Look up. That soaring glass roof, those tall columns, the shimmering mosaic floor beneath your feet. You are standing in the Galerie Colbert, one of Paris's most beautiful covered arcades, built in 1828 with one very specific goal: to steal customers from the Galerie Vivienne next door. The two passages literally share a wall and once competed for the same Parisian franc.
The mosaic floor you are walking on was crafted by the same master craftsman who laid the floor in the Vivienne, Giandomenico Facchina. The man kept himself busy.
At the heart of the arcade sits Le Grand Colbert, a restaurant that started as a simple canteen and grew into one of the most famous dining rooms in the city. In 2003, Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton filmed a romantic dinner scene here for 'Something's Gotta Give'. Ever since, tourists have been showing up daily, hoping to sit at that exact table. The roast chicken has never had better publicity.
Sources. Story: https://www.legrandcolbert.fr/en/ https://paris-silvousplait.com/en/le-grand-colbert/ https://www.sortiraparis.com/en/where-to-eat-in-paris/restaurant/articles/284719-le-grand-colbert-the-legendary-parisian-brasserie-listed-as-a-historic-monument Photos: Chabe01, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
