
More than eighty of the loveliest, most tranquil, and sometimes
hidden places in Paris are described and photographed in this charming
guidebook. Quiet Corners of Paris is a beautifully illustrated
peek into often overlooked, always beautiful, locales: hidden villas,
winding lanes, little-known 19th-century passages, serene gardens,
and cobblestone courtyards. Some of the places have breathtaking
views, others are filled with historic and architectural details,
from stone archways, garden follies, boxwood mazes, ornamental
statuary, stained glass, and Renaissance fountains. Follow a stone
path under a trellis of blossoms or wander through a gate to discover…
Sometimes it seems there isn’t a centimeter in Paris that
hasn’t been discovered, described, and recommended. Yet even
frequent visitors who know the city well can often get the feeling
that the “real” city somehow remains elusive.
In the pages of Quiet Corners of Paris, first published
in France, the author has found more than eighty settings that
provide a rare entrée into Paris at her most subtle and
delicate. Most wouldn’t be considered “destinations”,
and certainly not tourist attractions. There are winding lanes
that lead nowhere in particular, but that are exquisitely lovely
in themselves (one called allée des Brouillards, “fog
alley”); rue Georges-Perec, one of the city’s smallest
streets, is a mere staircase without a single numbered address.
There’s a square in the fifteenth arrondissement where pétanque
players gather in a “sublimely relaxing provincial atmosphere
with an almost Mediterranean feel…right down to the sweet
scent of pastis.”
Not all of the places that Jean-Christophe Napias recommends are
obscure, but many have been overlooked despite being in the best-known
neighborhoods of Paris. In the sixth arrondissement, for example,
he has found a string of small courtyards that he predicts will
soon be locked to non-residents and should be seen right away,
if only to glimpse what may be the only antique pas-de-mule (a
three-footed metal stool used to step into a carriage) left in
Paris. There’s also a well with a pulley and gargoyle-sculpted
rim from the fourteenth century, and, in a connecting courtyard,
the base of a tower from the medieval city walls of Emperor Philippe
Auguste.
The author often sprinkles his atmospheric descriptions with literary
quotations or historical anecdotes.
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