10 Things to Do Near the Paris Opera House, Nearest First

A visit to the Palais Garnier takes about ninety minutes, which leaves you most of a day in the Opéra quarter. If you have not booked the visit itself yet, Opera Garnier Paris tours are set out with what each fare covers.

The ten, side by side

The list runs nearest first, measured on foot from the visitors' door at the corner of Rue Scribe and Rue Auber, where your visit starts and ends. The map page shows you which corner that is.

On the opera house's own block

1. The Musée du Parfum Fragonard

You will find it at 9 Rue Scribe, about 50 metres along the street from the visitors' door. Entry is free and you do not need to book. It opened in 1983 as the first perfume museum in Paris, and its rooms follow perfume-making from raw materials to bottling.

Free guided tours run when a guide is available and last 30 minutes to an hour. The museum opens daily at 9:00 and closes at 17:30 Monday to Saturday, earlier on Sunday. If you need step-free access, email 72 hours ahead.

One private departure, the Private Opera Garnier Tour, meets beside this museum. The private tours page compares it with the others.

2. The Café de la Paix

It faces the opera house from 5 Place de l'Opéra, with listed Napoleon III decor, a café and a terrace. By its own description it runs all day and late into the night, and it is where the two-hour private tour meets.

The two department stores on Boulevard Haussmann

3. The Galeries Lafayette dome and rooftop

The store is at 40 Boulevard Haussmann, about 250 metres from the door. Walk in and look up: the dome rises 43 metres, and the store was inaugurated under it in October 1912. Louis Majorelle designed the banister of its staircase, which the store says was inspired by the Paris Opera House. You are looking at an answer to the staircase Charles Garnier built across the boulevard.

The rooftop terrace is on the 8th floor and it is free, with no ticket and no reservation. It opens 10:00 to 20:00 Monday to Saturday and from 11:00 on Sundays and public holidays, and it can shut in rain or strong wind. The lifts stop at the 7th floor and staff help you with the last flight. From the top you see the Eiffel Tower, Sacré-Coeur and the opera house across the boulevard.

The two-hour private tour that ends on the roof spends 1 hour 40 minutes inside the opera house and finishes on this terrace.

4. Printemps Haussmann

Carry on west to 64 Boulevard Haussmann, about 450 metres from the door. Printemps was established in 1865 and has an art deco dome of its own, plus a rooftop terrace with a panoramic view. If you are hungry, the Printemps du Goût food floors are on the 7th and 8th floors of the men's building.

South and west of the visitors' door

5. Place Vendôme and its column

About 550 metres south of the door you reach a public square. The column at its centre is 44 metres high and was placed there in 1810, dedicated to the soldiers of Austerlitz. It is modelled on Trajan's column in Rome, and its bronze was cast from 1,200 captured cannons.

6. La Madeleine

The church stands at 1 Place de la Madeleine, about 600 metres away, and it is open to all visitors from 9:30 to 19:00 every day. Napoleon commissioned it to honour his armies, and 52 columns run round the outside. If you need step-free entry, use the lift on the Boulevard Malesherbes side.

7. The Chapelle expiatoire

You will find it at 29 Rue Pasquier, about 650 metres from the door. It stands on the site of the cemetery where Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were buried after their execution, and it was completed in 1826. You pay €7, and under-18s go in free.

East along the boulevards: the covered passages

8. The Passage des Panoramas and the Passage Jouffroy

Two arcades face each other across Boulevard Montmartre, about 950 metres east of the door. The Passage des Panoramas opened in 1799 to keep walkers out of the mud and rain. Cross the boulevard and you are in the Passage Jouffroy, inaugurated in 1847 and the first passage built entirely of iron and glass.

9. The Musée Grévin

The wax museum has been inside the Passage Jouffroy since 1882. An undated ticket costs you €28 as an adult of 19 or over and €19.80 for a child of 5 to 18, and under-5s go in free. A dated ticket bought ahead online costs less, and its price moves with the day you pick. If you are bringing children, The Paris Opera House with Kids covers the opera house itself.

10. The Tuileries Garden

This is the longest walk of the ten, about 1.2 kilometres, and it takes you through Place Vendôme. Entry is free all year. It stays open to 21:00 in April, May, September and October, to 19:30 from November to March and to 23:00 in June, July and August. If you have children with you, little sailing boats are hired out on the Grand Basin at €6 a rental.

What order should you do them in?

Let the closing times decide. The opera house admits visitors from 10am to 5pm, or 6pm in the summer season, with last admission one hour before closing. So you go there first, or by mid-afternoon at the latest. The self-guided ticket leaves the hour to you, and When to Visit the Palais Garnier helps you pick it.

The perfume museum closes at 17:30 and the chapel at 17:00 in winter, so you fit them in before your visit or straight after it. The rest outlast the opera house: the Galeries Lafayette terrace to 20:00, La Madeleine to 19:00 and the Tuileries to 21:00 in September and October. For the time inside, Ninety Minutes in the Garnier sets out the route.

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