Four days of coffee, cakes and cycling in Paris

November 13, 2014

I hadn’t visited Paris since I was an impoverished backpacker back in the late nineties, when I had travelled around Europe with a printed timetable the thickness of a telephone book, and before mobile phones or even the internet were part of my daily life.

So when I visited in the spring of this year I was sure to live it up, eating and drinking at the best coffee shops and restaurants in the northeast of Paris.

My accommodation at the top of the Canal Saint-Martin district (booked as ever using Airbnb) was perfect for exploring the city — walkable from the Eurostar, and close enough to reach the centre by Vélib. In fact the streets proved so cycle-friendly that I didn’t use public transport at all for the duration of my stay.

View my list of the best cycling pitstops in Paris (caffeine, cake or alcohol based) on Foursquare, which include the Fragments and Ten Belles coffee shops and the Sébastien Gaudard pâtisserie.

(Head anywhere on or to the east of Rue Lucien Sampaix in the 10th arrondissement to find most of the places in these photos… or further east to Belleville to get off the beaten tourist track)