Bastille and Around

From Paris Hotels Reviews

Bastille and Around

A symbol of revolution since the famous toppling of the Bastile prison in 1789, the Bastile quarter used to belong in spirit and in style to the working-class districts of eastern Paris. Since the construction of the new opera house in the 1980s, however, it has become a magnet for artists, fashion folk and young people who brought with them trendy shops and an energetic nightlife making this one of Paris's central hot spots. Much of the action takes place on rue de Lappe, continuing a tradition that goes back to the nineteenth century when immigrants from the Auvergne colonized this street and set up dancehalls and music clubs. Cocktail haunts and theme bars now dominate the street and the surrounding area, edging out he old tool shops, cobbers and ironmongers. Some of the working-class flavour lingers on, though, especially along rue de la Roquette and in the furniture workshops off rue due Faubourg St-Antoine, east of the Bastille, testimony to along tradition of the cabinet-making and woodworking in the district. The are was outside the city limits until the 1780s, an so, away from the restrictions of the city guilds, the Faubourg St-Antoine workers enjoyed a measure of independence and free thinking, given full expression during the 1789 Revolution.

South of the Bastille, the relatively unsung twelfth arrondissement offers an authentic slice of Paris, tradionally working-class and full of neighbourhood shops and bars. Much is changing here too, though, and a fashionable crownd is moving in, attracted by new developments, such as the ladscaping of a large park in the Bercy riverside area and the conversion of the old Bercy wine warehouses into attactive cafés and shops. One of the most imaginative projects has been the creation of the Promenade Plantée, an ex-railway line turned into an elevated walkway, running from the Bastille right across the twelfth acrondissement to the green expanse of the Bois de vincennes. Elsewhere, large pockets of the 12th remain resolutely unchanged, such as the traditional place d'Aligre market.