LIttle known parts of Paris

Bonjour tout le monde!

Paris is a beautiful city; there are so many places for tourists to visit.  Neophyte tourists will hit the big ticket items - the Eiffel Tower, Mona Lisa in the Louvre, walking down the Champs Elysées and visiting the Louis Vuitton store located there. There are more sites that bring history to life: Les Invalides, with the tomb of Napoléon Bonaparte; the Musée d’Orsay, which holds the masterpieces of Impressionist painters; the Opéra House designed and built by Garnier; Sacré Coeur and Montmartre.

There are other places to go within this vibrant metropolis:

Le village de Saint Paul – a small street lined with medieval archways that leads to a courtyard bordered with cafés, boutiques, and apartment buildings.  Once you pierce the veil through the archway, you can travel back into time while enjoying a meal in one of the courts.  This little gem is located in the Marais (4^th arrondissement) section of Paris.

One of the little cafes found in the Village St.Paul

The Canal St. Martin – connects the Canal de L’Ourcq to the Seine River.  It was the brainchild of Napoléon I^er (Bonaparte) who needed to create a waterway to supply an expanding Parisian city with fresh water.  The canal, built from 1802 to 1825, was used to supply Paris with food, building materials and other things.  They were brought in on canal boats. The Canal fell into disuse, and almost filled-in and paved over.  Today, the Canal continues to flow from the Ourcq to the Seine, and is covered for part of its journey.  Intrepid tourists can take a guided boat tour and see the newly cleaned Canal.

Canal St. Martin

The Promenade Plantée – similar to the High Line in New York, it is an elevated walkway on the remains of railroad tracks.  From 1859 to 1969, freight trains ran on this line connecting the Place de la Bastille to a station in Saint-Maur, outside of Paris.  Abandoned and overgrown, the rail line became an eyesore.  Then, in the early 1990s the railway was transformed into the Promenade Plantée and the Viaduct des Arts.  The Promenade is 4.5 kilometers long and runs along almost the entire 12^th arrondissement.  Those who venture out onto the Promenade get a perspective of the city that is only available from this verdant path, walking by old and new buildings, through forest like areas, and offering spectacular views of Paris.

Therefore, the next time you are in Paris, besides seeing the old standards, pick one of these lesser known areas and spend some time there. You will never think of Paris the same way.