Walking around Paris and discovering a neighbourhood is always a pleasure, with great architecture to admire and gardens to explore, but there are still some hidden treasures you might not find unless you know where to look.

In the area around Montparnasse, not far from our hotels, there’s a lot more to see than the 59-floor tower! Perhaps you would like to discover with us a gorgeous art nouveau building, an underground swimming pool, some hidden ornate tiles from 1895, the garden suspended above the Montparnasse train station, a newly-planted urban forest, a new-generation shopping centre with DJs, or the cemetery where you’ll find Charles Baudelaire, Marguerite Duras and Serge Gainsbourg?

Follow us for a walk full of great surprises…

We start our walk at 140 rue de Rennes, just minutes away from the Hotel & Spa la Belle Juliette. A Zara store now occupies the lower part of this art nouveau building (designed by architect Paul Auscher), which was made for the department store Félix Potin in 1904, and both the façade and roof of the building are now listed historical monuments. They don’t make opuluent buildings like this any more!

From here we head towards the (rightfully) much-maligned Tour Montparnasse, the soaring poster child for ugly 1970s architecture. It’s said that from its roof you have the most beautiful view of Paris because… you can’t see the Tour Montparnasse! Due for renovation, the 2017 300M€ project still hasn’t started, and the dingy shopping centre at the tower’s base is now a lugubrious place, partly because the large Galeries Lafayette department store there closed in 2019.

Nevertheless, there are some beautiful things to see around here.

Push the door of 5 rue d’Odessa, advance towards the courtyard, and you’ll discover a second, smaller building (formerly public baths, now a male-only sauna) dating from 1895, with some incredible sculpted tiles, rich in colour. Almost nobody knows about this place…

Just next door, at 3 rue d’Odessa is the Pathé Parnasse cinema which was renovated and enlarged in 2022 (by combining it with another cinema on the other side of the same building). It’s now a ‘premium’ cinema with a reduced number of large, comfortable seating, although there are still 12 screens, with 800 seats in all.

However, it’s far from the only cinema in Montparnasse – the area has a long, rich history of cinemas, and while a few have closed it remains a major hub for moviegoers, with 33 screens and a total of nearly 4,000 seats!

Opposite, a staircase descends to the shopping centre, but we are not here for the shops – hidden below is a swimming pool (Piscine Armand-Massard), or rather three pools (12.5m, 25m and 33 metres long) one of which is over 3 metres deep! Such big pools are rare in Paris, and with entrance costing just 3.50€, it’s a certified bargain. You’ll find the opening times here.

Now we’re off down a smaller street to see the Villa Marie Vassilieff. While the experimental arts centre formerly housed here closed in 2020, it remains a typical Parisian cul-de-sac with cobblestones, lots of plants and some artist workshops to peer into.

And just next door, we were surprised to happen upon a Parisian cabaret! Open since 2011, Oh! César offers dinner and a show (and nightclub after) for around 100€ per person (if you book online).

Our next stop is the end of the line for many, many trains every day – Gare Montparnasse, a building so huge that it’s difficult to miss. Reconstructed in 1969 and renovated a number of times since, the station (Paris’ fourth busiest) has 28 platforms divided into three zones, with over 80 million people (both travellers and non-travellers) passing through each year.

The most recent renovation has brought the number of in-station stores to 100 (which perhaps explains why the shopping centre under the Tower is now almost empty), allowed more natural light to enter, and allowed the restoration of two huge paintings (32m x 6m) by the artist Victor Vasarely, dating from 1971.

A lot of people have no idea that the station actually has a hidden 3.5 hectare garden above it created in 1994. Make your way through the crowds to platform one and you’ll see a staircase discreetly marked ‘Jardin’.

Go up the stairs and you’ll find yourself in the Jardin Atlantique! Although the Museum of the Liberation of Paris was once housed here before moving to Denfert-Rochereau in 2019, you’ll still find ping-pong tables, tennis courts and lots of hidden leafy corners with benches, the perfect place to have a picnic or wait for your train if you’ve arrived early.

Lovers of brutalist 1970s architecture will also enjoy the huge apartment blocks on either side of the garden (including the Immeuble Mouchotte dating from 1966, with 750 apartments and 18 floors). As for the garden itself, it may be best to wait for spring to arrive and brighten up the grey of the concrete and stone.

Let’s quickly pass by the surprising urban forest on what used to be a roundabout on place de Catalogne (that we told you about here) and head towards the nearby rue de la Gaité to check out the new shopping centre called Les Ateliers Gaité. Recently built to take the place of a fugly shopping centre from the 2000s, you’ll now find thirty stores here, plus a games centre in the basement and a large food court with DJs, salsa lessons, a comedy club, concerts, events with childminders so the parents can really let loose, karaoke, pinball and other events!

For the full line-up, click here.

Opposite, the rue de la Gaité is well-known to Parisians for its numerous theatres – there are at least seven here (including the famous Bobino) or very nearby! Perhaps they can help you brush up on your French language skills? 😜

And just a couple of minutes from here, to end our walk, don’t miss Montparnasse cemetery, our little Left Bank Père-Lachaise and the final resting place of Charles Baudelaire, Samuel Beckett, Marguerite Duras, Guy de Maupassant, Eugène Ionesco, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Henri Poincaré, Paul Langevin, Paul Verlaine, Susan Sontag, Jean Seberg, Jacques Demy, Claude Sautet, Man Ray, Brassaï and the one and only Serge Gainsbourg.

Rue Emile Richard used to separate the two sections of the cemetery, but has just been pedestrianised and should make for a lovely leafy walk once the plants grow in.

So there you have it – some interesting ideas for exploring the area around Montparnasse and finding places that many people miss. The map below shows where we went, and if you have any suggestions of interesting sports we may have missed, feel free to add them in the comments!