The shopping mall concept isn’t one which has particularly grabbed the imagination of Parisian shoppers. This is not surprising given the grandeur of the city’s department stores and the breathless excitement to be taken from window shopping among the romantic architecture of the city streets. Perhaps the architecture of the shopping malls is also to blame; aside from the interest generated by browsing in the basement of the Louvre at La Galerie du Carrousel du Louvre, there is little to endear the city’s few malls to the buying public. In fact, most of the malls do not adhere to the concept in the American sense; though you will find restaurants and some children’s facilities, these are not areas to spend the day, eat and meet friends, but more places of convenience where you can find multiple boutiques in the one locale. The same can be said of the factory centres outside of Paris – clearly not places of beauty, they are nonetheless considered destination shopping centres courtesy of their distance from the city and enormous range of stock. As with the department stores, weekends are incredibly busy so are best avoided if you don’t like pushing through crowds. Mall hours align with independent boutiques – normally 10:00 to 20:00. La Galerie du Carrousel du Louvre, Les Forum des Halles and Paris Nord 2 contain boutiques which are open Sundays.