Welcome to "The 20 Kingdoms", a new season of The Earful Tower podcast.

As you probably know, there are 20 districts in Paris, known in French as arrondissements. But my brother once referred to them as kingdoms and I liked it. It's true, each of the districts has its own soul, quite separate from the next. They may as well be kingdoms. At least for a podcast season.

In this 20-episode season of the podcast, I'm going to visit each kingdom and introduce you to someone who truly loves that particular district. Maybe they work there, maybe they live there, or maybe they just love it.

That's the whole concept. This isn't me recommending cafes or restaurants in different parts of town. This is true locals telling us about the soul of their kingdom and what they like to do there. The goal is to give you a very real look at each of these districts from a local's perspective.

And for the 20th Kingdom, the first episode of the season, you'll meet Abiola, a social worker who looks after kids in the north western side of the district. He loves cafes, good food, football and the 20th arrondissement of Paris. Here's what he had to say.

Mentioned in this episode:

Restaurant

Paloma

Website: https://www.instagram.com/paloma.belleville/

Address: 93 Rue Julien Lacroix, 75020 Paris

Bar

Combat

Website: https://www.instagram.com/combat.belleville/?hl=en

Address: 63 Rue de Belleville, 75019 Paris

Cafes

Candle Kids

Website: https://www.instagram.com/candlekidscoffee/

Address: 107 rue des couronnes, Paris, France 75020

Miliki Coffee

Website: https://milikicafe.com/

Address: 8 rue Levert, 75020 Paris

Bambin

Website: https://bambin-coffeeshop.fr/

Address: 40 Rue de Tourtille, 75020 Paris

Best thing to do

Parc de Belleville

Best street

Rue Saint Blaise

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This episode brought to you by The Earful Tower Tours. Come join us in the Marais, Montmartre, or the Latin Quarter. Our Walking Tours are exceptionally highly rated online and are the best way to experience this podcast in real life.

The Earful Tower exists thanks to support from its members. For just $10 a month you can unlock almost endless extras including bonus podcast episodes, live video replays, special event invites, and our annually updated PDF guide to Paris.

Membership takes only a minute to set up on Patreon, or Substack. Thank you for keeping this channel independent.

For more from the Earful Tower, here are some handy links:

Website

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Walking Tours

Music: Pres Maxson

Have you ever heard of Rungis? It's the world's largest wholesale food market, it provides all the Paris markets and restaurants with their fresh produce, and you can find it near the Orly Airport.

Or can you?

This place may as well be top secret. Only the vendors and restauranteurs can access it - yet it's as big as a village. Every night, at around 2am, produce sellers (like fishermen and cheesemongers) open their doors to the eager buyers, who charge in and negotiate prices for the goods.

And even though it's closed to the public, I got an invite to make this episode. My invite came from April Pett who runs April in Paris tours, check her out here: https://www.aprilinparistours.com/

Big shout out to market vendor Jaad who took us around and whose laughter echoed through the halls of Rungis all night.

You can find more about the market here (but remember, it isn't open to visit to the public). https://www.rungisinternational.com/

Here's the replay of the short live video we made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeiII9gqlZo

And the rest of our pictures are on social media, the rest of my videos will be for the members, only. Links below.

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The Earful Tower exists thanks to support from its members. For just $10 a month you can unlock almost endless extras including bonus podcast episodes, live video replays, special event invites, and our annually updated PDF guide to Paris.

Membership takes only a minute to set up on Patreon, or Substack. Thank you for keeping this channel independent.

For more from the Earful Tower, here are some handy links:

Website

Weekly newsletter

Walking Tours

Music: Pres Maxson

I speak English with our two children (soon to be 2 and 5 years old). My wife speaks Swedish with them. The outside world is in French. (Note: We all speak all three languages too).

Here's a glimpse at how that works, with special guests Otis and Astrid. Hope you find it as fascinating as I do!

This episode is brought to you by the members, who get the new 2026 PDF guide to Paris for free. For everyeone else, you can support this show by buying the guide here: https://theearfultower.com/product/guide-book/

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The Earful Tower exists thanks to support from its members. For just $10 a month you can unlock almost endless extras including bonus podcast episodes, live video replays, special event invites, and our annually updated PDF guide to Paris.

Membership takes only a minute to set up on Patreon, or Substack. Thank you for keeping this channel independent.

For more from the Earful Tower, here are some handy links:

Website

Weekly newsletter

Walking Tours

Music: Pres Maxson (his take on Douce France, by Charles Trenet)