From Henri IV's royal tapestry works past a park on the site of a gasworks to the triangle between the avenues de Choisy and d'Ivry and boulevard Masséna. This is the largest Asian quarter in Paris, settled from the late 1970s by Chinese families from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in the then-empty towers of the Italie 13 project. It ends on the raised slab of the Olympiades.
Best time: Late morning, ending with lunch in the Asian quarter; the Chinese New Year parade crosses these streets on its day
The route, stop by stop
- 1Manufacture des Gobelins
42 avenue des Gobelins. Royal tapestry works founded in April 1601 under Henri IV; tapestries are still woven here for state buildings. The Galerie des Gobelins reopened in 2007, for the 400th anniversary, as an exhibition space for the Mobilier national collections. 45 min with an exhibition.
- 2Parc de Choisy
A 4.3-hectare park opened in 1937 on the site of the Ivry gasworks (1836-1935), which Gustave Eiffel enlarged in 1876 with four more gasholders. Seven round tunnels shaped like the old gasholders run under it. The main green space of the Chinese quarter. 15 min.
- 3Tang Frères, avenue d'Ivry
48 avenue d'Ivry. The big Asian supermarket of the quarter. Brothers Bou and Bounmy Rattanavan, Chinese from Laos, founded Tang Frères in July 1976 as an import business for soy sauce and rice paper. 20 min.
- 4Rue du Disque (Buddhist temple)
A covered street tied to the underground car park, with its exit on avenue d'Ivry. On the left is a Buddhist temple run by the Association des résidents en France d'origine indochinoise, dedicated to Buddhist and Taoist deities including the bodhisattva Guanyin. The Amicale des Teochew runs a second temple in the quarter. Teochew and Cantonese are still the most spoken dialects here. 15 min.
- 5Dalle des Olympiades
The raised pedestrian slab of the Olympiades (1969-1977), Michel Holley's "city within a city". Its towers are named after Olympic host cities (Sapporo, Mexico, Athènes, Helsinki, Cortina, Tokyo). The towers failed to attract the young professionals they were built for, and refugee families from South-East Asia moved in. Olympiades metro station is on the slab's edge for the way back. 20 min.
More walks in Paris
- Île de la Cité and the Latin Quarter
- Marais mansions, falafel and markets
- Montmartre from Nouvelle Athènes to Sacré-Cœur
- Left Bank: Orsay, Rodin and Invalides to the Grand Palais
- Canal Saint-Martin to Belleville
- Tuileries to the Eiffel Tower along the Seine
- Southern villages: Montsouris, Cité Florale and Butte-aux-Cailles
- Saint-Germain-des-Prés to the Luxembourg
- Batignolles and Épinettes: village squares to the new park
- Covered passages: Palais-Royal to the Grands Boulevards
- Ménilmontant to the village of Charonne via Père-Lachaise
- Bassin de la Villette and the Canal de l'Ourcq to the Parc de la Villette