My husband and I will be in Paris in April or May next year. I am considering staying in the canal st martin area to be away from the heavily touristed areas. Is this area only nice for a walk along the canal, or is it OK to stay along the canal.

I have also read that it is getting trendy in this area.Would you stay here or is it better for first timers to be in the thick of it like in the Marais?

You are a tourist. Why wouldn't you want to stay in an area that tourists enjoy and find interesting?

The Marais is a great place to stay as is the 5th, 6th and the right bank areas near
Ave Montaigne,the Place Vendome and the Louvre. All are areas frequented by tourists but great to stay in.

My husband and I walked the Canal St. Martin and I can tell you it's not in a pretty neighborhood! I wouldn't stay there. There are plenty of other less-touristed areas in Paris that you can try instead that are actually scenic and charming.

I agree that the Canal St Martin area isn't pretty; however, I did take a canal boat trip which I thoroughly enjoyed. I love the Marais and would stay there another time but I stayed in the 7th (near rue Cler) and it seemed more residential to me and less hectic. I very much liked this area. Definitely, for a first timer I would not stay as far out as the Canal St Martin.

Well I am not an expert and others will correct me perhaps but:

I don't think of those as 2 widely different areas. You would be about 1 km east of the core of the Marais if you stayed on the canal.

It's a little like saying "Should I stay in the E. 60s or the E. 80s in NYC.?"

East of the Canal St Martin you have the Bastille and the rue du faubourg St Antoine. The rue de Lappe -- "la rue la plus branchee de Paris" a few years ago and perhaps today still -- is there and also some of my favourite restaurants in Paris: Le Square Trousseau (in the square of the same name), le Bistrot du Peintre (rue Charenton, I think) among them.

The Marais is lovely and a bit sanitized -- the area to the east a bit less so, hence funkier and perhaps more "real".

Others will no doubt want to comment on these observations, which date from 4 or 5 years ago -- our next door neighbours here in Canada bought an apartment for their student daughter on St Antoine and we rented it from them once, soaking in the atmosphere for upwards of a month.

By the way when you are in Paris be sure to visit "la coulee verte". This elevated, disused railway track, running to the Gare de Lyon, is now converted into an elevated garden of great length, whose supporting arches (fronting on the rue Daumesnil) have been glassed in and converted into the most marvelous boutiques and craft shops.

The coulee is not all that near the Canal St Martin, certainly not adjacent to the Marais, but I had to get in a plug for this wonderful Paris innovation.....

I think it´s getting trendy in terms of Paris neighborhoods for residents that are getting gentrified because they are being priced out of other areas. I don´t think it´s particularly trendy for a tourist yet and may never be.

I wouldn´t recommend a firsttimer stay there at all. If you want something other than th most popular expensive tourist areas, there are others closer in that I think would be better like the 14th, 11th, 9th or even 15th or 14th or closer in 17th. I think the 16th is not that touristy in the Passy or other areas, but it isn´t as cheap as st martins. I´d rather stay in Passy, though.

Passy is pretty nice too. A bit far from things, though.

But you get to take that nice metro (Passy stop) that takes you high over the Seine and along that elevated bit on the Left Bank -- a real treat IMO.

(There's an elevated bit over the Canal St Martin too, of course....)

Sounds silly but I REALLY like those not-infrequent elevated bits of the metro.

If it's a matter of , like, choosing between "E60s or the E80s" in Manhattan, then I would recommend staying in the Marais, if that's being alluded to as the E60s.

It simply is not logical to recommend a first-timer in New York City to stay in the upper Upper East Side as it is not as accessible and especially when walking, or even when taking public transportation, within the city that never sleeps.

As for Paris, there are much more must see and do's for first-timers that has relatively closer proximity to the Marais. These are, relatively, within comfortable walking distances. Also, granted that there are tourists in the Marais, it is not as heavily-infested as, say, the Latin Quarter nor the 6th. The Marais has it's own neighborly charms and, hey, where else can you play a nice 20-minute of non-tackle rugby with the locals, as I did while whiling away the time with my wife during a sunny day about a week ago in Place de Vosges.

Thanks everyone
We're not into visiting museums so I'm not worried about being near them, but we do want to walk around neighbourhoods that have that typical Parisien feel, so maybe for our first visit we should stay somewhere more central, and just take a walk or cruise along the canal.

I don't know why but I seem drawn to the Marais, Bastille area.Everyone seems to have their favourite neighbourhood, and I suppose I won't know mine until I get there.

tedgate: 'la coulee verte', is this the promenade plantee and viaduc des arts? If so it's on my to do list.

Thanks for the helpful advice.
Will just 'visit' the canal this trip and stay elsewhere.

the canal st martin just has high rises on the edges and bums sleeping on the banks. The marais is much nicer and has more flavour. The 5th is nice too.

if you are looking for trendy, check out oberkamf around st maur and on st maur itself.

i'm not necessarily suggesting you stay around here but just to check it out.

I originally picked the 10th because I saw a b&b on the top floor(17th) with balcony and incredible views of the city, and thought it would be great to wake up to that view every morning. Plus I'd read that along the canal itself was very pretty.

In a way I'm glad to hear your opinion moxie because now I can stop agonising over the canal or marais, and just concentrate on the marais. I can go to any number of places for the view over Paris, and I'll be out amongst it all, not sitting in the room just watching it.

thanks

walkinaround: oberkampf area looks good too. I think my husband would really like it there.

thanks, will check into it further

yes to tyour question to tedgate - they are one and the same. Stay in the Marais......you'll just find yourself leaving the canal area each time you go out.

Traditionally the Canal St. Martin area was above the Place de la Republique, even though it goes underground and comes out below the Bastille to flow in the Seine. If you mean the traditioanl area, I would suggest that the Marais is defnitely preferable.

Well, it all depends if you'd rather live in a nice, but, as one poster said, a tad "Disneyland" part of Paris (the Marais), or go for a "real" neighborhood. That said, real is nice, but, as a first timer, you might want to get some practical help, such as English speaking staff and a score of metro stations to choose from. Personally, I think there are few more romantic places in Paris than the area around the Hôtel du Nord on quai de Jemmapes, but that's just me. The main problem for the Canal saint Martin is that, if you are on one of the "quais" (Jemmapes or Valmy), it's quite noisy; the back streets are quieter but a bit on the dull side. As for bums, you'll find them sleeping rough in the Marais too.