From Les Halles to Beaubourg, from Rue Montorgueil to the Quais de Seine, walk around Paris’s oldest district. French novelist Emile Zola named this area – with its vast market halls teeming with traders, craftsmen, and hawkers, animals, sights, sounds and smells– the ‘belly of Paris’. Such activity inevitably attracted crime and debauchery, so not surprisingly the site also housed a court, police headquarters and several prisons. It remained the commercial centre of the capital until the twentieth century, and is still a lively shopping area today. Arts and leisure activities also feature prominently: two theatres (Théâtre de la Ville and Théâtre du Châtelet), the Rives de Seine Park and Nelson Mandela Garden. Châtelet has never been such a great place for a stroll with family or friends. Discover this fascinating district and soak up history, shopping, and culture. The walk starts at Place du Châtelet.
