Passage des Panoramas

Look up as you walk in. Those ornate glass panels overhead have been filtering Paris light since 1800, making this one of the oldest covered arcades in the city. And the painting we have attached shows you exactly what the place once looked like: two large circular rotundas, clearly visible, standing side by side like giant cylinders. Those were the original panoramas.

Inside each rotunda, audiences paid to stand in the center and be completely surrounded by a painted scene. A city. A battle. A landscape. Fully immersive entertainment, two centuries before IMAX.

The man behind it all was Robert Fulton, the American who also designed the first practical steamboat. He came to Paris hoping to sell his nautical ideas to Napoleon. Napoleon said no. Fulton shrugged, built his panorama halls instead, and made a fortune.

The arcade filled up quickly with merchants, printers, and chocolatiers. It also became the heartbeat of Parisian collector culture. Stamp dealers, coin traders, postcard and autograph hunters have been meeting here since the 19th century. They still do, in the same narrow stalls.

At number 47, peek inside the restaurant. The walls and fittings are original, rescued from a print shop called Stern Graveur that opened here in the 1800s.

And when you leave, cross the boulevard and have a look at Passage Jouffroy.