In the footsteps of Georges Brassens: Belleville and Canal Saint-Martin

Starting point and access: Rue de Belleville at Porte des Lilas.
- Metro - Lines 3bis and 11, Porte des Lilas station, exit 3 Rue de Belleville. At the top of the metro exit, turn left at the corner of a café-restaurant.
- Tram - Line T3b, Porte des Lilas station. Cross Boulevard Mortier on the Paris intra-muros (west) side, turn right to reach the crossroads, Rue de Belleville is the second on the left.

After the point (1), you will see a red and yellow marker, which is only mentioned in the description if necessary.

(S) Follow Rue de Belleville west-southwest. Cross Rue Haxo, then walk gently uphill along the wall of the Belleville cemetery on your left. At the traffic lights, turn left onto Rue du Télégraphe. Pass the cemetery entrance and, before the two water towers, turn right onto Passage du Télégraphe (a paved alley marked as private but open to pedestrians). At the end, turn left onto Rue Pelleport.

At the crossroads, take the second right, Rue de la Duée. At number 37, turn left into Villa Georgina. At the end, turn right into Rue Taclet. Walk past a school and turn right with the street. Return to Rue de la Duée and follow it to the left. Just after No. 27, turn left into Passage des Saint-Simoniens. Turn right along this alleyway, passing a square on your left and a flower bed (in season) on your right. At the end, turn left and then immediately right into Rue de Ménilmontant.

(1) At the traffic lights, cross Rue des Pyrénées and follow it to the right, staying on the left-hand pavement. Shortly after No. 313, turn left twice in succession to enter Villa de l'Ermitage (red and yellow sign), leaving Cité Leroy on your right (both streets are very narrow). Turn right along the alleyway. At the end, turn right into Rue de l'Ermitage (ignore the red and yellow arrow pointing left).

At the corner of No. 47bis, go down Rue Fernand Raynaud on the left (stairs, street lamps). Turn right onto Rue des Cascades. After a few metres, at the corner of the Saint-Martin manhole (small stone building), turn left onto Rue de Savies (downhill). At the three-way junction, turn left onto Rue de la Mare and continue to the crossroads.

(2) Continue straight ahead on Rue de la Mare. At the end, take the footbridge over the old Petite Ceinture railway line. Then turn left and walk past the side of Notre Dame de la Coix church. Turn left and cross Rue de Ménilmontant. Continue straight ahead on Rue des Amandiers. Note the almond tree on the left-hand side at the junction with Rue des Plâtrières. Then turn right onto Rue des Panoyaux.

(3) After crossing Rue Duris coming from the left and at the corner of No. 37, turn right into Cité du labyrinthe (dead end for cars). First turn left then right with the alley and pass under a porch to return to Rue de Ménilmontant.

Then turn left and stay on the left-hand pavement. Cross Boulevard de Belleville in two stages and, in the middle, Place Jean Ferrat. Continue along Rue Oberkampf (west-southwest) until you reach No. 94. Then turn right into Rue Saint-Maur (newsstand).

(4) At the next intersection, turn left onto Rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud. Cross Avenue Parmentier, then Rue de Nemours, and walk along Place de la Fontaine Taimbeau. Continue along Rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud and cross Avenue de la République, Rue de la Folie-Méricourt, Boulevard Richard-Lenoir (in two stages), Rue du Grand Prieuré and Boulevard Voltaire (on the right, view of the monument to the Republic).

At the next intersection, turn right onto Rue Amelot. Cross Passage du Jeu de Boules coming from the right and join Boulevard Voltaire, which you follow on the left, staying on the left-hand pavement. At the end, use the pedestrian crossing to cross the circular boulevard of Place de la République and access the central esplanade. Reach the foot of the monument to the Republic.

(5) Then turn right and enter Rue du Faubourg du Temple, which starts between two imposing buildings (metro entrance on the left-hand pavement). Cross Rue Yves Toudic and come out at the junction between Quai de Valmy (on the left) and Boulevard Jules Ferry (on the right).

(6) Cross the quay, turn left and immediately enter Square Frédérick Le Maître to walk along the canal on your right. Leave the square at the end on the left and pass a footbridge over the canal on your right. Further on, pass the swing bridge of Rue Dieu (sign) on your right. Continue along Quai de Valmy and ignore another footbridge at Rue Beaurepaire.

At the next intersection (Rue de Lancry coming from the left; lock on the canal), turn right, either onto the Grange aux Belles swing bridge or the footbridge parallel to it (the route on the map follows the footbridge). Turn immediately left onto Quai de Jemmapes, pass the famous "Hôtel du Nord" at no. 102 and ignore the next footbridge at Rue Bichat. Then stay as close as possible to the canal, now on your left.

(7) At the next bridge (locks, "VHF20" sign at the edge of the canal), cross to the right of the quay and then to the left of Rue des Ecluses Saint-Martin (the map is not very accurate at this point). Continue along the quay for a few metres and, at the corner of No. 148, turn right onto Rue Georg Friedrich Haendel. Pass under the arbour with the sports fields below on your right.

When you reach a small square (Place Robert Desnos on the map), turn immediately left onto Rue Francis Jammes. First turn left then right and ignore an alley on the right. When you see an exit porch in front of you, turn left to pass in front of the entrance to a nursery and then pass under another porch. Then turn left onto Rue Louis Blanc, cross Quai de Jemmapes and cross Canal Saint-Martin.

(8) Turn left onto Quai de Valmy and walk along the canal again (on your left). At the next bridge, leave the canal and turn right onto Rue Eugène Varlin. Take the first left, Rue Robert Blache, at the corner of a brasserie.

At the end, turn right onto Rue du Terrage, then immediately left onto Avenue de Verdun (porch marked "Villien"). Pass a small square and continue along the avenue under the plane trees. At the end, turn right to cross Rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin. First turn left then right, heading towards "P1 Alsace" (sign) and arrive at the entrance courtyard of the Gare de l'Est (E).

To return home:
- Metro - Lines 4, 5 and 7.
- Transilien - Line P.

Good trainers are sufficient for this urban route. The time indicated is the actual walking time and does not include breaks or any visits.

There are numerous bars, restaurants and shops along the route, offering plenty of opportunities to quench your thirst or grab a bite to eat.

Although street names are almost always indicated on site, a map is always useful (at least the one accompanying this description).

The large number of metro and bus stations along the route means you can shorten the walk at will, depending on how much time you have or how you feel.

Hike completed by the author on 17 February 2016.

In this section, there are three types of points of interest: (i) places associated with the life of Georges Brassens, (ii) places associated with his songs, whose titles are in italics, and (iii) other key heritage sites.

There are benches everywhere, which we know are there for lovers of public benches.

Wallace Fountains are drinking fountains installed in 1872, following the siege of Paris, thanks to a donation from Richard Wallace (1818-1890). They have a distinctive shape with four young women reminiscent of ancient Greece and wearing a small dome above their heads. In Le Bistro, Brassens envisages "drinking deeply from all the Wallace fountains". On this first section, there are Wallace fountains in the following two locations: Place Jean Ferrat (on the right-hand side) and Place de la Fontaine Timbaud.

Between La Porte des Lilas (S) and the intersection of Rue de Ménilmontant and Rue des Amandiers:
- Porte des Lilas - This is the title of a 1957 film by René Clair, in which Georges Brassens plays the role of a singer and guitarist, and for which he composed Les lilas.
- Rue du Télégraphe owes its name to the Chappe telegraph that was installed at No. 40. At an altitude of 128 metres, it is the highest point in Paris, along with the Butte Montmartre.
- Paths and stairways in the Belleville and Ménilmontant neighbourhoods - In the posthumous album (1983) "Georges Brassens chante Bruant, Colpi, Musset, Nadaud, Norge", the first track is Belleville-Ménilmontant (lyrics and music by Aristide Bruant).
- At 44 Rue des Cascades, the Saint-Martin water tower, a small stone building that provided access to the old Belleville aqueduct.

Between the intersection of Rue de Ménilmontant and Rue des Amandiers and Place de la République (5):
- Rue des Amandiers - The almond tree.
- Place Jean Ferrat - In 1963, singer Jean Ferrat (1930-2010) wrote and composed a song called A Brassens.
- Rue Oberkampf, several entrances to "cités" or courtyards of former workshops.
- At 116 Rue Oberkampf, the restaurant "L'Estaminet" where, in the late 1940s, Brassens accompanied Edith Piaf on the guitar (there is no sign of this outside, but the establishment's website proclaims it).
- Place de la Fontaine Timbaud, on the Rue de Nemours side, there is a small sculpture of the Virgin and Child on the façade of a restaurant.
- Boulevard Voltaire - In Ceux qui ne pensent pas comme nous (posthumous), Brassens quotes Voltaire on the subject of freedom of expression.
- At 145 Rue Amelot, just before (6), is the bookshop of the Anarchist Federation and headquarters of Le Monde libertaire. In the second half of the 1940s, Georges Brassens wrote regularly for Le Libertaire, the federation's newspaper, and also worked there as a proofreader.
- Passage du Jeu de Boules - A game of pétanque.

From Place de la République (5) to Gare de l'Est (E):
- Place de la République, one of the largest squares in Paris. Monument to the Republic. Oak of Remembrance planted in January 2016 in memory of the attacks of January and November 2015.
- At 18 Rue Faubourg du Temple, entrance to the former Astley's Circus.
- Canal Saint-Martin and its locks.
- At 102 Quai de Jemmapes, the Hôtel du Nord, which inspired a novel adapted for the cinema by Marcel Carné in 1938, where you can hear Arletty's famous line "Atmosphere? Atmosphere? Do I look like atmosphere to you?".
- Rue Francis Jammes, named after the poet (1868-1938) who wrote the lyrics to La prière.
- Avenue de Verdun - The First World War, Les deux oncles.
- Gare de l'Est - It was from here that Georges Brassens left for Germany in March 1943, travelling to the Berlin area as part of the Compulsory Work Service (STO). Having been granted leave in March 1944, he remained in Paris, where he went into hiding until the end of the war.
- Gare de l'Est, façade with statues representing the cities of Verdun (east wing) and Strasbourg (west wing).