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The 12th arrondissement is a pleasant, middle class residential district, well served with local life and a fair amount of open space. Running straight across the heart of the quarter, the Promenade Plantee might well claim to be one Paris’ strangest Parks - once a train line, it’s now a pedestrian pathway lined with flowerbeds and hedgerows, raised high above the bustle of the streets, and beneath which boutiques and workshops are nestled in it’s stone arches.

At the Western entrance to the twelfth arrondissement stands the Opera Bastille, an enormous and remarkable building on the south west side of Place de la Bastille. Strangely angular, and clad in wide grey slabs, it serves as Paris second opera, hosting new, modern performances and plenty of ballet in the newly fashionable eastern districts of the city.

Down the Rue de Lyon stands one of Paris’ busiest and most attractive train stations, the Gare de Lyon. It’s tall, famous clock tower faces down the green Bastille Column only a kilometre away. Le Train Bleu, it’s beautiful belle-epoque restaurant, is now one of the most famous dining rooms in Europe.

The southern, riverside areas - until recently drowned under the rail lines snaking out from the Gare De Lyon - have benefitted from much redevelopment over the last decade, becoming something of an entertainment district. The French Finance Ministry inhabits a shiny glass building right next to the Bercy Palais Omnisport: an enormous, indoor arena that hosts many of the cities most popualar gigs. Nearby, the old warehouses at the picturesque Cour St Emillion have been reborn as bars and restaurants, clustering around the local UGC - one of the biggest cinema multiplexes in the world.