lafayette

I'll admit to only having a fairly basic grade in shopping, being rather amateur at wandering around browsing.

There's still a few shops that I will visit that flip me into a far more engaged mode, and one of them is Galeries Lafayette on Boulevard Haussman in Paris.

The outside can look a little conventional, but inside it is a true celebration of shopping. The entire ground floor seems to be dedicated to perfumes, but my simple joy is to look up towards the roof.

There's the embellished glass dome and the mini balconies all around, beckoning one further into the retail experience.

My other tip is to go to the top floor, which leads outside to a restaurant and bar. Either area, or even the walkway in the middle, give a cracking view across Paris, with most of the famous landmarks on show and many of them quite close.

Personally, I'd visit the Galleries Lafayette and Jardins du Trocadéro to get the views of the city and leave the splendid Eiffel Tower to be viewed from the ground. I'll eventually find a closer picture of the Eiffel Tower but at the moment I'm still working from iPhone pictures until I find my camera adapter again.