#belleville

Belleville, the Paris that doesn't fit on a postcard: Vietnamese, Sephardic Jews, and graffiti in the 20th arrondissement

There is a Paris that isn't in an Audrey Hepburn movie. It's the Paris that eats pho for €11, speaks Arabic at the bakery, sleeps in a building without an elevator built in 1890, and still calls the police "les flics" with working-class disdain. This Paris is in the 20th arrondissement, in a neighborhood called Belleville, climbing the hill between the Belleville and Pyrénées metro stations. I arrived there in 2017 looking for a Vietnamese restaurant that an Algerian friend had sworn by. I've returned twelve times since. It's the only part of Paris where you can still eat well for €15, see master street art without paying an entrance fee, and sit on a bench in Parc des Buttes-Chaumont overlooking the entire city without hearing a word of English. This is the guide for those tired of Île Saint-Louis.

Curadoria Voyspark · May 12 · 🇫🇷 Paris