Add Paris Apple Store to Your Bucket List
Last year we published a list of five Apple stores to visit before you die. The list, done just in time for summer jaunts, included Sydney, Tokyo, Scottsdale, London’s Regent Street and New York’s famed 5th Avenue store.
But now there’s Paris, which definitely makes our bucket list of Apple stores to visit. The recently-opened store is Apple’s third retail outlet in France and the Cupertino company’s 294th shop.
Dubbed the most-un-Apple Apple store, architects dropped the company’s usual glass-and-steel aesthetic in trademark elements like the staircase in favor of wood and wrought iron. Restoration efforts took over a year, and by the looks of the place — a deft juxtaposition of old and new – were well worth it.
Once home to a bank, the Apple Opera store located at 12 rue Halévy has retained many of its former features including a mosaic tile floor and marble columns. A central skylight makes it more iPod palace than vault.
The only problem: if we add this to the top Apple stores, which of the other prime shops gets bumped?
Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco native who has lived in Milan and Florence, Italy. She's written for Wired.com, The New York Times and Newsweek. You can find her on 
