Le Parc Des Buttes Chaumont

Friday, September 20. After a morning of writing and reading, I grab a bike up the street and head for r. du Temple to the Place de la Republique. This time, I screw up my courage and bike straight across the square (none of this pussy-footing around the edges for me anymore!), then hang a left to bike up along beside the Canal St Martin. There's a great bike path here, separated from the street by a raised median. It's so different being on a bike. When I walked along the Canal, I was completely unconscious of the rise in the terrain (although obviously there is one or they wouldn't need the locks on the Canal). However, on a bike, the incline is definitely noticeable. I end up at Place du Colonel Fabien (1919-1944, a plaque says. Mort pour la liberation de France no doubt.). I stash the bike at the Velib station on the square and start walking. (As I "check out" the bike today, the "borne" tells me that I have 23 hours left on my "abonnement.")

Rue Albert Camus. Just off the square is a pedestrianized area around the rue Albert Camus. The space is broken up by "squares," or more accurately, "rounds," circles paved with concentric circles of paving stones in different muted colors. Attractive new apartment buildings rising up from the Canal below. It's terrassed with low, broad steps. There's a larger open space with square paving stones (almost like a checkerboard) where there is a cement ping pong table. A nice garden , a playground and a fountain. From the park, one looks down on a very large play area (kind of like a school yard), paved but with various playing "fields" painting on. There are lots of kids playing and their voices echo around the park. Beautiful trees around the edge. The whole area is like its own private world.

I cross the Colonel Fabien square and head up the r. Mathurin Moreau. There's an unusual white mound at the head of the street which appears to be some sort of art exhibition space but I can't find the way in. Also on the street is a great bookstore, Longtemps, where I spend a few minutes browsing and reading children's books. It's a really nice bookstore, with all of the Livre de Poche classics, comfortable chairs and sofa for reading, and a colorful children's section with a rug, a low table and four little chairs.

Butte Bergeyre. Turn right onto the r. Georges-Lardennois and up a steep hill. There's a wonderful little network of streets up here, a shared community garden (Le Jardin Partager de la Butte Bergeyre) and the tiniest of vineyards sloping down the hill. From a spot next to the vineyard, there is what has to be one of the best views in Paris of the basilica of Sacre Coeur. I'm looking out at it directly from this hill which appears to be about the same height. I wander around the streets. The houses are one or two story and date from the late 1920s and 1930s. "Hanging gardens" flowing down some of the walls. Some of the little houses have the names of the architects on them and one has a date, 1937. At one point, I'm looking way down into the courtyard of an apartment building that must front on one of the streets below and there is a big tree growing up from the bottom that reaches above me. Many graceful railings, gates, doorways. Art Nouveau.

Parc Des Buttes Chaumont. Down a long, long set of stairs to the r. Manin and on to the Parc des Buttes Chaumont. This is a very large, crescent-shaped, public garden, much like the Boston Common, only with lots of hills and beautiful trees. Because of the hills and the trees, it is impossible to get a view of the entire park from any one vantage point. This area was an open quarry and rubbish dump until Napoleon and Haussman got their hands on it in the 1860s. The park is about 25 hectares or more than 50 acres (an acre is .4 hectare).

Miles of footpaths wandering up and down, a grotto with a waterfall and a lake. The lake (fed by the Canal St Martin) is man-made, shallow and has a murky, squishy-looking bottom but it's an attractive shape and has an island in the middle of it (also man-made) topped by a belvedere. The island is reached by two footbridges (which are in turn reached by climbing up a hill!), one of them called the "suicide" bridge for obvious reasons. The side walls of the bridge used to be waist-high; they've since been reinforced with 6-ft high fencing. It didn't look that high when I was on it, but when looked up from below, whew. I covered most of the park except for the southern end. Some of the footpaths are steep with stairs and "rustic" handrails that look like split rail fences only they are made of cement and decorated with vines and such!

Also Noted:
-Streetlights along paths in park. They look old fashioned, as though they should be gas-lit.
-Teenager wearing T-shirt "I (heart) rich boys"
-Stream with stepping "stones"
-Beautiful yellow begonias. All of the flower beds have a plaque posted nearby with a "map" indicating what each of the flowers is.
-A white bulldog named Brutus! He's 14 months old and very friendly but much more interested in another dog than in me. :)

Leave the park near the Metro Botzaris and continue up the r. du General Brunet. Up and down more hills to see some of the little streets that shoot off to the side here. Again, completely unexpected to find this in Paris, little "villas" lined with one- and two-story houses. Reminds me of Columbia Street in Hartford, unified but not uniform.

Any ideas I might have had about Paris being essentially flat except for Montmartre have been completely dispelled during my walks around these other parts of the city! I make my way to the Place des Fetes, although despite its name, there's nothing festive about it. Definitely shabby, although the garden is nice. It seems that here, as everywhere, less attention is showered upon those parts of the city where the residents have less political clout (translation: money). Hop on the Metro back to Hotel de Ville and home. Pedometer: 12,432.

Miscellany. And speaking of shower, the shower in my apt is square, and two walls are tiled. The other two sides are enclosed by a shower curtain, so I've had a interesting time trying to shave my legs since, no matter how I seem to arrange myself, there's no where to prop my foot or to feel really stabile during the whole process. But today, the light bulb goes on! I lather up one leg, turn off the water, and prop my foot on the sink outside the shower curtain. Of course, there's a certain amount of water and shaving cream on the floor outside the shower when I'm done but hey, it's better than balancing on one leg like a stork!

Sometimes I realize that I am not as young as I used to be. For example, when I realized that I looked upon Anthony Hopkins as a sex symbol. And today, when a young woman on the Metro offers me her seat!

Ad in subway car: Il vous manque un cave? Une piece de plus! A louer pour ranger. It looks like off-site storage has come to Paris. (Actually, I thought I saw some driving in from the airport.)

Tonight France is playing Ireland in the rugby World Cup so it's very lively and noisy on my street again! Big crowd at the Hotel de Ville watching on the big screen there and lots of policemen, police trucks, and even a police bus (really, it's a huge white bus with POLICE painted on the side) on the street. I can hear the crowd roaring. The score was France 12, Ireland 3 at halftime and, at the moment, France is leading 20-3 so I'm hoping there's no doubt about the outcome. It's an important game since, if France were to lose, it would be out of the competition altogether, due to its early unexpected loss to Argentina. (didn't know I was such a sports fan, did you?)

Later: France wins 25-3. I hear lots of enthusiastic voices up and down the street, singing something that resembles La Marseillaise, into the wee hours of the morning. ! It's a good thing I took a nap today so I'm up late anyway. :)