halles)
Paris' main wholesale food market stood here for nearly 800 years before being replaced by
this underground shopping mall in 1971. Four floors of stores extend down to the city's
busiest metro hub, while a massive renovation project - with an enormous golden-hued
translucent canopy as centrepiece - is under way, with a target completion date of 2016.
Spilling out from the curvilinear, leaf-like rooftop will be new gardens designed by land-
scaper David Mangin, with pétanque and chess tables, a central patio and pedestrian walk-
ways. The project will also open up the shopping centre, allowing for more natural light.
Renovation is being undertaken in stages; hence business should continue more or less as
usual, with minimal disruption. Follow the project at www.parisleshalles.fr or pop into the
information centre on place Joachim du Bellay, a pretty square pierced by the Fontaine des
Innocents (1549). The multi-tiered Renaissance fountain is named after the Cimetière des
Innocents, a cemetery formerly on this site from which two million skeletons were disin-
terred after the Revolution and transferred to the Catacombes.
Église St-Eustache

ART MUSEUM

MUSÉE EN HERBE
( MAP GOOGLE MAP ; 01 40 67 97 66; www.musee-en-herbe.com ; 21 rue Hérold, 1er; admission
€6; 10am-7pm Fri-Wed, to 9pm Thu; ; Les Halles)
One of the city's great backstreet secrets, this children's museum is a surprise gem for art
lovers of every age, not just kids. Its permanent exhibition changes every March and focuses
on the work of one artist or theme through a series of interactive displays.
Captions are in English as well as French, children get a jeu de piste (activity sheet) to
guide and entertain, and additional workshops and guided visits for kids and adults - think