Paris in the autumn – the Promenade Plantée

The Promenade Plantée is a 4.5km path that runs between the Bois de Vincennes and the Place de la Bastille following the track of an overground railway. For most of its course it runs on a viaduct giving an unusual perspective on the rooftops and buildings of the surrounding area.

The railway that used to run on this line stopped functioning in 1969, but it’s only over the past 10 years or so that its old track has been restored and turned into a wonderful urban walkway. The path has been planted in a variety of styles that make for a delightful stroll. We did the walk on a Sunday morning when it was so thronged with joggers, that you had to keep your wits about you to avoid being crashed into by earplugged fitness fanatics.

At this height you really start to notice the elaborate ornamentation of the mainly nineteenth century buildings along the Avenue Daumesnil:

The oddest site on the walk is this building on the Rue Abel (I think) near the Gare de Lyon with its giant narcissistic statues.

The building that they grace is a police station, but it’s hard to believe that these statues were commissioned by the police. I have not been able to find out anything about them online, but it would be interesting to know who they depict, why they were commissioned, how they came to be there and what the building was originally.

After the peace and quiet of the Promenade Plantée, the descent to the Avenue Daumesnil and then on to the busy Place de la Bastille is a bit of a shock.

 

Paris in the autumn – street scenes

Here are various shots from my visit to Paris:

An interactive art installation on the edge of the Place de la Concorde just outside the Jardin des Tuileries:

The classic sign for a Paris underground station.

Now some shots from the market in Boulevard Richard Lenoir, one of Paris’s biggest Sunday food markets:

Finally a street singer in the same market. I am not sure what instrument he is playing, but he fed pianola paper through it while he turned a handle. You can see a pile of the sheet music behind him to bottom left.

Paris in the autumn – Notre Dame

Here’s another iconic Parisian building – the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Work started on the building  in 1163 and took 170 years to complete.

Just opposite the Cathedral on the left bank is a little haven of calm around the old bookshop Shakespeare and Co. The original bookshop was opened by Sylvia Beach in 1919 and became a gathering point for expatriate American writers such as Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Pound and Gertrude Stein. Sylvia Beach also remembered as the first publisher of Joyce’s Ulysses. However that bookshop was in a different location in the rue de l’Odeon and it closed during the German occupation of Paris in World War II.

The current Shakespeare and Co was set up in 1951 by an American ex-serviceman in rue de la Bucherie and has recently opened a great little cafe next to it.

Paris in the autumn – Place de la Bastille

The Place de la Bastille, the former site of the notorious prison of the Ancien Regime famously stormed by the Paris mob on 14 July 1792,  is dominated by two monuments.

One is the glass-fronted monstrosity of the Opera National de Paris Bastille opened in 1989. The other is the Colonne de Juillet pictured above, a memorial to those who died in the street fighting that led to the overthrow of Charles X in  July 1830.

Paris in the autumn ; Arc de Triomphe

Work started on building the Arc de Triomphe in 1806 after Napoleon’s victory at Austerlitz, but it wasn’t completed until 1836. One of the most iconic monuments in Paris, it’s difficult to get a good, clear shot of it because of the many lanes of traffic that circuit it. Fortunately, an underpass allows access to the arch so that when you are actually standing next to it you get a true sense of it size.

I particularly liked the four huge statues on each side of the main columns.

Paris in the autumn – La Sainte Chappelle

La Sainte Chappelle on the Ile de la Cite is hemmed in by buildings on all sides which adds to the sense of a pinched structure that is being forced upwards. Its external appearance however gives no clue to the magnificence of its internal decoration.

It was built in 1248 by Louis IX (Saint Louis) to house two relics that he had bought from the Emperor of Byzantium, the Crown of Thorns and fragments of the True Cross.

The 15 recently restored, soaring Gothic stained glass windows depict over 1,000 religious scenes and the light filtering through the rich colours in the glass creates an atmosphere of enchantment.

The strong colours and detail of the individual images is very impressive, but there are so many images and most of them not easily seen, that it almost discourages looking at the detail. Again and again you are forced back to try and absorb the cumulative effect of this extravagant decoration:

 

The rose window over the main royal entrance, for example, is quite breathtaking, but it’s impossible to see the detail:

La Sainte Chappelle is very beautiful but all a bit overwhelming to take in at one go. I liked focusing in on some of the detail:

My favourite detail is these two angels on the central column between the royal entrance doors. Why are they smiling?

Finally, right next door to La Sainte Chappelle is a site familiar to fans of the French TV series Les Engrenages (Spiral), the Palais de Justice.