Belleville is the Paris that the postcards skip and the city can't do without: a hill that climbs through a dozen cuisines, walls repainted every fortnight, and a park terrace with the best free view east in the city. Working-class, immigrant, contested, alive — and the place where Édith Piaf was, by legend, born on the pavement.
Three kilometres, uphill most of the way. Start at the Carrefour de Belleville, where the Chinese restaurants and North African bakeries crowd the crossroads — eat something in your hand first. Slip down rue Dénoyez for the street-art walls, which are never the same twice; the churn is the work.
Then up rue de Belleville itself, the spine, past phở and dumplings and couscous, climbing as you go. Turn into the Parc de Belleville and walk to the top terrace: the whole skyline opens out, flat and silver, the Eiffel Tower a small thing in the distance.
End by Place Édith Piaf near Pyrénées, the climb behind you and the M11 ahead.
