Paris off the beaten track

21.07.2023 - 08:46 / roughguides.com / Paris

Paris is the world's most visited city. It draws in a barely comprehensible 30 million travellers each year – and its monuments, museums and galleries are some of Europe's most instantly recognisable. You could spend weeks here and not see them all. But what if you want to see an alternative Paris, a Paris off the beaten track?

The French capital isn't a living museum, but a lived-in city with some of Europe's coolest street art and nightlife. Its galleries don't just include temples to Impressionism and Cubism but a semi-legal squat and bizarre homage to all things taxidermy. Nor is every corner of the city mobbed with tourists; there are plenty of spots that still retain a village-like atmosphere. These are our top tips for seeing Paris off the beaten track, whether you've got a few hours or a few days to spare.

The Parisian park you've never heard of is also one of the city's loveliest green spaces, sprawling over the outer reaches of the 19th arrondissement. It's a delightful mix of sloping lawns and shady pathways, crowned by a spectacular folly, the Roman-inspired Temple de la Sybille, from where there are superb vistas across to the Sacré-Cœur. Beneath the folly's craggy outcrop you can laze beside the park's artificial lake, sip demi-pressions at modern-day guinguette Rosa Bonheur, or strike out along the Petite Ceinture, an abandoned railway line turned urban trail.

Buttes-Chaumont park © Kiev.Victor / Shutterstock

At street level, you could walk past 59 Rivoli and barely notice its unusual facade. Yet as soon as you look up it's clear this building is very different from its commercial neighbours. It was first taken over as a squat in 1999, before being closed down and later reopened as a semi-sanctioned gallery with permission from the government. Today its art-adorned exterior gives a little glimpse of what lies inside: six floors of independent artists' studios where painters, sculptors and photographers ply their trades. Some studios are slick and commercial, selling quirky prints of city views, others are crowded, smoky and delightfully obscure. You're free to explore them all.

One of the more cluttered rooms at 59 Rivoli © Eleanor Aldridge

This street in the 10th arrondissement was once one of the city's most notorious, and it's certainly still one of the neighbourhood's more gritty. But it has also undergone a huge transformation in the past few years. First hip cafés like Chez Jeannette moved in alongside superb Syrian restaurants and cult Turkish kebab joints. Then New-York inspired brasseries added all-day-dining to the mix and trendsetting cocktail bars like Le Syndicat started to keep things lively well into the early hours. Adjoining Passage Brady, a magnificent covered arcade