Paris_ City Guide (Lonely Planet, 7th Edition) - Lonely Planet [105]
6 Marché St-Quentin Turn left onto blvd de Magenta and carry on north past the 19th-century Marché St-Quentin and the Gare du Nord.
7 North African quarter The big pink sign announcing the Tati department store marks the start of La Goutte d’Or, the North African quarter called the ‘Golden Drop’ after a white wine that was produced here in the 19th century. The district is contiguous with African Château Rouge and outside the metro station you’ll most likely be presented with the calling cards of various médiums (mediums) or voyants (fortune tellers) promising to effect the return of your estranged spouse, unrequited love or misspent fortune. From the Barbès Rochechouart metro stop walk north up blvd Barbès past numerous goldsmiths with dazzling window displays. Turn east into rue de la Goutte d’Or, a great souk of a street selling everything from gaudy tea glasses and pointy-toed leather babouches (slippers) to belly dancers’ costumes. From every direction the sounds of rai (a fusion of Algerian folk music and rock) fill the air.
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WALK FACTS
Start Metro Pyrénées
End Metro Château Rouge
Distance 8km
Time 3½ hours
Fuel stop Istanbul, Passage Brady
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8 Villa Poissonnière A gate at 42 rue de la Goutte d’Or gives way to Villa Poissonnière, a cobbled street that looks straight out of a 19th-century daguerreotype, but it’s now locked and a sign warns that trespassers will be prosecuted. Instead carry on straight, turn right on blvd Barbès and right again onto rue des Poissonniers – the ‘Street of Fishermen’ – where you’ll find halal butchers offering special deals on sheep heads and 5kg packets of chicken but no fish. Rue Myrha on your left is the frontier between Central and West Africa and the Maghreb; rai music quickly gives way to Cameroonian bikutsi (a fusion of ancestral rhythms and fast electric guitars) and Senegalese mbalax (drum music).
9 Rue Dejean After crossing over rue Myrha, turn left (west) into rue Dejean, where an open-air market is held from 8am to 1pm on Sundays and 3.30pm to 7.30pm Tuesdays to Saturdays. Here you will find fish and lots of it, especially fresh capitaine (Nile perch) and thiof from Senegal, alongside stalls selling fiery Caribbean Scotch Bonnet chillies, plantains and the ever-popular dasheen (taro). The Château Rouge metro station is a few steps to the southwest.
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RIGHT BANK TIME PASSAGES
Stepping into the passages couverts (covered shopping arcades) of the Right Bank is the simplest way to get a feel for what life was like in early-19th-century Paris. These arcades emerged during a period of relative peace and prosperity under the restored House of Bourbon after Napoleon’s fall and the rapid growth of the new industrial classes. In a city without sewers, pavements or sheltered walkways, these arcades allowed shoppers to stroll from boutique to boutique protected from the elements and the filth and noise of the streets.
The passages quickly became some of Paris’ top attractions – visitors from the provinces made the arcades their first port of call in order to kit themselves out for the capital – and by the mid-19th century Paris counted around 150 of these sumptuously decorated temples to Mammon. As well as shopping, visitors could dine and drink, play billiards, bathe (all the passages had public baths), attend the theatre and, at night (the passages were open 24 hours a day back then), engage in activities of a carnal nature; the arcades were notorious for attracting prostitutes after dark, and there were rooms available on the 1st floor.
The demise of the passages came about for a number of reasons, but the most significant death knell was the opening of the first of the capital’s department stores, Le Bon Marché, in 1852. Today there are only two dozen arcades remaining – mostly in the 1er, 2e and 9e arrondissements