The City of Paris recently opened a new concept store in city hall (Hotel de Ville) called Paris Rendez-Vous, 9 Rue de Rivoli, 75004 Paris. It sells a number of gift type items that are iconic to the City of Light (e.g., Ladurée candles and Mariage Frères teas). The central location of the boutique makes it an easy place to shop for souvenirs if you are in a hurry and don't have time to run around town. But I found the best part of the store was that it also provides brochures on Paris activities, museums and services (with quite a few of them in English). I didn't know that the City has a 36-page guidebook on covered passages that is available in both English and French. Getting a free copy of that guidebook made it well worth my stop at the store.
P.S. Poking around the City of Paris' website, I discovered they actually have their covered passages guidebook available online (check it out here) as well as a number of other itineraries for walks around town (available here).
