Most of Paris was rebuilt in the nineteenth century. Baron Haussmann cleared the medieval city and replaced it with the wide avenues and matching facades the postcards still show. The Marais escaped almost all of it. Its narrow streets, its hidden courtyards and its hôtels particuliers, the private mansions of the old aristocracy, are still largely where they have always been.
It is also one of the most layered neighborhoods in the city. The medieval street plan, the seventeenth-century mansions, the Jewish quarter and the memory of the Revolution all sit within a few minutes of one another. We follow that thread on foot, at the pace of a conversation.
What you will see
We begin at the Place des Vosges, the oldest planned square in Paris, built by Henri IV, and look at what it was actually for before it became the most elegant address in the city. From there the walk moves through the side streets, pushing open the doors of courtyards that look private but are not, into the mansions the aristocracy built when this was the fashionable quarter.
The neighborhood also carries several centuries of Jewish history, from the medieval community through the twentieth century to the rue des Rosiers as it is today. That story is written into the streets for anyone who knows where to look. We end near the Place de la Bastille, where the prison once stood, with what the Revolution actually was and why the column there commemorates a different one entirely.
Place des Vosges · the courtyards · four centuries in one walk
Pépin's advice
Push the doors. Some of the finest courtyards in the Marais sit behind plain street doors that are, in fact, open. Knowing which ones is half the pleasure of the walk.
Come on a Sunday morning. The Jewish quarter is at its quietest and most itself early on Sunday. The bakeries are open and the streets are not yet busy.
Add a museum if you like. The Picasso Museum and the Carnavalet Museum both sit inside seventeenth-century mansions in the neighborhood. If you would like to include one, we can build the morning around it. Entry is not part of the walking tour but can be arranged.
Good to know
This is an outdoor walk on old streets, with cobblestones in places and few opportunities to sit along the way, so comfortable shoes make all the difference. Museums in the neighborhood, where you choose to add one, keep their own opening days. We will confirm the route and the meeting point with you before the day.
