Travelling to Paris? Here’s why you should stay in the 2nd arrondissement
This is not the Paris of tourist brochures. This is the Paris where celebrities rub shoulders with merchants on cobblestone streets. It’s charming and it’s real.
I am beginning to think the driver is lost. Weaving in and out of streets crammed with pedestrians on this sticky summer Saturday, he seems to make several wrong turns, narrowly missing a woman with a stroller here, a man on a pushbike there. The ride goes on and on. The cost of taking a taxi from Charles de Gaulle airport to Paris’s inner suburbs is fixed these days – €55 to the Right Bank, €62 to the Left – so it’s not like he’s deliberately wasting time. But as we get deeper into the heart of the old city, I begin to worry. Surely we’re not staying here?
And then he pulls up. “We’re here,” he says, nodding at the almost unmarked door of our hotel. As soon as we get out of the car the sensory overload that is Paris hits us. Horns honk, lovers bicker in French, wafts of cigarette smoke settle on our skin like smog; the scents and sounds of humanity ricochet madly off the splendid buildings with their enormous doorways and carved cornices. We take a moment to absorb it. Paris comes at you fast when you’re not ready for it.
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Google “best arrondissementstostay in Paris” and a list of the usual suspects pops up. Of the 20 districts into which Paris is divided, the 1st, with its flashy tourist attractions (the Louvre, Jardin des Tuileries), is habitually the star. You’ll also be recommended the 7th (Palais Bourbon), the 6th (Jardin du Luxembourg), the 5th (Panthéon); the list goes on. But we have managed to find ourselves in none of these. Rather we are staying in the 2nd arrondissement.
“The 2nd?” my Paris-based friend says, puzzled, when I tell her where we are. “OK, I’ll find you.”
We are staying at The Hoxton, part of the UK-based hotel group. Hoxtons are renowned for inhabiting fabulous buildings in less-than-famous locations; a winning formula, for the brand has expanded at pace post-Covid, opening in the past year in London, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Brussels and Berlin. Soon, too, there will be new addresses in Edinburgh, Vienna and Dublin.
And walking through the cavernous entrance into this gorgeous space, complete with spiral staircase and alfresco courtyard, it’s not hard to see why the group picked this spot. What they have created is a hotel that combines Belle Époque looks with contemporary styling and attitude. It’s so cool even the locals love it.
The 2nd, too, begins to not just charm but thrill us. At just under a square kilometre, and home to 20,000 residents, it is best known as the city’s textile district. But it has other claims to fame including being home to Palais Brongniart, which for years functioned as the French stock exchange, and part of France’s national library.
Situated beside the mighty 1st arrondissement, and alongside the Marais (which comprises the 3rd and 4th), the 2nd is a slice of inner-city Paris minus the tourist hordes. Serviced by the gritty Boulevard de Bonne Nouvelle, the neighbourhood is criss-crossed by interesting side streets filled with boutiques, cafes, restaurants, bars and shops, all filled with locals. So much so, you could spend days here hearing next to no English.
For travellers, too, it has the benefit of being just close enough to attractions; one stop on the Metro takes you to Opéra and Galeries Lafayette; and from the hotel you can walk to the Louvre. Heading out on foot leads to the Rue de la Paix and nearby is Rue Montorgueil, one of Paris’s oldest and most famous culinary streets, filled with boulangeries, patisseries, poissonniers, creperies, rotisseries, brasseries, bars and everything in between.
The best parts, though, are the unexpected surprises we encounter on our walks. One day, trotting down Rue des Jeuneurs, we spy the exquisite courtyard restaurant Bambou, tucked away down a dark alleyway like an treasure.
Another day, popping up from the Bonne Nouvelle Metro, we accidentally find ourselves at the world premiere of the film Oppenheimer. The Grand Rex cinema, located on the corner of our street, is lit up with spotlights and laid with red carpets. Suddenly Matt Damon, Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr and Emily Blunt turn up to greet onlookers and media. It’s exhilarating. Then, when we return to the hotel, a magazine launch is happening in the courtyard; music pumps, cocktails flow, models pout. We somehow manage to join in – onlookers who have become part of things.
This is not the Paris of the tourist brochure with its Eiffel Tower views and Seine cruises, overcrowded galleries and cliché bistros. This is the real Paris, the big city Paris where exciting things happen, where people live and create and celebrities rub shoulders with textile merchants on cobblestone streets.
When I get back home, I speak to a friend who also happened to stay at The Hoxton Paris this summer. “Great location, isn’t it?” she says. I couldn’t agree more.
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Stay: The Hoxton, Paris (30-32 Rue du Sentier, Paris) is a 172-room hotel with a range of room sizes, from the Shoebox (13sqm-17sqm) to the Biggy (23sqm-36sqm). We stay in a Biggy which is roomy enough for two adults and a kid on a rollaway bed. Prices start at €247 ($415); thehoxton.com.
Eat: Nearby Rue du Montmartre is lined with cafes, bistros and brasseries. We eat frequently at Joseph Boulangerie (corner Rue du Montmartre and Rue d’Aboukir). The Hoxton’s onsite restaurants are also great fun.
Do: Attractions in the 2nd include the Porte Saint-Denis (Boulevard Saint-Denis), a smaller archway than the Arc de Triomphe and Palais Brongniart (16 Place de la Bourse), a Napoleonic-era palace built as the French stock exchange. The Louvre and the Centre Pompidou are in walking distance.
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