A quiet private street laid out in 1847, the Cité des Fleurs is a single gated lane lined with low nineteenth-century houses, each set behind a small flower-filled front garden — the rule from the start was that every owner had to plant their plot. The gates are open by day and walkers are welcome to stroll its length, though it remains a residential street rather than a public park.
It is a small, easily missed pleasure on the northern edge of Batignolles: a glimpse of a leafy, almost village-like Paris that survived the city growing up around it. A two-minute detour for anyone curious about how the quarter once looked.