Canal Saint-Martin: The Wine-Tax Canal That Became Paris's Favorite Hangout

Commissioned by Napoleon in 1802 to bring fresh water into Paris and ease flooding, the canal was completed in 1825 after more than two decades of fits and starts, financed partly by a new tax on wine entering the city. Part of it was covered over in the 1860s to make way for a boulevard, leaving the iron footbridges and locks that are still its signature today: a canal half hidden underground and half out in the open.

Walk or cycle the tree-lined quays between the locks, watch boats rise and fall through the écluses as the water levels adjust by hand-cranked gates, and browse the independent boutiques and bars that have made the canal one of the most relaxed neighborhoods in Paris since the 2000s. On a warm evening, the stone edges of the canal fill with picnickers, the way a park bench would anywhere else.

The canal's banks, quai de Valmy and quai de Jemmapes, are lined with cafés, and the Hôtel du Nord, made famous by Marcel Carné's 1938 film, stands at 102 quai de Jemmapes. Quieter rue de Lancry and rue Marie-et-Louise run off the water, while to the north the canal reaches the Bassin de la Villette, near the Rotonde de la Villette on Place de la Bataille-de-Stalingrad.

The 2001 film "Amélie" gave the canal a new international fame, cementing its romantic reputation for a younger generation: its famous stone-skipping scene was shot on the quay beside the Hôtel du Nord. Much earlier, in 1870, the Impressionist painter Alfred Sisley captured the canal's quieter, working-class charm, when warehouses rather than boutiques lined its banks.

More from the history books

The Canal Saint-Martin completes a longer chain. The Canal de l'Ourcq, begun under Napoleon, brought water into Paris from the River Ourcq, more than 100 kilometres away, and the Canal Saint-Martin extended that link from the Bassin de la Villette down to the Seine. Together they supplied the city with drinking water and carried barges loaded with building stone, grain and coal, which is why warehouses and workshops lined the canal's banks long before cafés arrived.

A few steps from the canal stands one of the oldest hospitals in the city. The Hôpital Saint-Louis was founded in 1607 on the orders of Henri IV, who wanted a place outside the city walls to isolate victims of the plague. Its brick-and-stone buildings, laid out around a large courtyard in the same style as the Place des Vosges, are still in use as a hospital today.