In the heart of the marsh, a house full of history!
It was claimed that Joan of Arc had stayed there for some time. It was wrong.
Another error: long considered the oldest house in Paris, this four-story building located at 3 rue Volta in the marshes was dated from the 13th century. Its half-timbered timbers and exposed beams wonderfully illustrated medieval Paris.
In 1979, researchers discovered that it actually dates from 1644, and was built at the time “in the old fashioned way” for a rich bourgeois.
On the ground floor there is now a Vietnamese restaurant where a crowd of students flocks at lunchtime.
It is on this street that we find the oldest Chinese community in Paris. It was the local goldsmiths who called on them in 1910.
Indeed, the know-how of these artisans from the city of Wenzhou (South East China) is very well known.
Text: Katia Barillot
Photos: ©Anaïs Costet