Palais Garnier

Seven inches above your head hangs a secret ceiling that no visitor has seen in sixty years. When Marc Chagall painted his magnificent 240-square-meter masterpiece in 1964, he didn't replace the original Victorian ceiling... he simply covered it, creating Paris's most beautiful hidden treasure. Standing here at Place de l'Opéra, you're gazing at Europe's largest opera house, a monument born from Napoleon III's imperial dreams. On September 29th, 1860, the Emperor ordered this grand replacement for a cramped theater, launching a competition that attracted 171 architects. Young Charles Garnier won with designs so boldly eclectic that when Empress Eugénie demanded to know the style, he declared with theatrical flair, "Madame, this is Napoleon III!" As you approach those baroque golden facades, imagine the construction chaos beneath your feet. Garnier's workers discovered an underground lake that nearly drowned the project... literally. They spent months draining it, creating the cistern that inspired Gaston Leroux's famous Phantom lake in 1910. Step inside past those marble columns, and you'll ascend the grand double staircase where 73 sculptors and 14 painters once labored for fourteen years. Above, Chagall's ceiling celebrates Bizet, Verdi, Beethoven, and Gluck in swirling colors... while the ghost ceiling of 1872 waits patiently in the shadows, holding its own secrets of Second Empire splendor.