Even people who have been in Paris a time or three, for a month or 10, can sometimes forget all the fabulous parts of the city which lie outside the popular Arc de Triomph-Champs Elysees-Louvre-Marais stretch of town that runs above the No. 1 Metro line.

An example: we had no idea that what a few years ago was a gritty and depressing neighborhood north and east of the Bastille had turned into such a lively place.

Talking about the southwest corner of the 11th arrondissement here, a gentrified area between Pere Lachaise cemetery and the Bastille, epicenter of the French Revolution. And where we are pitching camp for the next week.

We began the day in the Marais, and pretty much ended it there, too, at one of those dinner parties that seem to work so well in France and so poorly in the U.S., six people gathered to trade conversation and slowly work their way through a four-course, several-bottle meal.

On our way back to our new digs, we noted how quiet the Marais was, aside from a block of two of its better-known haunts, and how dynamic the 11th was, particularly along Rue de la Roquette.

Much of the Marais is being swallowed up by ever-sillier fashion boutiques which are crowding out cafes and small, local businesses such as bakeries. For example, the fashion giant Lacoste took over the storefront of Toute au Beurre, a popular patisserie. (A couple we know, who live a few steps away, saw that the Lacoste store was closed, and quietly celebrated … but Lacoste doesn’t die that easily; the place was just being renovated. Again. And it will still be a Lacoste store.)

Meanwhile, the stretch of the 11th near the apartment we are renting seems to be home to the sort of useful, functional businesses that draw a young, stay-out-late crowd. Cafes, clubs, but all the basics, too – several marches, boulangeries, boucheries and even a fairly new Catholic church.

We were headed home, and it was 12:30, but the several blocks in each direction were jumping, and they appeared to have lured actual French citizens, and not just tourists going where they believe they ought to go. And this was the same place that, a decade-plus ago, had an almost dangerous feel, and I know because I stayed in a run-down hotel in the neighborhood during the 1998 World Cup.

Things change, and sometimes for the better.

Other neighborhoods with the same sort of energy in their own right include: the Oberkampf neighborhood, also in the 11th; the area near the Canal St. Martin in the 10th, the blocks around the Metro St. George in the 9th, the Denfert-Rochereau area in the 14th, the area north of Parc Monceau in the 17th … well, there are dozens of them, I suspect, where Parisians are doing their thing pretty much out of sight of the tourist crowd working up and down the No. 1 line.

We found one. We are impressed, anew, that “Paris” is many compelling neighborhoods.