✨ The Most Beautiful Streets in Paris’s 17th Arrondissement: A Waltz from Belle-Époque Boulevards to Secret Villages
A promenade through the quiet energy of Paris’s Right Bank
The 17th arrondissement of Paris is a district of transitions. It begins with the grandeur of the Plaine Monceau, echoes the bourgeois calm of the 8th, and then unfurls westward toward the Batignolles — where modern architecture meets café culture and a creative new pulse.
At first glance, it’s a district of equilibrium: elegant, residential, balanced. But behind those façades lies a fascinating contrast — between Belle-Époque opulence and village intimacy, between broad boulevards and hidden passages, between tradition and quiet reinvention.
To stroll through its streets is to waltz through time. Let’s explore the most beautiful streets of the 17th arrondissement — from the ornamental geometry of Monceau to the leafy calm of the Batignolles and Épinettes — a neighborhood that reveals Paris’s discreet heart with every turn.
🌿 1️⃣ Boulevard de Courcelles — The Gateway to Monceau’s Grandeur
No introduction to the 17th could begin elsewhere. Boulevard de Courcelles defines the district’s eastern edge — an axis of Belle-Époque prestige that borders the Parc Monceau, one of the most elegant green spaces in Paris.
Built in the late 19th century, its façades embody the high point of Haussmannian discipline: carved stone balconies, sculpted cornices, and wrought-iron railings that shimmer in morning light.
Many buildings here were commissioned by bankers, industrialists, and artists — seeking both proximity to the 8th and the serenity of Monceau’s gardens.
🌸 Highlight: No. 36 Boulevard de Courcelles, where architect Jules Lavirotte designed one of his early Art Nouveau masterpieces in 1898 — a prelude to the exuberant façades that would soon define his style.
Today, the boulevard remains a showcase of Parisian refinement — elegant without ostentation, surrounded by leafy calm.
🕍 2️⃣ Rue Fortuny — A Street Frozen in the Belle Époque
Step west from Parc Monceau, and you enter a world that seems preserved in amber. Rue Fortuny, named after the Venetian painter Mariano Fortuny, is one of those streets where every building feels like a secret hôtel particulier.
It’s lined with private mansions built between 1880 and 1910, when wealthy collectors, lawyers, and doctors made Monceau the address of choice for “modern aristocrats.”
Architecturally, the street is a showcase of eclectic Parisian luxury — Neo-Louis XVI balconies stand beside Gothic arches, while ivy-covered walls conceal hidden gardens.
🏛️ Architectural note: The Hôtel Gaillard, nearby on Place Malesherbes (now the Banque de France museum), was designed by Jules Février as a neo-Renaissance fantasy — perhaps the best expression of this area’s exuberant imagination.
Walking rue Fortuny feels like drifting through an architectural reverie, where every doorway could open to another century.
🪞 3️⃣ Rue de Prony — Symmetry and Splendour
A few steps north lies rue de Prony, a pristine example of how geometry can convey grace. Its perfectly aligned façades, designed in the 1860s, illustrate Haussmann’s belief in rhythm and proportion as the foundations of beauty.
Many buildings feature balcons filants, sculpted mascarons, and monumental carriage gates leading to lush courtyards. The calm is almost absolute — disturbed only by the sound of footsteps echoing off limestone.
🎨 Trivia: At No. 34 lived painter Edgar Degas’s cousin Estelle Musson, who inspired several of his portraits — proof that Monceau’s calm has always attracted artists seeking quiet elegance.
Rue de Prony captures the essence of the 17th: bourgeois, timeless, and human in scale.
🌺 4️⃣ Rue de Tocqueville — Between Tradition and Trend
As you leave Monceau and approach the Batignolles, rue de Tocqueville begins to shift character. What starts as a stately boulevard ends as a lively corridor of cafés, florists, and design studios.
It’s a perfect symbol of the arrondissement’s transition — from the aristocratic East to the creative West.
The street is lined with early-20th-century buildings, many with charming bow windows and art-nouveau ironwork. Closer to Boulevard Pereire, the façades open to reveal courtyards filled with ateliers — today home to architects and interior designers who keep the street’s creative spirit alive.
☕ Local favourite: Café Péret, near rue de Levis, retains its 1930s zinc counter and neighborhood warmth — the kind of spot where real Parisians still take their morning espresso standing up.
🧺 5️⃣ Rue de Levis — The Market Heart
No list of the 17th’s treasures could ignore rue de Levis, the district’s open-air market street and social backbone.
From early morning to evening, the air is alive with the sounds and scents of daily life: vendors calling out prices, baskets of peaches glowing in the sun, the smell of roasted chickens and espresso mingling in the breeze.
Rue de Levis dates back to the 17th century, when Batignolles was still a village outside the city walls. Even after annexation by Paris in 1860, it retained its small-town rhythm — and that human scale is what continues to define its charm.
🥖 Tip: Visit on a Saturday morning. The crowd may be dense, but you’ll see the 17th arrondissement at its purest — elegant, grounded, alive.
🏡 6️⃣ Rue des Dames — The Spirit of the Batignolles
If Monceau is aristocratic, the Batignolles is bohemian. And the best place to feel it is rue des Dames, a lively, artistic thoroughfare that stretches from Place Clichy toward the calm of Parc Martin-Luther-King.
The name comes from a convent of Benedictine nuns that once owned the land here. Today, the atmosphere couldn’t be more different — the street hums with cafés, wine bars, and independent shops.
Architecturally, it’s eclectic: Haussmannian façades stand beside early-modern buildings and old workshops turned into lofts.
🍷 Don’t miss: Le Café des Dames, a neighborhood institution known for its art-filled walls and terrace where writers and architects still gather — a living continuation of Batignolles’s creative legacy.
🌳 7️⃣ Rue Truffaut — Where Village Meets Modernity
Parallel to rue des Dames lies rue Truffaut, one of the prettiest and calmest streets in the Batignolles. Named after the 19th-century horticulturist Charles Truffaut, it’s lined with leafy trees and elegant apartment blocks from the 1880s.
This is where the Batignolles’ “village” spirit truly blossoms — neighbors know each other, balconies overflow with plants, and small épiceries thrive alongside new concept stores.
The eastern end opens onto Square des Batignolles, a romantic park with a pond, bridge, and weeping willows — designed in the English style. Here, the hum of the city gives way to birdsong.
🌿 Modern echo: A few blocks north, the Clichy-Batignolles eco-quarter reimagines this charm for the 21st century — green roofs, pedestrian lanes, and sustainable design built around the new Palais de Justice by Renzo Piano.
🪴 8️⃣ Rue des Moines — The Pulse of the New Batignolles
Once a modest residential street, rue des Moines has become one of the arrondissement’s most exciting addresses. It’s where old Batignolles meets modern urban planning, lined with organic markets, bistros, and design ateliers.
At one end stands Église Sainte-Marie des Batignolles, a neoclassical church that anchors the neighborhood’s identity; at the other, glass buildings of the new Clichy-Batignolles district signal the city’s transformation.
It’s a reminder that the 17th is not frozen in time — it’s a living district, evolving elegantly without losing its roots.
🍃 Scene to witness: Late afternoon, when sunlight filters through the trees and café terraces fill with young families and remote workers — the quiet renaissance of the Parisian village.
🧱 9️⃣ Boulevard Pereire — The Garden Boulevard
Curving gracefully across the northern 17th, Boulevard Pereire is one of the city’s most beautiful boulevards — a green ribbon where architecture, nature, and motion coexist.
Built above the old railway line connecting Saint-Lazare to Auteuil, it features a central promenade filled with trees, flowerbeds, and fountains. The boulevard is lined with elegant 1890s résidences de rapport, their façades adorned with ceramic details and ornate balconies.
It’s one of the few places in Paris where you can walk for more than a kilometer under continuous greenery, surrounded by classic stone façades.
🌼 Architectural note: Look for the “immeubles en brique” from the 1920s — their ochre hues and geometric motifs mark the city’s transition from Haussmannian to Art Déco.
🌸 🔟 Villa des Arts and Villa des Épinettes — The Hidden Courtyards
While the 17th’s avenues express grandeur, its secret villas embody intimacy.
The Villa des Arts, near rue Lemercier, is a cobblestoned enclave lined with ateliers built in the late 19th century for painters and sculptors. Many still function as creative spaces today — you can glimpse skylights and easels behind the ivy.
Further north, Villa des Épinettes offers a quieter variant: small houses with shutters and gardens, a trace of the working-class past of this once-industrial quarter.
🖼️ Insider tip: These passages are private but often open during the Portes Ouvertes des Ateliers d’Artistes — a yearly event that lets visitors rediscover the 17th through the eyes of those who shape its present.
🏛️ 1️⃣1️⃣ Avenue de Wagram — The Grand Perspective
Avenue de Wagram cuts through the eastern 17th with imperial clarity, connecting the Arc de Triomphe to Boulevard Pereire. It’s the archetype of Parisian prestige, a continuation of the grand urban design initiated by Haussmann.
Lined with embassies, luxury hotels, and classic apartment buildings, the avenue is stately but never cold. Look upward, and you’ll see balconies crowned by stone garlands, carved pilasters, and mansard roofs punctuating the skyline.
🕯️ Historical note: At No. 146 once stood the legendary Salle Wagram, a 19th-century ballroom where Parisians danced through revolutions and wars — a fitting symbol of this avenue’s blend of formality and life.
🪶 1️⃣2️⃣ Rue de Saussure — The Hidden Artery of Daily Paris
Rue de Saussure is less photographed but deeply Parisian. Running parallel to the railway tracks between the Batignolles and the Épinettes, it’s a street of contrasts — schools, ateliers, bakeries, and small workshops that still hum with craft and commerce.
It’s also one of the areas where real-estate potential has quietly surged over the past decade. Lofts have replaced warehouses, and modern eco-buildings blend with restored brick façades — an embodiment of the new, livable Paris.
🧩 Investor’s insight: Prices here remain below those of Monceau or Plaine-Monceau, yet demand from young professionals ensures steady appreciation — proof that urban authenticity still carries value.
🌆 1️⃣3️⃣ Boulevard Berthier — The Cultural Edge
At the northern tip of the arrondissement, Boulevard Berthier marks the city’s border — but far from being peripheral, it’s become a cultural frontier.
Here stands the Odéon Théâtre de l’Europe – Ateliers Berthier, a satellite stage of the Odéon, housed in a restored 19th-century warehouse. Around it, a cluster of art spaces and film studios brings creative life to this once-industrial zone.
🎭 Symbolic contrast: Where trains once ran, Paris now rehearses plays — a reminder that this district constantly transforms its heritage into the future.
🧭 Conclusion — The 17th: Harmony in Motion
To walk the 17th is to cross Paris in miniature: From the aristocratic calm of Monceau to the village vibrancy of Batignolles, from Haussmann’s order to contemporary reinvention.
Its streets — whether grand like avenue Wagram or secret like rue Berton’s Batignolles cousins — share one quality: they live at human scale. Balconies bloom with geraniums, courtyards echo with piano notes, bakeries open at dawn.
This is not a district that performs. It endures. And that endurance — elegant, adaptable, serene — is the truest form of Parisian beauty.
The 17th doesn’t chase attention. It offers something far rarer: continuity in a restless city.