Description of Batignolles
Batignolles is a district at the northern edge of Paris in the 17th arrondissement. It is still kept off the radar from a travel perspective, probably because it doesn’t conceal any famous landmark or museum, despite being a fairly fancy neighborhood.
The Playground of Kings
Like many other districts of the outer arrondissements, Batignolles was originally far removed from Paris.
Until the French revolution of 1789, this area was made of grasslands and forests and served as hunting grounds for the kings.
A Farming Village
It then became a farming village and began to attract Parisian merchants who built second homes here.
In 1860, like its famous neighbor Montmartre, it was incorporated into Paris by Napoleon III and Prefect Haussmann.
Batignolles Takes the Modern Turn
When bidding for the organization of 2012 Olympic Games, Paris sees Batignolles as a potential host for the Olympic Village. London wins, but the project of remodeling the rail area in the north of the district is already underway.
A modern landscaped park with water pounds, surrounded by futuristic residential housing appears: the Martin Luther King park was born!
The Batignolles Tour
On this tour, we’ll get a glimpse of these various contrasts that make the identity of this district: strolling through a fancy 19th-century English garden, enjoying a coffee break with a panoramic view on this modern park delivered in the 2010’s that will ravish young and old alike, or weaving our way through an astonishing bourgeois residential alley.
We’ll conclude the tour either in a local café or a cultural “third space” (subject to opening days).
Highlights
- Time travel with 2 parks from the 19th & 21st centuries
- Local neighborhood feel
- Passage in a bourgeois private street
- Cultural third space in a former train station
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