There’s a neat spot, a little off the beaten track, in Paris that I have some fond memories of. It’s an oasis, small in scale, and slow in pace. It’s not the sort of place that you find in the tourist directories and it’s not overwhelmed by the legends of Paris touristing. Bercy Village is a trendy, upscale redevelopment project in the 12th which features little shops, a cinema, bars, and restaurants, situated within and without an old wine market. Metro 14 – Cour St-Emilion lands you right in the village.
The setting is calm, coolth, and leisurely. The Bercy area seems a step removed from Paris proper.
Tangent starts here: I stumbled across it one day when I wondered what the area to the east of Paris was like. I took the metro further in that direction than I had before, planning to walk back towards the centre of town. 
I got off at ‘Les Ardoines’ metro station in a
suburban industrial area (why? I am always trusting in serendipity) that was not quite the pretty picture of the city of light that one might associate with Paris. It was gritty, foreign to my ken, and certainly authentic. The area was of mixed-use with factories interspersed by residential areas and small corner snack bars where locals glanced with some incredulity at someone, clearly, a tourist, traipsing through their neighbourhood. Now, such excursions in the past have gotten me within a hair’s width of trouble. But I wandered a bit. The factories were dingy and many seemed abandoned. Perhaps not all as dingy as I might suggest though. I found this one (pictured) quite impressive in fact. I walked for a while and eventually determined that the area was authentic, but not that much more exciting than wandering through a Canadian suburb and certainly not the tourist scene. I hopped back on the metro and backtracked getting off, for whatever reason, at the Bibliotheque Nationale Francois Mitterrand (sorry for lack of appropriate accents, still working on this).
The Bibliotheque itself is one of the most impressive research libraries I have ever used. I ended up working there more extensively later on, but at first blush, the four narrow modernistic towers emerging from sunken gardens were quite an impressive contrast to the industrial area I had been wandering in. I explored the library and made plans to get accreditation and come back later. Then I came across the pub next door. The Frog at the French Library is part of a chain of english-style pubs in France that offer an assortment of microbrews. In time I became quite fond of the Inseine and the Dark de Triomphe. 
After being suitably waylaid for lunch at the Frog pub, I strayed across the river and came across Bercy Village. Tangent ends here.
As I mentioned earlier, the village was developed out of the various storage vaults and outbuildings of a wine market. The architecture is of original stone masonry tastefully mixed with new glass and black steel construction. Cobblestone yards ground the village and feature carefully preserved signs of the past use such as iron tracks for transporting casks, crates, and such. The stores are definitely upscale but make for serious browsing. There are restaurants and bars and in particular a second Frog Pub. In this case, The Frog at Bercy has a lush green patio and the same collection of microbrews as its companion across the river. These fine establishments have most recently begun an innovative programme that allows one to log onto the Frog website and treat someone in Paris to a drink at one of the bars. Cool.
The cinema is one of those large megaplex types run by UCG, but it is carefully hidden at the one extreme of the village and not externally imposing. It allows it to fulfill its function and offer a wide selection of cinematic diversions without detracting from the ambiance of the small village of boutiques and shops.
For me, the luxury of being able to research at the Francois Mitterrand, and to intersperse this with a trip to the cinema or to the pub made makes for a wonderful existence. Now, if I could find a deal on a condo in the area and an appropriate research position to fund my lifestyle, life would be sweet indeed. Could Bercy Village be situated anywhere else in the world, absolutely. There are probably Bercy Villages all over the world, but that hardly detracts from a thoughtfully crafted urban space that offers a wonderful diversion on a fine afternoon.
