30 min
50 min
1 · 6 · 8 · 14 · RER A · RER D
5.2 / km²
5
16
3,149
−21% vs city
Counted from OpenStreetMap and Inside Airbnb (CC BY 4.0)
Staying in Gare de Lyon & Bercy (12th)
Almost everything worth booking in the 12th is in its first kilometre: the blocks around Gare de Lyon and Bastille, where metro 1 and 14 get you to Chatelet in five minutes and the walk to Notre-Dame is half an hour. Rates there run well under the 4th on the other side of the same square.
The rest of the district is long. It runs east through Daumesnil and Picpus and then becomes the Bois de Vincennes, which more than doubles its size and is a forest with a chateau in it. The Coulee verte Rene-Dumont, the elevated park that the New York High Line copied, starts behind the Opera Bastille and runs four and a half kilometres east, which is the best thing here and free.
What you do not get is a reason to be in the district itself. Bercy Village is a restored wine warehouse street with chain restaurants in it, the Cinematheque is excellent if you want a film, and beyond that the 12th is where Parisians live. Book the western end for the price and the trains; ignore anything advertised as the 12th that is out past Porte Doree.
What works
- Gare de Lyon puts the TGV south and RER A under the district
- Metro 1 and 14 reach Chatelet in about five minutes
- Rates run well under Bastille and the Marais across the boundary
- The Coulee verte runs 4.5 km east from the Opera Bastille, and is free
What does not
- Half an hour on foot to Notre-Dame from the station end, an hour from the rest
- Nothing on a first visit's list is inside the arrondissement
- Station-side rooms are functional business stock with train noise
- The eastern half is the Bois de Vincennes, so 'in the 12th' can mean very far out
The 12th arrondissement of Paris is one of the largest of the city's districts even without the 2,460 acre Bois de Vincennes, which more than doubles its size. Gare de Lyon in the 12th will likely be your arrival point if you are coming from Switzerland, Italy, or the south of France.