Butte-aux-Cailles: the village on the hill
A cobbled hilltop of low houses and street art, an Art Deco spring-fed pool, and a storybook flower street. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Corvisart metro
The M6 runs overground here, so you arrive already above the city. Climb the steps up rue des Cinq-Diamants and the boulevards vanish behind you within a block. The hill starts immediately.

2. Rue de la Butte-aux-Cailles
The spine of the village — cobbles, low houses, bars and bistros that fill up at night and drowse by day. Walk it slowly and look up: this is one of the few corners of central Paris that never got the Haussmann treatment.

3. Street art on rue des Cinq-Diamants
The whole quarter is an open-air gallery — Miss.Tic stencils, big painted gable ends, things that change month to month. Don't hunt for a specific piece; just keep your eyes up as you wander the side streets.

4. Piscine de la Butte-aux-Cailles
A 1924 Art Deco swimming pool fed by an artesian spring, the water naturally warm. You don't have to swim — the brick-and-tile building is worth the look from outside — but if you've brought trunks, this is the best pool in Paris to use them in.

5. Place Paul-Verlaine
The square beside the pool, with the artesian well-head that still gives drinkable spring water — locals fill bottles here. A quiet, slightly secret spot to sit before the last leg.

6. Cité Florale
A pocket of tiny streets named for flowers — rue des Glycines, rue des Iris — lined with low houses and climbing roses, built on old marshy ground too soft for tall blocks. It feels staged and isn't. Tread gently; people live here.

7. Place d'Italie
Walk back north and east to the big roundabout for the M5/M6/M7. After the hush of the hill the traffic is a shock; that contrast is the whole point of where you've just been.

Butte-aux-Cailles: the village on the hill