La Serre

There's one place in Saint-Étienne where you can take a little leap a few tens of millions of years back in time dead easily.
You won't believe me, but all you have to do is step inside the La Platine building at the Cité du Design. You'll immediately find yourself in a cross between the film set for Jurassic Park for the vegetation and something out of Star Wars with La Platine's air of a spaceship. The cinematographic splits. But without the T-Rex behind the ferns. This space has been designed as a temporal experience, and you do feel pretty good in there. The atmosphere is kind of muggy, whatever the weather, which is certainly down to the plants and little tropical-looking trees. These leafy little palm trees and ferns are also here to explain why there is so much coal underground in the region. In a way, it's the remains of these palm trees that founded Saint-Étienne!