Secret Paris and hidden gems

Paris. The City of Light. The City of Love. City of chocolate shops. The world’s most visited city. Here you’ll find some of the world’s most visited attractions. But there is a secret Paris that’s filled with hidden gems, fascinating and historic places where the past lingers in the present, places you might miss if you don’t know they are there…

Paris is the most visited city in the world!

In 2022, there were 44 million visitors to Paris. The Louvre Museum and the Eiffel Tower were the two most visited Parisian attractions, and the Versailles palace was the most visited destination in the region. But let’s dive into the heart of Paris, beyond the guidebooks, postcards and the clichés. Explore the hidden gems of Paris – those little nooks and crannies that make us fall in love with this city over and over again. So, grab a croissant, settle in, and let’s take a whimsical stroll through the streets of Paris!

Some say that Paris is a cliche, but like all great cliches, it lives up to the hype. The city is brimming with historic monuments whose tales fill us with wonder even after centuries. The ancient Louvre once a royal palace, now the world’s most popular museum, the glittering Opera Garnier, like a miniature Palace of Versailles with gilded corridors and a magnificent staircase, plus a hidden pool where the Phantom of the Opera is said to live. The Arc de Triomphe, the great Gothic Cathedral of Notre Dame and of course the Eiffel Tower. There’s just so much to love.

The Marais district

The historic Marais district was in fact marshland until the 12th century (marais is a French word meaning marsh) when the Knights Templar, who had run out of Crusades to fight, cleared the land. Four hundred years on, the aristocracy began building their mansions here to be close to the Louvre, the preferred palace of royalty. This area is famous for its stunning architecture, but most people miss the Marché des Enfants Rouges, a covered market dating back to 1615. It’s the oldest food market in Paris.

The name ‘Enfants Rouges’ refers to the children who wore red clothes at the orphanage next to the market hundreds of years ago. Now it’s a bustling, vibrant place to go shopping, enjoy street food, or put together a picnic to eat in the Place des Vosges, a lovely square at the heart of the Marais.

It’s very close to the Pompidou centre, and if your like markets and fabulous food, you’ll love the Marché des Enfants Rouges.

Pere Lachaise Cemetery

A cemetery may not sound like the most fun way to spend a few hours getting to know Paris – but I highly recommend the Père Lachaise Cemetery. It’s fascinating, and gives an insight to the city and its past residents. It’s in the east of Paris and it’s the last resting place of more than a million people. A visit here makes for a very interesting cultural and heritage experience, there are even guided tours available.

You’ll find some seriously famous people buried here – Maria Callas, Sarah Bernhardt, Edith Piaf, Frederic Chopin and Jim Morrison, whose tomb is one of the most visited. Marcel Proust lies here – and people leave little madeleine cakes by his grave, they were his favourite. Oscar Wilde’s tomb now has a clear plastic cover on because so many visitors kissed the stone, that it started to disintegrate.

Parisians often go here for a Sunday stroll with the family. It feels like a park, in fact there are more than 5000 trees here; it’s a labyrinth of tree-lined alleys, full of beautiful sculptures. If you want to go there, the nearest metro is Gambetta.

By the way, here’s a fun fact about Paris transport. You have the metro which is generally underground, and you have the RER which is underground but mostly overground. RER stands for Reseau Express Regional – Regional Express network and it runs in Paris and to the suburbs. But when the idea for the RER first came up it was going to be called Metro Express Régional Défense-Etoile which would have been shortened to merde (which I am sure you all know what that means, polite word is poo if you don’t). But it was changed at the very last moment!

The statue of Liberty in Paris

If you head to the Eiffel Tower and cross to the little Île aux Cygnes, which means the island of the swans, which was artificially created in the middle of the river Seine in 1827, you may think that you have been magically teleported to New York because here in Paris you will come face to face with the Statue of Liberty! But non, it’s because Paris has its own, slightly more petite, Lady Liberty – it’s like finding a little piece of America, but with more baguettes and less baseball.

The statue of liberty was a gift from France to America in 1886. Its interior was designed by Gustave Eiffel, and it was created by sculptor Bartholdi from Colmar, Alsace.

The statue of Liberty’s face is said to be based on Bartholdi’s mothers face. There are in fact hundreds of replicas of the Statue of Liberty all around the world, but none are as big as the New York Liberty. The statue on the Paris island faces west towards her sister in New York.

Brilliant book nooks

For our next Paris uncovered gem – how about a quirky bookstore. A stone’s thrown from The great Gothic cathedral of Notre Dame is Shakespeare and Company. It’s like Narnia for book lovers. You might go in for a quick browse and come out hours later, wondering what year it is. One of my proudest moments was seeing my books on the shelves in this lovely book shop. And If you’re a book shop fan, maybe head to Belle Hortense – it has pretty much only French books, but it’s the only book shop in Paris, maybe in all of France, that opens until 2 in the morning and has a wine cellar. It’s near the Hotel de Ville – the city’s town hall.

An aerial park in the heart of the city

La Promenade Plantée also called the Coulée verte René-Dumont, is an elevated park built on an old railway line. You can walk along it and get a really unique perspective of the city. The railway line was built in the mid 1800s and ran above the streets of Paris. It was abandoned in 1969 as bigger trains were introduced and someone had the genius idea to turn these aerial tracks into a park – in fact the Highline Park in Manhattan New York was inspired by the Paris project! The aerial walkways are quite wide, filled with trees and plants, ponds and benches and outdoor gyms. The track winds for 4.5km from Opera Bastille to Bois de Vincennes.

A romantic hidden square

Next on my list of favourites is also a green paradise – the Square du Vert-Galant. It’s a charming little park located at the western tip of the Île de la Cité, offering stunning views of the Seine. The square owes its name to King Henri IV born in 1553 and grandfather of Louis XIV. He was nicknamed the ‘Vert-Galant’ because of his numerous – mistresses even as he got older. Apparently, people used to say of him ‘he’s always green despite his “great” age though when he died in 1610, he was only 57 years old – not really a great age, but I suppose for those days it was.

The square is about 8m, (25 feet) below the ground floor of the Pont Neuf nearby – it’s the natural level of the land, so it floods easily. And it’s overlooked by a statue of Henri IV, sitting on a horse. The square is filled with lots of trees and plants and wild birds – ducks and moorhens for instance and Parisians love to come here for a romantic stroll and the fabulous views over the Seine with the Louvre in the background.

The Harry Potter connection – Nicolas Flamel

Have you ever heard of Nicolas Flamel’s house? It slightly more famous now due to Harry Potter because Nicolas Flamel made an appearance in “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” – he made the Philiosopher’s stone, an object capable of turning metal into gold and granting immortality with its Elixir of Life. The house is a restaurant now and even has a ‘Harry Potter menu’. This building, dating back to 1407, at 51 rue de Montmorency, is the oldest stone house in the city.

Nicholas Flamel – the real man lived here. It’s thought he was born in 1330 and he worked as a book seller and it’s believed he was obsessed with an ancient book about alchemy, written in Hebrew. A legend developed that he translated the ancient manuscript and discovered the secret of immortality and the philosopher’s stone! He lived to be 88 years old – pretty old for those days which probably influenced that story. As an additional piece of trivia, a street named for him, rue Nicolas Flamel near the Louvre, intersects with the rue Perenelle, named for his wife, who he married in 1368 – and who is also in the Harry Potter film!

And talking of roads – here’s a fun fact about Paris – there are no traffic stop signs in the city. There used to be a one in the 16th arrondissement, the French word for Paris districts. But it was removed in 2016, making Paris a rare case of a capital city without a single stop sign.

And a bit of trivia – highways leaving Paris are numbered clockwise from 1 to 16 – for example the A1 goes to Lille in the north, the A6 to Lyon in the south, all the way round until you get to the A16 to Calais in a different part of the north!

History on every corner

Paris has such a long rich history and you can find traces of it absolutely everywhere. There are plaques on the wall everywhere you go. For instance there are ‘permiter markers’ from 1726. In an attempt to limit development in the city, King Louis XV established 294 plaques, saying, essentially that ‘Paris Ends Here’. And if you look at the Hôtel de Sens, in the Marais district, actually it’s the oldest mansion in the area and just one of three remaining medieval residences in Paris – is another piece of history.

Hôtel in this instance, doesn’t mean a hotel like you stay in as a guest, it means a residence of importance. And in this case, the Hôtel de Sens was once a palace for the Archbishops of Sens, a town in Burgundy. And in the wall is a reminder of three days of revolution in July 1830, as, when a cannonball lodged in the wall, it was decided to leave it in place, and erect a plaque with the date it struck. It’s so odd in such a picturesque medieval building! But it’s well worth a visit, it has a pretty little garden too which you can access for free.

The “devil doors” of Notre-Dame

Most visitors are intent on entering the cathedral of Notre-Dame, and miss the incredible detailed ironwork on the side doors! There is a legend that when they were created in the 13th century by a locksmith called Biscornet, he was so overwhelmed by the task of designing and making the ornamentation for the doors that he had to sell his soul to the Devil to get help.

Against all the odds, he managed to finish his amazing work in a very short time. The doors were called “The Devil’s doors” and it was said that they were impossible to repair. In the 19th century, they did in fact need to be repaired and a very famous master blacksmith called Pierre Boulanger was chosen to do the work. It took him considerably longer – 12 years to repair and reproduce the work of Biscornet. Once his work was done Boulanger signed his name on some of the panels on the back of the door to prove that the masterpiece was made by a human and not the Devil!

An underground world dating to the Romans

And another Notre-Dame secret – did you know that you can go underneath the Cathedral and there, in Europe’s biggest archaeological crypt, you will discover the old Roman city of Lutetia as Paris was then called – it means “near a swamp”. Hardly anyone ever goes there, but in the corner of the square of Notre Dame there is a staircase that looks like it leads to a car park with a pillar which is engraved with the word “Crypte du Parvis.” Head down those stairs and be prepared to be amazed. Discovered in 1964 when someone decided it was a good idea to build a car park under the cathedral… hmmm… there are whole roads of ancient Paris, a unique timeline of the city from remains of the city’s very first port to Roman baths to 19th century streets!

And talking of streets – how about the shortest road in Paris? Rue Degrés (2nd arrondissement): 5.75 m, not much to see, but how quaint is that?!

The oldest public clock in France

And the The oldest clock in Paris is on the corner of the Boulevard du Palais, Quai de l’Horloge near the Conciergerie building. The clock was commissioned by Charles V in 1370 and installed in 1371. And it still works! It was the first public clock in France. It’s set in a tower that was once a watchtower and part of a royal palace.

Secret Paris, hidden gems, timeless, authentic and historic

Paris is visually rich but it’s also full or amazing sounds. Head to a café, and just soak up the experience – people laughing, conversation, servers calling out –’une café allongee’, and depending where you are, the sounds of the locality, the bells of Notre Dame or another church, the hum of traffic and tour buses, the noise of a market or the metro passing beneath your feet, cars driving on cobbles…

Paris is also about the little moments: finding a jazz band playing in a cosy café or in a cobblestone alley, the smell of fresh pastries from a boulangerie – there are more than 1700 in Paris, so you’ve got a lot of choice – or a sunset view from the bridges over the Seine. Paris really is a city where every street corner has a story.

Janine Marsh is the author of several internationally best-selling books about France. Her latest book How to be French – a celebration of the French lifestyle and art de vivre, is out now – a look at the French way of life. Find all books on her website janinemarsh.com

Join The Perfect Paris Tour with Janine Marsh – a week long adventure in the heart of Paris as you discover historic, cultural, gastronomic and dazzling Paris on this very special week-long, small group tour: tourwithabsolutely.com