20 min
45 min
3 · 5 · 8 · 9 · 11
63.2 / km²
16
6
3,531
+23% vs city
Counted from OpenStreetMap and Inside Airbnb (CC BY 4.0)
Staying in Upper Marais (3rd)
The Marais does not stop at the boundary between the 4th and the 3rd - it just gets quieter. The northern half, the Haut Marais, has the Musee Picasso, the Musee Carnavalet's neighbours, the Marche des Enfants Rouges from 1615, and designer shops that are actually independent rather than a chain doing an impression of one.
It costs a little less than the 4th and it is a five-minute walk further from Notre-Dame - twenty minutes rather than ten. That is the whole difference, and for most people it is the better trade: you are still walking home from dinner, but the street outside the window is not a bar street.
The catches are minor and real. Metro coverage is at the edges rather than the middle: Arts et Metiers, Filles du Calvaire, Republique and Saint-Sebastien-Froissart ring it, so expect a five-minute walk to a station. The northern end towards Republique is ordinary Paris rather than medieval. And hotels here are small and boutique-priced, so there is little cheap stock when the city is full.
What works
- The Musee Picasso and the Marche des Enfants Rouges are inside the district
- Twenty minutes on foot to Notre-Dame, ten to the Pompidou
- Quieter at night than the 4th while sharing its streets and restaurants
- Independent shops rather than the chains that took the lower Marais
What does not
- Metro stations ring the district rather than crossing it
- The northern end towards Republique is ordinary and dull
- Boutique hotels are priced like the 4th with fewer rooms to choose from
- Very little budget stock, so it sells out first in high season
A quieter part of the ancient Marais neighbourhood which is centred in the 4th, the 3rd is possibly one of the best places to live in Paris.