Western Paris

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Getting Oriented | Top Attractions | Worth Noting

Updated by Brian Pirolli

Welcome to Paris at its most prim and proper—but hardly stodgy. This genteel area is a study in smart urban planning, with classical architecture and newer construction commingling as easily as the haute bourgeoisie inhabitants mix with their American expat neighbors. There’s no shortage of celebrities seeking some peace and quiet here, but you’re just as likely to find well-heeled families who decamped from the center of the city in search of a spacious apartment. Passy, once a separate village and home to American ambassadors Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, was incorporated into the city in 1860 under Napoléon III.

A walk along the main avenues gives you a sense of Paris’s finest Art Nouveau and Modernist buildings, including Castel-Béranger, by Hector Guimard, and the Fondation Le Corbusier museum, a prime example of the pioneering architect’s Modernist style (it was one of Corbusier’s first Paris commissions). This neighborhood is also home to one of the city’s best and most overlooked museums—the Musée Marmottan Monet—which has an astonishing collection of Impressionist art. Enjoy a dégustation (tasting) at the Musée du Vin or simply find a café on Rue de Passy and savor a moment in one of the city’s most exclusive enclaves. If it’s a leafy landscape you’re after, spend an afternoon at the Bois de Boulogne, especially if you have kids in tow. At Le Bois, you can explore the Pré Catelan and Bagatelle gardens, both meticulously landscaped and surrounded by woods. Head to the old-fashioned amusement park at the Jardin d’Acclimatation or take a rowboat out on one of the park’s two bucolic lakes. You can also rent a bike and hit 14 km (9 miles) of marked trails.

Getting Oriented

Top Reasons to Go

Musée Marmottan Monet. If you’re a fan of Monet, don’t miss this gem of a museum tucked away deep in the 16e.

Bois de Boulogne. Whether you spend your afternoon in a rowboat or wandering gardens filled with foliage, the Bois is a perfect escape from the city.

Jardin d’Acclimatation. There’s not a child under the age of five who won’t love this amusement park on the northern edge of the Bois de Boulogne.

Fondation Le Corbusier. The iconic Modernist designs of architect Le Corbusier fill this compelling museum, which Corbusier himself designed as a private home.

Making the Most of Your Time

If this isn’t your first time in Paris, or even if it is and you’ve had enough of the touristy central part of the city, this neighborhood is a great choice and can be treated like a day trip. Spend the morning admiring the Monets at the uncrowded Musée Marmottan Monet (closed Monday), then take in the Art Nouveau architecture on Rue la Fontaine. If your goal is to leave the city lights behind altogether, pack a picnic and spend the day in the Bois de Boulogne.

Getting Here

Western Paris includes the 16e and 17e arrondissements. Take Line 9 to La Muette métro stop for the Musée Marmottan Monet, or to the Jasmin stop (also Line 9) to explore Rue la Fontaine. Take Line 6 to the Passy stop for the Musée du Vin or to reach the main drag, Rue de Passy; alternately, take Bus 72 from the Hôtel de Ville or 63 from St. Sulpice. For the Bois de Boulogne, take Line 2 to the Porte Dauphine stop or RER C to Avenue Foch. For the Jardin d’Acclimatation, enter the park from the Les Sablons or Port Maillot métro stops on Line 1. If you’re heading out to La Défense, it’s the end of Line 1.

Best Cafés

La Gare.
For good food in a trendy atmosphere, try this bar/restaurant housed in a former train station. In nice weather, sit outdoors on the large terrace. | 19 chausée de la Muette, Western Paris | 75016 | 01–42–15–15–31 | Station: La Muette.

Le Passy.
The plush chestnut-and-cream decor of this café is the work of one of Givenchy’s nephews. Cocktails are classy, there’s a good variety of beer on tap, the food—bistro fare such as steaks, fish, and frites—is tasty, and candlelight makes everyone look that much more glamorous. | 2 rue de Passy, Passy, Western Paris | 75016 | 01–42–88–31–02 | Station: Passy, Trocadéro.

Villa Passy.
The leafy, tucked-away courtyard of this café just off Rue de Passy may make you think you’ve stumbled into a small village. Sit outside on a cushioned banquette shaded by ivy and order the plat du jour, prepared with fresh market ingredients. Try the €25 Sunday brunch. | 4 impasse des Carrières (opposite 31 rue de Passy), Passy, Western Paris | 75016 | 01–45–27–68–76 | Station: Passy.

Top Attractions

Western Paris

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Fodor’s Choice | Castel-Béranger.
It’s a shame you can’t go inside this house, which is considered the city’s first Art Nouveau structure. Dreamed up in 1898 by Hector Guimard, the wild combination of materials and the grimacing grillwork led neighbors to call it Castle Dérangé (Deranged). Yet the project catapulted the 27-year-old Guimard into the public eye, leading to his famous métro commission. After ogling the sea-inspired front entrance, go partway down the alley to admire the inventive treatment of the traditional Parisian courtyard, complete with a melting water fountain. Just up the road at No. 60 is the Hotel Mezzara, designed by Guimard in 1911 for textile designer Paul Mezzara. You can trace Guimard’s evolution by walking to the subtler Agar complex at the end of the block. Tucked beside the stone entrance at the corner of Rue la Fontaine and Rue Gros is a tiny café-bar with an Art Nouveau glass front and furnishings. | 14 rue la Fontaine, Passy-Auteuil | 75016 | Station: Ranelagh; RER: Maison de Radio France.

Quick Bites: Café Antoine. It seats just 15, but charming Café Antoine warrants a visit for its Art Nouveau facade, floor tiles, and carved wooden bar. Share a charcuterie plate (about €17) and wine. | 17 rue la Fontaine, Passy-Auteuil | 75016 | 01–40–50–14–30 | Station: Ranelagh.

Fondation Le Corbusier (Le Corbusier Foundation).
The 1923 Maison La Roche is a stellar example of Swiss architect Le Corbusier’s innovative construction techniques based on geometric forms, recherché color schemes, and an unblushing use of iron and concrete. The sloping ramp that replaces the traditional staircase is one of the most eye-catching features. Hour-long English tours are available at 2 pm every Tuesday and must be reserved online. 8–10 sq. du Docteur Blanche, Passy-Auteuil | 75016 | 01–42–88–41–53 | www.fondationlecorbusier.fr | €5 | Mon. 1:30–6, Tues.–Sat. 10–6. Closed Sun. (for La Ruche) | Station: Jasmin, Michel Ange Auteuil.

FAMILY | Fodor’s Choice | Bois de Boulogne.
When Parisians need a day in the great outdoors close to home, they head to the Bois de Boulogne. The Bois is not a park in the traditional sense—more like a tamed forest, as it was once a royal hunting ground. On nice days, it is filled with cyclists, rowers, joggers, pétanque players, and picnickers enjoying the formal gardens, romantic lakes, and wooded paths.

Highlights

The Parc de Bagatelle is a floral garden with irises, roses, tulips, and water lilies that is at its most colorful between April and June. Pré Catelan contains one of Paris’s largest trees: a copper beech more than 200 years old. The romantic Le Pré Catelan restaurant, where le tout Paris used to dine on the elegant terrace during the Belle Époque, still lures diners and wedding parties—especially on weekends. The Jardin Shakespeare inside the Pré Catelan has a sampling of the flowers, herbs, and trees mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays, and becomes an open-air theater for the Bard’s works in spring. The Jardin d’Acclimatation, on the northern edge of the Bois, is an amusement park that attracts seemingly every local preschooler on summer Sunday afternoons. Highlights include boat trips along an “enchanted river” and an aviary. A miniature railway shuttle runs from Porte Maillot on Wednesday and weekends beginning at 1:30 (tickets cost €2.70, round-trip). Rent boats or bikes for a few euros at Lac Inférieur. You can row or take a quick ferry to the island restaurant Chalet des Iles. Two popular horse-racing tracks are also in the park, the Hippodrome de Longchamp and the Hippodrome d’Auteuil. Fans of the French Open can visit its home base, Stade Roland-Garros (tours in English Wednesday to Sunday at 11 am and 3 pm, €10), and true devotees can check out the Tenniseum (€7.50 or €15 with stadium entry).

Tips

Porte Dauphine for main entrance; Porte Maillot or Les Sablons for northern end; Porte d’Auteuil for southern end, Western Paris | 75016 | 01–40–71–75–60 Parc de Bagatelle, 01–40–67–90–82 Jardin d’Acclimatation | www.jardindacclimatation.fr | Parc de Bagatelle free except during exhibitions; otherwise €5; Jardin Shakespeare €1; Jardin d’Acclimatation €3, does not include ride tickets. | Daily; hrs vary according to time of yr but are generally around 10 am–dusk | Station: Porte Dauphine for main entrance; Porte Maillot for norther entrance; Porte d’Auteuil for southern end.

Fodor’s Choice | Musée Marmottan Monet.
A few years ago the underrated Marmottan tacked “Monet” onto its official name—and justly so, as this is the largest collection of the artist’s works anywhere. The pieces, donated by his son Michel, occupy a specially built basement gallery in an elegant 19th-century mansion, which was once the hunting lodge of the Duke de Valmy. Among them you can find such works as the Cathédrale de Rouen series (1892–96) and Impression: Soleil Levant (Impression: Sunrise, 1872), the painting that helped give the Impressionist movement its name. Other exhibits include letters exchanged by Impressionist painters Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt. Upstairs, the mansion still feels like a graciously decorated private home. Empire furnishings fill the salons overlooking the Jardin de Ranelagh on one side and the private yard on the other. There’s also a captivating room of illuminated medieval manuscripts. To best understand the collection’s context, buy an English-language catalog in the museum shop on your way in. | 2 rue Louis-Boilly, Passy-Auteuil | 75016 | 01–44–96–50–33 | www.marmottan.com | €10 | Thurs. 10–8, Wed.–Sun. 11–6 | Station: La Muette.

Musée National Jean-Jacques Henner.
French artist Jean-Jacques Henner (1829–1905) was a star in his day; and although his luminous nudes and clear-eyed portraits are largely forgotten now, the 19th-century mansion-cum-museum stocked with his works is an interesting stop for art enthusiasts. Henner’s style is hard to categorize: he painted more than 400 portraits, including a substantial number sold in America, with a Realist’s eye—red nose, mottled skin, and all. Yet there is much beauty here as well: witness Lady with Umbrella, a portrait of a fur-clad aristocrat with glistening blue eyes. Many of his soft-featured nudes betray other influences. Don’t miss them in the light-filled atelier on the museum’s third floor, where they share space with a series of religious paintings, notably the haunting Saint Sebastian, and a stark portrayal of a lifeless Christ, whose luminescent white skin is offset by a shock of flaming red hair. There is some information in English.

The museum, which originally opened in 1924, will be closed for renovation until spring 2014. | 43 av. de Villiers, Parc Monceau | 75017 | 01–47–63–42–73 | www.musee-henner.fr | €5 | Wed.–Mon. 11–6; 1st Thurs. of month 11–9 | Station: Malesherbes.

Worth Noting

Off the Beaten Path: La Défense. First conceived in 1958, this Modernist suburb just west of Paris was inspired by Le Corbusier’s dream of high-rise buildings, pedestrian walkways, and sunken vehicle circulation. Built as an experiment to keep high-rises out of the historic downtown, the Parisian business hub has survived economic uncertainty to become a surprising success. Visiting La Défense gives you a crash course in contemporary skyscraper evolution, from the solid blocks of the 1960s and ’70s to the curvy fins of the ’90s and beyond. Today 20,000 people live in the suburb, but 150,000 people work here, and many more come to shop in its enormous mall. While riding the métro Line 1 here, you’ll get a view of the Seine, then emerge at a pedestrian plaza studded with some great public art, including César’s giant thumb and one of Calder’s great red “stabiles.” The Grande Arche de La Défense dominates the area: it was designed as a controversial closure to the historic axis of Paris (an imaginary line that runs through the Arc de Triomphe, the Arc du Carrousel, and the Louvre Pyramide). Glass bubble elevators in a metal-frame tower whisk you a heart-jolting 360 feet to the viewing platform. | Parvis de La Défense, La Défense | 92800 | 01–49–07–27–27 | www.grandearche.com | Grande Arche €10 | Apr.–Aug., daily 10–8; Sept.–Mar., daily 10–7 | Station: Métro or RER: Grande Arche de La Défense.

Maison de Balzac.
The modest Paris home of the great French 19th-century novelist Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) contains exhibits charting his tempestuous yet prolific career. Balzac penned the nearly 100 novels and stories known collectively as The Human Comedy, many of them set in Paris. You can still feel his presence in his study and pay homage to his favorite coffeepot—his working hours were fueled by his tremendous consumption of the “black ink.” He would escape his creditors by exiting the flat through a secret passage that led down to what is now the Musée du Vin. | 47 rue Raynouard, Passy-Auteuil | 75016 | 01–55–74–41–80 | www.balzac.paris.fr | Free; temporary exhibitions €4 | Tues.–Sun. 10–6 | Station: Passy, La Muette.

Maison de Radio France.
Headquarters to France’s state radio, this imposing 1962 circular building is more than 500 yards in circumference. It’s said to have more floor space than any other building in France and features a 200-foot tower that overlooks the Seine. Radio France sponsors more than 100 concerts a year, including performances by its own Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Orchestre National de France. Though they take place at venues throughout the city, a number are held here, and these concerts are generally either free of charge or inexpensive. | 116 av. du Président-Kennedy, Passy-Auteuil | 75016 | 01–56–40–15–16 | www.francemusique.fr | Station: Ranelagh; RER: Maison de Radio France, Bus 22, 52, 72.

Musée du Vin.
Fans of wine making will enjoy this quirky museum housed in a 15th-century abbey, a reminder of Passy’s roots as a pastoral village. Though hardly exhaustive, the collection contains old wine bottles, glassware, and ancient wine-related pottery excavated in Paris. Wine-making paraphernalia shares the grottolike space with hokey figures retired from the city’s wax museum, including Napoléon appraising a glass of Burgundy. But you can partake in a thoroughly nonhokey wine tasting, or bring home one of the 200-plus bottles for sale in the tiny gift shop. There’s a free English audio guide. Check online for a calendar of wine tastings and classes offered in English. You can book ahead for lunch, too. (Restaurant open Tuesday through Saturday, noon–3). TIP This is one of the few places in Paris where you’ll find a non-dosage (no sugar added) champagne. | Rue des Eaux/5 sq. Charles Dickens, Passy-Auteil | 75016 | 01–45–25–63–26 | www.museeduvinparis.com | €11.90 with glass of wine; wine tastings €27, admission included | Tues.–Sun. 10–6 | Station: Passy.

Passy Cemetery.
Visiting graveyards in Paris can become addictive. The Passy Cemetery dates to 1821 and sits in the shadows of Trocadéro. Here you’ll find the tombstones of famous aristocrats and artists such as composer Claude Debussy and impressionist painters Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot. | 2, rue du Commandant Schlœsing, Passy | 75116 | Station: Trocadéro (lines 6, 9).

Porte Dauphine métro entrance.
Visitors come here to snap pictures of the queen of subway entrances—one of the city’s two remaining Art Nouveau canopied originals designed by Hector Guimard (the other is at the Abbesses stop on Line 12). The flamboyant “crown” of amber-painted panels and runaway metal struts adorns this whimsical 1900 creation. The entrance is on the Bois de Boulogne side of Avenue Foch, so take the Boulevard de l’Amiral Bruix exit from the Line 2 station. | Western Paris | 75116 | Station: Porte Dauphine.

Rue d’Auteuil.
This narrow, crooked shopping street escaped Haussmann’s urban renovations and today still retains the country feel of old Auteuil. Molière once lived on the site of No. 2, while Racine was on nearby Rue du Buis: the pair met up to clink glasses and exchange drama notes at the Mouton Blanc Inn, now a brasserie, at No. 40. Numbers 19–25 and 29 are an interesting combination of 17th- and 18th-century buildings. At the foot of the street, the scaly dome of the Église d’Auteuil (built in the 1880s) is an unmistakable small-time cousin of the Sacré-Coeur. Rue d’Auteuil is at its liveliest on Wednesday and Saturday mornings, when a much-loved street market crams onto Place Jean-Barraud. | Western Paris | 75116 | Station: Michel Ange Auteuil, Église d’Auteuil.

Tenniseum.
Renovated in 2012, this sprawling museum is hidden underneath the Stade Roland Garros (home to the French Open). It claims to house the world’s largest collection of tennis memorabilia and historical archives relating to tennis. It also showcases fantastic art and photo exhibits. Even if you aren’t a serious tennis buff, the museum is worth the short walk from the metro station. After all, haven’t you always wanted to know where that little alligator emblem got its illustrious start? | 2 avenue Gordon-Bennett, Auteil | 75116 | 33/01–47–43–48–48 | www.fft.fr/roland-garros/musee/le-musee-de-la-ftt | €7.50 | Wed. & Fri.–Sun. 10–6 | Station: Porte d’Auteil.

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