Discover Local Paris East: What to Do Around Mercure Paris East

At Mercure, we believe you shouldn't need a guidebook to feel like you belong somewhere. That's the idea behind Discover Local: since 1973, every Mercure hotel has been built around its neighbourhood, not just dropped into it — from the décor on the walls to the flavours on the menu. Step into any Mercure and our teams are on hand with the kind of tips you won't find in a guidebook: the market stall locals queue for, the bar where nobody speaks English, the walk that skips the crowds. They live here. They know. Discover Local isn't a generic city guide — it's a short, honest list of the restaurants, markets and neighbourhoods our own hotel teams actually recommend to guests, updated as the city changes around us. Below, you'll find our picks for Paris East, an interactive map to help you find your way, and answers to the questions travellers ask us most. So — where will Discover Local take you?

Paris East in 5 picks

Bastille

Place de la Bastille, marked by the July Column, sits at the centre of a neighbourhood that gets livelier after dark, with bars filling the streets around it.

Bercy Village

Former wine warehouses turned into a cobbled pedestrian street of restaurants and shops, a quieter counterpoint to Bastille a short walk away.

Père Lachaise

Paris's largest cemetery and a genuine destination in its own right, with the graves of Jim Morrison, Chopin and Édith Piaf among its winding, tree-lined paths.

Place de la Nation

A grand square marking the eastern edge of central Paris, with a bronze statue at its centre and wide avenues radiating outward.

Marché d'Aligre

One of the city's most loved markets, food stalls and a flea market side by side, and a good measure of how locals in the 12th actually shop.

Where to eat
Marché d'Aligre is the move for produce, cheese and a genuinely local crowd rather than a tourist one. Around Bercy Village, restaurants housed in the old wine warehouses lean toward long lunches on the cobbles rather than quick bites.
Green spaces and markets
The Coulée Verte René-Dumont, an elevated garden walkway built on a disused railway viaduct, runs from Bastille toward the Bois de Vincennes and predates New York's High Line. It's one of the quietest ways to move through this part of the city on foot.
Getting around
Metro lines 1, 2, 6, 8 and 9 all serve this side of the city, linking Bastille, Nation, Bercy and Père Lachaise directly. Wherever you're staying across our Mercure hotels in East Paris, most of these picks are within a few stops of each other.
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FAQ

It's quieter and more residential, with fewer queues and a stronger everyday local feel — think markets and neighbourhood bistros rather than monuments.

It's less a cemetery visit than a walk through winding, tree-lined paths past some genuinely well-known graves, including Jim Morrison and Chopin. Many visitors go for the atmosphere as much as anything else.

The metro covers it well, with lines 1, 2, 6, 8 and 9 connecting the main points. Bastille to Bercy Village is also an easy walk if the weather's on your side.

Where to sleep

See our Mercure hotels across Paris East, ideally placed to explore these picks.

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Where to sleep

See our Mercure hotels across Paris East, ideally placed to explore these picks

View hotels