Ménilmontant
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Oberkampf Mural

Like Belleville, Ménilmontant aligns itself along one straight, steep, long street, the rue de Ménilmontant and its lower extension rue Oberkampf. Although seedy and dilapidated in parts, its popularity with students and artists has brought a cutting-edge vitality to the area. Alternative shops and trendy bars and restaurants have sprung up among the grocers and cheap hardware stores, especially along rue Oberkampf, which now hosts a vibrant bar scene: some of the most popular hangouts are Café Charbon, a renovated dance hall, the nearby Cithéa club and Le Mécano. The upper reaches of rue de Ménilmontant, above rue Sorbier, are quieter, and looking back, you find yourself dead in line with the rooftop of the Pompidou Centre, a measure of how high you are above the rest of the city.

Like Belleville itself, the area closest to boulevard Belleville has been almost completely demolished and rebuilt – on a small scale, around courtyards with open spaces for kids to play. Centred on rue des Amandiers, this part of Ménilmontant suffers the very odd fate of being a bit too squeaky-clean and unweathered as yet, and the café count has dropped to near zero. Rue Elisa-Borey turns into steps alongside the extraordinary France Telecom building, topped with great bunches of masts, which faces a lovely small park on rue Sorbier.

Cross the park, take a right, then a left into rue Boyer, and you'll find the splendid mosaic and sculpted constructivist facade of La Bellevilloise at no. 25, built for the PCF in 1925 to celebrate fifty years of work and science. Saved from demolition by a preservation order, it is now home to a theatre school.

A short way before it, a delightful lane of village houses and gardens, rue Laurence-Savart, climbs up to rue du Retrait. The latter street ends on rue des Pyrénées opposite the poetically named alley of sighs, the "passage des Soupirs". Rue des Pyrénées, the main cross-route through this quartier, is itself redolent of the provinces, getting busier as it approaches place Gambetta. The post office at no. 248 has a big ceramic wall-piece by the sculptor Zadkine. Close by place Gambetta, on rue Malte-Brun, is the glass frontage of the Théâtre National de la Colline, built in 1987 to replace the dingy old cinema that used to house the theatre. You can snack in its cafeteria and pick up brochures on current productions.

Just 200m west of the place Gambetta is the Père-Lachaise cemetery. There's more melancholy to be found near the northwest corner of the cemetery, where the street names echo the long-vanished orchards and rustic pursuits of the villagers: Amandiers (almond trees), Pruniers (plum trees), Mûriers (mulberry trees), Pressoir (wine press). Further west, across boulevard de Ménilmontant, another era is captured in the Musée Édith Piaf, at 5 rue Crespin-du-Gast (Mon–Thurs 1–6pm; closed Sept; admission by appointment only on 01.43.55.52.72; donation; M° Ménilmontant & M° St-Maur). Piaf was not an acquisitive person: the few clothes (yes, a little black dress), letters, toys, paintings and photographs that she left are almost all here, along with every one of her recordings. The venue is a small flat lived in by her devoted friend Bernard Marchois, and the "Amis d'Édith Piaf" will show you around and tell you stories about her life.