La Campagne - 20th arrondissement

[kerouac]

It took me more than 30 years to discover this secret place: tinyurl.com/lawqpw

[GitteK]

- which only goes to prove that sometimes tourists know Paris better than the Parisians themselves !

www.road75.com/mcq.htm#
(click on Porte de Bagnolet)

A piece of advice to maximize the experience:
To give your senses a very pleasant shock, it is essential that you take the nothern metro exit "Blvd Mortier" and then walk up RUE GEO CHAVEZ behind you. The Boulevard itself is noisy and the area is not very interesting and is rather dull and worn down. Maybe 200 meters up the street there will be a steep flight of stairs going up on your righthand side - and you will think "OMG !! isn't there another way?" - yes, there is, but this is the way you should take:



Climb them and do the mandatory huffing-and-puffing - and THEN this little paradise unfolds itself in front of you and you feel as if those stairs in some mysterious way simply transported you to another planet, regardez:

[Katharine]

kerouac and Gitte,

Thanks for this post and the wonderful pictures. I have definitly marked it on my To Do list for my visit next summer.

Kerouac, to your comment about living like a hermit, I disagree. I think that an area like this lends itself to real neighborliness.....getting to know them by meeting out in the street to have a drink or hanging out in the beautiful back yards. I live in a somewhat similar area and my front porch is the "happy hour" hangout for my neightbors. Sometimes they hang out there without either my husband or me.

It looks very inviting to me, being so secluded!

KH