The Best Way To Explore Paris: Visiting All 20 Mairies in One Day

The image of the flâneur lives strong in the collective vision of Paris. A Romantic approach to exploring the City of Light, to flâner is to explore Paris at a microscopic level, wandering aimlessly and without end. Key is entering every open door—both metaphorically and physically. By revelling in the small details of the city, a flâneur will not only discover the true nature of Paris, but also uncover a deeper part of themselves.

Yet, what happens when you get sick of flâner-ing? Such happened to me by the fourth weekend of my six-week study abroad stint in Paris. After countless afternoons perusing covered passageways and rounding the ambulatories of neighborhood cathedrals, I wanted to mix things up. Take my experience of the city up a notch. Perhaps I could take on the Louvre? The two-hour line and hordes of crowds warded me off. Giverny? To see the gardens of Monet? The tickets were sold out.

The previous Monday, I visited the Petit Palais, an art gallery constructed for the 1900 World’s Fair. Awed by its architecture, yet confused by its themeless, hodge-podged collection, I ventured into the basement to see their collection of historical images of Paris. Always a map nerd, I enjoyed the antique aerial depictions of Paris as it developed over the centuries. At the end, however, a display case caught my eye: it featured images of each of Paris’s 20 mairies—the town halls of the Parisian arrondissements (i.e., neighborhoods). I had seen the fifth mairie across from the Panthéon, and my host mother had given me event calendars mailed by the mayor of the thirteenth. I marvelled at the architectural beauty of each, and vowed to visit a handful before I left.

Whether in my dreams or in the wildest parts of my soul, my mind concocted up a quest over the next few days: to visit every mairie in one go. I have a friend who broke the record for the least amount of time to visit every Metro stop in Washington, DC, and I’ve long enjoyed YouTube videos of people racing to complete challenges on an even greater geographic scale. Think hide-and-seek throughout the whole of Switzerland.

Motivated by this spirit of exploration, I decided one Saturday afternoon to pioneer this new challenge. I couldn’t find any evidence anyone had attempted this feat before—at least for fun—and I had no estimate of how long it would take. Mapping out the locations on Google Maps, I tried to get ChatGPT to generate the most efficient route between the mairies. It was not helpful. So I winged it, grabbing a tote bag, my water bottle, and a sandwich at the grocery store outside of my apartment. I would plan the route as I went along.

I chose to begin with the thirteenth mairie—the closest—and began tracking my journey from there. Although largely without a plan, I left the house with a rough starting tactic: head to the first arrondissement, and then walk in a loop to hit the second, ninth, tenth, fourth, and third mairies—in that order—plus the Hôtel de Ville, the city hall. I jumped back on the Métro after taking a selfie and emerged at the Louvre, navigating through the crowds to the first mairie.

As I walked to the second and ninth mairies, I realized that these buildings are less government buildings and more community centers. Bulletins and events lists are posted on their doors, and a few had banquets spilling out of their front doors. Considering how centralized the French method of governance is—at least compared to the federalized United States—I concluded that the Hôtel de Ville must be in charge of everything in the city except the cultural events of each arrondissement. The only useful information on the façade of the ninth was a massive advertisement for the annual « battle de breakdance ».

Before the first hour had been spent, I racked up selfies with four mairies. I figured I was keeping an efficient pace, and would perhaps even speed up once I used the Métro again. Eventually I navigated back to the Seine, snapping a selfie with the looming city hall.

Every building was consistently stunning; a gothic tower abutted the first, and the tenth is as worth a visit as any other architectural marvel in the city. All but one were built before the twentieth century, and reflect the gilded-age need for local administration in the exploding French capital. The first four arrondissements have since merged into one administrative body—now housed in the third mairie—but still maintain their cultural dominance in their respective neighborhoods.

I hopped on the Métro once more and made my way to the eleventh. Aiming to do an outer, counter-clockwise loop of the right bank’s outer arrondissements, I walked to the twentieth and then hopped in a taxi to the nineteenth. I accidentally told the driver to take me to the “town hall of the nineteenth century.” Oops.

Along the way I passed through several open air markets and the lives of countless Parisians. Building styles changed; food types—and prices—evolved. 

I soon popped up just behind Montmartre—the eighteenth—and again in the seventeenth. Despite the often aggressive speed of the Métro, I was averaging one mairie every forty minutes. I would be out late. I had to turn my phone on airplane mode to preserve my battery.

The seventeenth, built in the 1970s, appeared to be on fire when I arrived, so I quickly snapped a selfie before scurrying to the quiet streets of the eighth. I continued west to the sixteenth, and thanked the rain gods for not opening the skies as I walked from the Métro to the fifteenth.

I was by this point, nearly five hours in, numb. My feet hurt by the time I reached the halfway point, and I regretted opting for a tote bag over a backpack. With just four buildings left, however, I knew I had to push on and finish this task, regardless of my phone battery. I would resort to using the map in each Métro station.

I took the Métro to the seventh, and then weaved between the narrow streets to the sixth in the shadow of Saint-Sulpice, a cathedral. The Saint-Germain area greeted me as I took Line 10 to the Panthéon-adjacent fifth mairie. Afterwards I hopped down to the Luxembourg Gardens to catch the southward RER B regional train.

Emerging at the station I smelled smoke. Again. Some firefighters were wheeling a hose down the stairs, but most were just standing in a big circle chatting. I wasn’t exactly sure what was happening, but I continued forth to the fourteenth to snap yet another selfie. Upon my return, the smoke was thicker—I could hardly see the end of the station—but there still seemed to be no sense of urgency from any of the pompiers.

As I rounded the raised tracks of Line 6, I mustered what little excitement I had left after a majority of my waking hours: I had one stop left. Eventually I popped out of Line 6 at Dugommier, and there it was. The final mairie. It was, as all good things are, under construction, so I couldn’t take a good selfie with it. Yet my self-designed, tangibly unrewarded task was complete. I had visited every mairie in Paris. And it only took seven hours and one minute!

Perhaps the most revealing part of my voyage was the speed at which Paris evolves. Although I emerged in the beginning next to the Louvre and was swarmed by tourists, just five blocks over Paris becomes a different city. As I walked, Paris was governmental, then Japanese, then residential, then West African, then revolutionary, then a soccer pitch, then Jewish, and then touristy once again. Without any distinct barriers separating its neighborhoods, Paris maintains a remarkable ability to offer incredible diversity within its relatively small boundaries. Parisians can engage—within an hour-long walk—with hundreds of environments, and can find any community within the city.

Yet, more telling, is what I did not see in the city. Everywhere I went was prosperous, whether economically or socially. Never once did I feel like the neighborhoods I walked through were impoverished, even the ones that traditionally are more underserved. As inclusive as Paris can be, it also excludes just as much, keeping its would-be residents beyond the reach of its mairies.

The expedition was also a testament to the joys of spontaneity. Although I had been planning this journey for several days, I only mapped it out an hour before I left, not even planning the modes of transportation or accounting for closed Métro lines. Maybe if I had taken more time I could have planned a better, more efficient route, or better utilized other methods of transit (e.g., biking, tramways). Yet, my lack of an official route forced me to truly navigate throughout the city—not just follow instructions I had written—and familiarize myself with alternate routes, adapting on the whim. As a result, my perceptions of each arrondissement feel stronger because I had truly found them as waypoints on my expedition, and not merely happened through them.

Perhaps visiting every mairie is not antithetical to the « flâneur ». I certainly had an end—finishing the challenge I had set for myself—but it was not tangible or set in place. The mairies were simply the conduit of the journey, and their arrondissements open doors to explore. If anything, to complete this challenge is to flâner at a macroscopic scale. One might not notice the small carvings on a street corner or smell of a certain alleyway, as a typical flâneur might. Yet, a bigger Paris comes into view, one of demographics and variation. Fewer aesthetic details will be noticed, but more cultural and societal details will emerge, creating an image of Paris that—when combined with the art of flâner—is complete.