The covered passages of Paris: a walk through the glass-roofed arcades

Long before department stores, Parisians shopped under glass. A walking route through the city's surviving covered passages, from Galerie Vivienne's mosaics to the old toy shops and booksellers of Passage Jouffroy.

The covered passages of Paris are the city's most discreet pleasure. Step off a busy street in the 2nd arrondissement and the noise drops away: a glass roof overhead, a mosaic floor underfoot, a row of small shops with painted signs. These arcades were the first places in Europe where people could shop sheltered from rain and mud, lit at night by gas, and they are the direct ancestors of the department store and the shopping mall.

Historians now count around fifty that once existed. Many were swept away during Haussmann's rebuilding of the city, and only about twenty-five survive, all but one on the Right Bank. The philosopher Walter Benjamin spent years writing about them in his unfinished Arcades Project. The route below takes in five of the best, walking north from the Palais-Royal towards the Grands Boulevards.

01Galerie Vivienne: mosaics and a wine merchant

Start at the most elegant of them all. Galerie Vivienne was built in 1823 and opened in 1826, between the Palais-Royal, the stock exchange and the boulevards, and for decades it was among the most fashionable addresses in Paris. Its architect, François-Jacques Delannoy, designed a neoclassical interior in a Pompeian manner, with a rotunda under a glass dome. The mosaic floors are signed by Giandomenico Facchina and Mazzioli.

The passage is 176 metres long and only three metres wide, which gives it the intimacy of a corridor in a private house. Its fortunes fell as fashionable trade moved to the Madeleine and the Champs-Élysées, and revived in the 1980s when Jean Paul Gaultier and Yuki Torii opened shops here. Look for the old bookshop, the wine merchant and the staircase at number 13, which once led to the home of Eugène François Vidocq, the convict turned police chief. Enter from rue des Petits-Champs and leave by rue Vivienne.

02Galerie Colbert: the scholarly neighbour

Right next door, Galerie Colbert was built as a rival to Vivienne and has its own glass rotunda. Today it belongs to the world of research rather than retail, housing institutions devoted to art history, so it is usually calm. At its entrance on rue Vivienne sits Le Grand Colbert, a brasserie with a nineteenth-century interior of mirrors and mosaic that is worth a coffee if not a full meal.

Insider tip

The passages are private and close at night; most shops keep their own hours.

03Passage des Panoramas: the oldest of all

Walk north up rue Vivienne to the boulevard. The Passage des Panoramas opened in 1800 and is the oldest of the covered passages. Its name comes from two rotundas that once stood at its entrance, where large panoramic paintings of cities were displayed in a venture run by the American inventor Robert Fulton. It was among the first commercial arcades in Europe to have a glazed roof, and it was lit by gas from 1817.

The Panoramas has long been a centre of the Paris stamp trade, and dealers in stamps, postcards and old coins still trade here between small restaurants. It is livelier and less polished than Vivienne, with side galleries that branch off in several directions; take your time with them.

04Passage Jouffroy and Passage Verdeau

Cross the boulevard Montmartre and you are at the entrance to Passage Jouffroy, which continues the line northwards. Built in the 1840s with a roof of iron and glass, it holds the side exit of the Musée Grévin waxworks, the small Hôtel Chopin, and shops selling walking sticks, dolls' houses, old film posters and second-hand books. A short dog-leg in the passage, with a few steps, is part of its charm.

At the far end, cross rue de la Grange-Batelière into Passage Verdeau, the quietest of the three in this chain. It is a passage of antique prints, old cameras and collectors' bookshops, and a fitting place to end.

05If you have more time: Choiseul and Véro-Dodat

Two other passages are worth a detour. Passage Choiseul, a few streets west, is long and workaday, and the writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline lived there as a child. Galerie Véro-Dodat, south of the Palais-Royal near the Louvre, has a dark wood and brass interior and a painted ceiling; it is one of the most atmospheric of all, and Christian Louboutin opened his first boutique there.

For more on the surrounding streets, see our guide to the 2nd arrondissement, and browse other cities among the Metro Mode destinations.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.