Exchange Zones

 If the ideal is to be on a quiet street (let alone in a courtyard building) in the middle of a vibrant neighborhood, then rue Houdon is the place to be. Just a block long, this street provides a sort of side entrance to old Montmartre. At the bottom of the hill is the busy Place Pigalle, with its Metro station, bus stops, taxi stands and late-night shops and clubs.

At the top of the street, just past the live jazz club, Cafe Houdon, is the storybook Place des Abbesses, which boasts an original Hector Guimard Metro station, a classic Paris kiosk, a Wallace fountain and a children’s carousel, a vest-pocket park all in flower, an unusual brick church and the start of the climb up to the Sacre-Coeur basilica.

We are in Amelie’s quartier, for those who saw the film. The Marche de la Butte, the picturesque produce shop where she hung out, is right off the Place des Abbesses. Down the street is the rue Lepic, Montmartre’s best market street. Just off Abbesses in the other direction is the rue des Martyrs, another famous neighborhood market street.

If you want to steep in a Paris experience, you cannot do better: prize-winning, artisanal boulangeries and pâtisseries, flower shops, cafés, restaurants, boutiques, bookstores, cheese shops, wine stores, all in endless supply.

A few blocks away, at the foot of the butte, is Paris’s fabrics district (Marche St Pierre), including Dreyfus, six floors of every imaginable material, colour and design.

The neighborhood is also full of guitar stores. Down a side street off Houdon is a modest atelier where a master craftsman makes harpsichords.

Just on our little block-long rue Houdon are found the following: a cafe at each end of the street (one with jazz), an antique store, a music store (mainly guitars), two local-designer women’s clothing boutiques, a beauty salon (male & female), an internet cafe, three restaurants (Indian, Thai and the wonderful Chez Grisette), a little grocery store and, across the street from no. 14, the neighbourhood ecole maternelle (public pre-school). The ATM is around the corner.