Sometimes you can catch a glimpse through a large building’s door as it is opened, and there is a whole other part of Paris to be be found there. Masked from the visitors’ eye are the insides of these old stone buildings that date back to the 30’s or 20’s or the end of the 19th century, or even older than that…
I LOVE to catch those doors as they are closing and grab a shot or two to keep of these charming places that are not readily available to the Parisian wanderer.

Here are a few. I won’t put the addresses so as to protect the inhabitants of those buildings from too many curious lookers, but I will tell you the arrondissement :

75011

This courtyard door was open, and therefor I didn’t feel stealth walking in, but it was clear I was walking into someone’s front porch area. A beautiful looking apartment with an expansive artist’s window to let in the light, and a wooden, table for an apéro with friends perhaps…

75010

The first time I walked through the door on the boulevard where I found this place, I was awestruck. The ground level is lined with 19th century office spaces, and the cobble stone with flower pots scenery seems to come straight from a postcard! Every doorway to the different buildings seems to have a potted tree and flowers with a bicycle in front of it.