Paris: What to See & Do: Walks: Canal St.-Martin, 10th arrondissement

Canal St.-Martin, 10th arrondissement

Discover this trendy neighborhood in Paris by following the banks of the Canal St.-Martin, a picturesque old industrial canal that begins just behind the Place de la République and runs north to La Villette, the onetime location of the Paris abattoirs. There are no sights in particular to see aside from the Hôtel du Nord, immortalized in the film of the same name by Marcel Carné; instead, this walk is about taking in old-time Paris, in a part of the city that’s just waking up after a long slumber—the former working-class neighborhood is increasingly gentrifying with the arrival of a new crowd of bobos (bourgeois bohemians).