Paris and the Eiffel tower are like two sides of the same coin. The iconic tower has volumes already devoted to it that you will have more than enough to read about. Let me tell you about the two other places that pulled my attention.

The Galleries Lafayette Haussamann is one of the most famous shopping landmarks in the world not just due to the Couture and High end Labels that are housed within but also due to the architecture of the building. On a post on www.tripadvisor.com a traveler had mentioned about the beauty of the ceiling and so on my list to see was the huge glass and steel dome of this departmental store. And magnificent it was!

Every possible label and designer house, Parisian and Global will find a place here. The halls are crowded and there are lines and more waiting lines of (what I thought) Japanese and Chinese tourists at the Louis Vuitton and Chanel stores. You can just walk around the ground floor and walk out smelling divine, what with all the perfume molecules loose all over the place.

The main aim here was none of this, but to get to the center of the store floor so I could see the exquisite ceiling and get as good a shot possible on my mobile phone. My girls thought it was quite hilarious, while the women were busy doing retail therapy with their eyes firmly down, here was their mum, not just looking up but also bending in all directions trying to get a perfect angle of a ceiling that was over a hundred meters in size and away from me (excuse the photo quality on this one as I was not planning on travel blogging at that time).

For those wanting to say they shopped at Galleries Lafayette, without spending big bucks, fear not. The upper floors have lovely merchandise and there was something to suit all budgets. This was really surprising even for me.

The next attraction was not to see what is in the Louvre but rather see what is down under. Selfies at the Louvre is a given with the gigantic glass pyramid looking both, out of place and yet in place at the same time. We gave the Mona Lisa a miss, because we were quite lacking in any artistic knowledge to actually do justice to the exhibits at the various galleries. Even an entire day does not cover a fraction of what the Louvre has to offer. At the time of my visit, students aged 18 years and below get a free pass to visit the galleries, if they carry an ID on themselves.

Since entry up to a certain point is free for all, off we went to see the inverted pyramid that my niece had informed me about. The outer glass pyramid at the entrance of the Louvre was to accommodate visitors and offer typical tourist facilities that were lacking. Since there was no place on ground, the option was to go below the ground. The Pyramide Inversée serves as a skylight to the halls below built for this purpose. There was another stone pyramid just below it. I don’t know if there is an interpretation to it but then I am no Dan Brown.