Paris beyond the peripherique: Why you should swap city for suburbs on your next visit

Not far from the city of lights’ whirlwind and glitter lie mercifully quiet enclaves of good dining, fascinating history and low-key culture, says Ellen Himelfarb

Stroll 30 minutes from the Arc de Triomphe to get to the Bois de Boulogne (Getty/iStock)

The footbridge across the Seine ends at a precipitous path up the banks of Saint-Cloud, between ivied stone walls and lampposts planted mathematically. Behind them stand half-timbered gingerbread houses topped with steep mansard roofs.

Every few steps, I swivel around to see the Eiffel Tower peeking further over the Bois de Boulogne. It stays with me as I pass a town hall guarded by palms and a cathedral founded in the sixth century, 700 years before Notre-Dame.

At a cul-de-sac, a mossy alley channels me into the Domaine National de St Cloud, an undulating 460-hectare green cut with sandy pathways and copses of yew. Formal gardens drift down the tiered hillside, and nude statues flex over the roaring waters of the Grande Cascade. In the distance: all of Paris, from Sacré-Coeur to Montparnasse. Apart from one woman in a camel coat walking her terrier, I’m alone.

Some may know Saint-Cloud for the financial bigwigs living in the hills. Or the pioneering steel bridge to the Rive Droite. Or the remains of the chateau that sat above this waterfall, once occupied by Henri III, Marie Antoinette and all three Napoleons.

I know it as the quiet village of winding lanes and chic cafes 20 minutes from Le Belleval, my hotel in the elegant eighth arrondissement.

The residential enclaves outside Paris’s ring roads, or périphérique, have no agenda. They’re not pushing capital-C culture or avant-garde shopping. That’s why I’m here. Few foreigners would bother navigating to, say, Le Fer à Cheval, a bistro in the woods strung with fairy lights, where the beau monde dines on côte de boeuf and pommes grenailles. If you want Paris to yourself, you’ll get it around here. If you want bragging rights, you can have those too.

I’ve found myself here not by accident. I’ve peeked out from trains en route to Versailles, and to visit friends living on the same route from St-Lazare station. But once I got here, I stayed a while. From the site of the chateau (it burned down in 1870 during the tenure of Empress Eugenie) I follow two pensioners on their morning walk to the Sèvres Manufacture. Artisans have been throwing their flawless ceramics in Sèvres’s yellow brick ateliers since Madame de Pompadour helped it with seed money 260 years ago. Book ahead and you can experience the whirrs of the wheels and industrial-sized kilns. Yet the highlight is the Belle Epoque museum, styled with majestic statuary from the archives alongside massive new tableaux that sprawl across the reception rooms: urns moulded like coiled rope or etched with barely perceptible numeric code, or postmodern cabinets by British designers Doshi Levien.

Cafe culture: Stop by Quai Ouest for a great-value lunch (Ellen Himelfarb)

Back outside and late for lunch, I duck into the zippy T2 tram and skirt the Seine back up to the footbridge – actually a Bonaparte-era aqueduct topped with a new boardwalk last year. At its base, in a disused warehouse opened up with floor-to-rafter windows, a welcoming hostess at Quai Ouest ushers me to a seat with a view over the river, to pleasure boats chugging under the bridge. Under a ceiling strung with paper lanterns and pendant heaters, I shrug off my blazer and demolish a demurely posed chicken with skin like gilt. Bookended by the creamiest butternut soup, poured à table, and a slab of crème brûlée, it puts me back £20, about what I’d pay for a burger and pint back in north London.

Gingerbread house: architecture in Saint-Cloud (Ellen Himelfarb)

You couldn’t find a dining room so buzzy, so chic-rustique in the 20 arrondissements and still get a table without a booking. And increasingly, out here, it’s no sacrifice.

I’m not suggesting you book your Eurostar to the City of Light only to leave it. But if you were to find yourself at the Arc de Triomphe with two hours to spare, you might stroll 30 minutes into the Bois de Boulogne’s heath, ending up within the glass-and-steel folds of Fondation Louis Vuitton for lunch at Le Frank (no reservations, so arrive by noon or after 2pm). The bean salads and fish medleys – ceviche, tempura, steamed sea bass – are more filling and the service less poncy than you’d expect. Then, of course, there’s the gallery proper, where outsized installations and unexpected pairings dazzle in the natural light, whatever you think of Frank Gehry’s building design.

Design your lunch: Fondation Louis Vuitton offers outsize installations and a unique stop to eat (Getty) (Getty Images)

It’s on a day like this that I stumble on the erstwhile home and studio of the architect-god Le Corbusier, dwarfed by the neighbouring football stadium. Built into two floors of glass brick and teak, like a 1930s yacht, it remains a paradigm of function over form – and throws back to a simpler time, when black leather settees and primary colours were the mark of rebellious genius.

Art deco swim: Molitor guests can use the Olympic-sized pools (Flickr/Fred Romero)

Corbusier would have moved in just after the arrival of Molitor up the road, where the complex of Olympic-sized pools with an art deco courtyard resemble an ocean liner. New owners have reopened the vast complex after an eternal renovation, yet closed the facilities to all but non-members. For tourists, the in-house hotel provides a loophole. If you can swing £210 for a room – more classically tailored than you’d expect from the clubhouse feel downstairs – you can have your run of the water. You’ll eventually discover there aren’t many members.

From Molitor, just beyond the ring road, you can nip over to the Rive Gauche inside a half hour. Or, just as easily, you could see Chateau de Malmaison, the silk-swathed estate Josephine bought as a welcome-home surprise for Napoleon, back from his Egyptian campaign. When I arrive one morning, a bus full of schoolchildren follows me up to the long boxwood-flanked drive, only to veer over to the collège next door, leaving me to shuffle alone through the empress’s gilded bedchamber like I’m sleeping over.

By 12.30pm, when the chateau closes for lunch, I’m back in town with the day ahead of me. When one door closes, a window opens.

Travel essentials

Getting there

Eurostar travels to Paris up to 19 times daily, from £29 each way.

Staying there

Hotel Belleval, near handy St-Lazare station, has doubles from £185, room only.

Molitor has doubles from £164, room only.