Having lived in Paris on-and-off since 2020, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time walking around the city at random.
By doing so, I’ve had the chance to stumble upon some pretty cool streets that show a unique side of Paris. Here are three of them that I highly recommend visiting.
Boulevard St-Michel
Possibly my favourite street (or boulevard) of all time, Boulevard St-Michel is a nice synopsis of Paris’ Latin Quarter.
Beginning at the northern-most point of the left bank (which can be more easily understood as the part of Paris to the south of the Seine river), it’s in close proximity to Sainte-Chapelle and Notre Dame.
Then if you head down the road, you’ll find the Fontaine Saint-Michel — a fountain featuring the Archangel Michael defeating Satan. The fountain is situated in Place Saint-Michel, a square and popular meeting point for Parisians.
To your left is Shakespeare and Company, a famous English-language bookstore that was famously popular with the Lost Generation of writers like Ernest Hemingway and that published James Joyce’s Ulysses a century ago.
Further south, past the adjacent Boulevard Saint-Germain, you pass the Musée de Cluny, a national museum dedicated to the Middle Ages that is housed inside a medieval building, plus an array of bookstores including the four- or five-storey Gibert Joseph, which sells new and second-hand books in French and a few other languages.
If you continue heading south, you’ll eventually reach the Sorbonne, the second oldest existing university in the world, a café that used to put giant teddy bears on its chairs during the pandemic, and the Jardin du Luxembourg — a private park with moveable green chairs that features on the album cover of Tame Impala’s Lonerism.
If you then turn left, you’ll eventually reach Le Panthéon (a monument dedicated to famous French people), the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève (a beautiful historic library featured in Ulysses and the film Hugo), and the Sainte-Étienne-du-Mont cathedral, where Blaise Pascal, the 17th century French philosopher and mathematician who invented the bus system, was buried.
Rue de l’Abreuvoir
With its charming stately Parisian houses adorned in vines, Rue de l’Abreuvoir is arguably the most beautiful street in Paris. Situated just off Montmartre in the 18th arrondissement, it’s a fan favourite of pretty much everyone who visits Paris expecting something out of Amélie.
Tourists who venture there, following a trip to the Sacré Coeur cathedral further up, are often found hanging out at La Maison Rose, a pink house at the intersection with Rue des Saules that’s renowned for its rosé.
If you go down the road, you’ll eventually reach a staircase that leads to Lamarck-Caulaincourt, which is possibly the strangest metro station in the city.
After taking in the iconic view from the stairs, you enter the station and are forced to navigate a spiral staircase that goes deeper and deeper underground until you eventually reach the platform. Unsurprisingly, most people opt for the far more convenient lift, but there’s something intriguingly gothic about the idea of heading down spiraling subterranean stairs that makes it worth your while.
Rue Edgar Poe
Okay, I’m cheating a little bit here because this isn’t one road so much a collection of roads based on a hill that once housed a football stadium.
As its name might suggest, Rue Edgar Poe is named after American writer Edgar Allen Poe. It’s one of a bunch of connected roads that features some of the most beautiful standalone houses in Paris.
Based in the 19th arrondissement, this elevated area feels almost like a gated community. To reach it, you have to go up some ominous-looking staircases that wouldn’t look out of place in Joker.
But once you reach the top and see the cobble-stoned streets, generous greenery, and rows of olive trees looking out towards the Sacré-Cœur, you’ll feel as if you have discovered a part of Paris that few tourists or even locals know exists.
The area is also just down the road from the Parc-des-Buttes-Chaumont, which is one of the most intriguing parks in Paris.
