The green heart of the neighbourhood, the Square des Batignolles was laid out in the 1860s in the fashionable English landscape style: winding paths, a small artificial stream and pond with ducks, mature trees, a grotto, and a little waterfall. Napoleon III's prefect Haussmann scattered such parks across the city to give every district its patch of green, and this is one of the most charming survivors.
It is purely a local pleasure — families, students with books, old residents on the benches — and exactly the kind of unhurried Parisian scene the neighbourhood is loved for. A few minutes from the market and the church, it is the obvious place to pause on a wander through Batignolles.