This is one of those books you will appreciate once you know Paris a bit better. When you visit for the first time you want to see the famous places but as soon as you have seen them and get tired of fellow tourists you might enjoy following the tips that you can find in a book like Quiet Corners of Paris – Unexpected Hideaways, Secret Courtyards, Hidden Gardens (you can open it by clicking on the photo).

I think there aren’t many things as magical as being in a big city with all the commotion and traffic, enter a passage, go through a door and find yourself in another world, almost outside of time, like a character in a fantasy novel. Many cities have places like this but they are hard to find.

Quiet Corners of Paris is informative and contains a number of lovely photographs. It’s a small book, rectangular in shape with nice glossy paper.

The book is structured along the different Arrondissements, starting with the first and ending with the 20th. Each arrondissement has other things to offer.

You will find some less well-known museums like the Musée Zadkine, Musée de la Vie Romantique, La Maison Balzac or the Musée Bourdelle, but also a great number of enchanted looking places like the Place Dauphine, the Hôtels du Marais, the Village Saint-Paul.

Parks are also mentioned, you will find the Jardin du Luxembourg and the Parc Monceau as well as the Buttes-Chaumont.

In any case it is a lovely book and will help you discover a hidden side of Paris that is as charming or even more so than the big Boulevards and Avenues.

This is a contribution to Book Bath‘s and Thyme for Tea‘s event Paris In July.