| With its perfect little Romanesque church, St-Germain-de-Charonne, and the cobbled street of rue St-Blaise, Charonne retains its village-like atmosphere. To get to this unexpected and little-visited corner of the city, take the southwest radial, avenue du Père-Lachaise from place Gambetta, and then turn left along rue des Rondeaux, the street that follows the Père-Lachaise cemetery wall, past some very desirable residences. Cross rue des Pyrénées by the bridge in rue Renouvier, turn right on rue Stendhal (Villa Stendhal is opposite) past the underground reservoir that serves as a gigantic header tank for the stopcocks that wash the city's gutters, and go down the steps at the end to rue de Bagnolet. Alternatively, take rue Lisfranc off rue Stendhal and right on rue des Prairies then straight on to rue de Bagnolet. It's a longer way round, but rue des Prairies has excellent examples of sensitive and imaginative housing developments. The new buildings have a pleasing variety of designs and colours, with bright tiling and ochre shades of cladding. In place St-Blaise stands St-Germain-de-Charonne (M° Porte de Bagnolet & M° Gambetta), which has changed little, and its Romanesque belfry not at all, since the thirteenth century. It's one of only two Paris churches to have its own graveyard (the other is St-Pierre in Montmartre) – several hundred Communards were buried after being accidentally disinterred during the construction of a reservoir in 1897. Elsewhere in Paris, charnel houses were the norm, with the bones emptied into the catacombs as more space was required. It was not until the nineteenth century that public cemeteries appeared on the scene, the most famous being Père-Lachaise. Opposite the church, the old cobbled village high street, rue St-Blaise, pedestrianized to place des Grés, was one of the most picturesque in Paris, until it was prettified further, the face-lift removing much of its charm. Beyond place des Grés, everything has been rebuilt, and though an avenue of green trees has softened the hard new edges of the modern housing development, the line of shops (including a supermarket) are characterless as are the few cafés. Rue de Vitruve, however, which crosses rue St-Blaise at place des Grés, has a great modern swimming pool and the colourful D'Artagnan youth hostel just to the north; and to the south, at no. 39, a school, built in 1982. Designed by Jacques Bardet, the school's rectangular mass is broken up by open-air segments, enclosed only by the structural steel lattice of the building over which plants spread. But the best thing is hidden round the corner, visible as you approach from rue des Pyrénées – a huge sculptured salamander and its footprints mounted on the windowless side of a building on rue R.A. Marquet. Engraved above the street sign are the words: "A legend is told that a salamander, after passing by the square where it would have left a long trail, set off towards rue R.A. Marquet and stopped to rest on a corner of rue Vitruve."
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