Le Palais Garnier

Folks, I'm about to say something that will shock some of you: the Palais Garnier is, so far, my favorite place in all of Paris. Not the Louvre, not the Eiffel Tower, not Versailles, none of it. I loved the Palais Garnier more than any of them.

The Palais Garnier is Paris' premiere opera house. It was built from 1861 to 1875 and was designed by the architect Charles Garnier. Nowadays, the Paris Opera usually only performs ballet in the Palais Garnier. Actual operas and other shows are performed in the much newer, much larger, Opera de la Bastille. But the Palais Garnier is most famous for inspiring Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera. And I'm a HUGE fan of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, and this, along with the fact that the opera house is absolutely beyond gorgeous, is why I like the Palais Garnier so much. In fact, I walked around listening to the soundtrack the entire time.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to go into the theater itself while I was there, as they were having a rehearsal. But I'm definitely planning on going back at some point to see the chandelier (and Box 5, of course).

When you walk into the Opera House after buying your ticket in the entrance lobby, you come in underneath the famous staircase, which looks like this:

They are currently displaying throughout the opera house various costumes and accessories from past productions, which is what you see here. For two seconds I thought I was walking into another ridiculous modern art exhibit like Versailles, but thankfully that's not the case.

The grand staircase, as seen from the upper level. It looks EXACTLY the way it does in the movie version of Phantom, just with far less open space at the bottom. One of the first things I did here was plant myself in front of one of the pillars across from the bottom of the staircase and listen to "Notes/Prima Donna" and "Masquerade" in their entirety. Magical.

All of the upper levels above the staircase look like this.

The main hallway at the top and opposite side of the staircase. 

I thought that hallway was spectacular, but then parallel to this hallway on the left of the above picture is THIS hallway:

I was in awe. I think this hallway is far more beautiful and opulent than even the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.

Just a fraction of the murals on the ceiling.

Close up of one of the many chandeliers. 

At each end of the hall is a fireplace with some pretty magnificent art and architecture.

Then, parallel from THAT hallway to the left, you go outside.

The view.

Then, back inside, they have this section full of paintings and photographs of the opera house and people who have performed there. They also had these little dioramas of sets of different operas, which I thought were cool.

Each one is probably about 18 inches tall by about 24 inches wide, and between 12-18 inches deep.

The entryway at the middle of the staircase.

Some of the costumes on display.

The main facade. It's pretty much impossible to get a picture without a tour bus in the way. I stood there for a couple of minutes waiting to no avail. But up there is from where I took the photo of the view out over the street.