Next door to the apartment is the Hotel Sully, a magnificent mansion and gardens built in the early 1600s by the Duc de Sully.(Click on picture to left to enlarge.)Today it houses exhibits and the gardens are open to the public.

Just around the corner - a 3-minute walk away - is the lovely Place des Vosges (Click for Photo). The Place des Vosges was opened in 1612 and is considered one of the most delightful historic areas of Paris; the poet Victor Hugo lived in an apartment on the square for many years. Not to be missed are the boutiques, outdoor cafés, restaurants, and art galleries along the Place and on the adjacent streets around Rue des Franc-Bourgeois.

Conveniently located directly across the street from the apartment building are the shops of the Saint Paul district, where locals do all their grocery shopping. The trendy Bastille area, (traditionally renown for its fortress-prison which was stormed by mobs at the start of the French revolution), now boasts one of the largest and most important Opera houses in Europe as well as many of the latest bars, cafés, modern art galleries and chic restaurants. The Bastille area is a ten minutes walk from the apartment.

Other major historic sites are also nearby: in less than fifteen minutes on foot you can reach Nôtre Dame Cathedral and the Seine River, the Picasso Museum, City Hall, and the recently renovated and reopened Pompidou/Beaubourg Centre. The Louvre Museum, Place de la Concorde and the Champs-Elysées are easy to reach as the are just a few stops away on the same metro line—(for example, the Louvre Museum is just 4 metro stops away or can be reached on foot in about 20 minutes).