Marie and Stacey departed Friday morning. It was a beautiful clear spring day, so Vicki and I decided to undertake another exploratory walk "in the neighborhood," that is, a walk, mostly in the 20th now, through the former villages of Charonne, Menilmontant, and Belleville, to the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont...all on the
former outskirts of Paris, but now just as developed and dense as anything else in the city. Our guidebook,
Walking Paris, suggested there were visible traces of the former villages here and there, but it seemed to require considerable imagination, at least in my case, to see anything but the same 7-story apartment blocks, restaurants and retail--all quite interesting enough--that cover most of the rest of the city. We followed the guide, skipping Pere Lachaise, from Gambetta through the Parc de Belville, and a bit beyond, but then the city itself became more interesting than the prospect of vestigial village bits. We then walked Rue de Belville and Rue de Montilmontant back to Pere Lachaise and then back home, resolving to hit the Belville market (
tres ethnique!) whenever we can.
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The Pere LaChaise station is one of the better preserved
Art Nouveau Metro stations |
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Vicki feels obligated to inspect and sample
every patisserie, especially the pretty ones |
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| A beautiful old Art Nouveau bar/bistro |
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All throughout Paris, and most of France, are memorials to those
who fell in the Resistance |
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A German troop train ambushed here, on these now disused
tracks |
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In 1944, this was in the outskirts, the outlying villages...no
more |
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| Villa Castel, one of the remnants of the old village of Belleville |
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| Peering within |
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A highlight of the walk, the high vista from Parc de Belleville,
looking out upon all of Paris, from the east |
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| At the vista |
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| Walking from the vista down through the Parc |
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| Roses |
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| Thus |
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| Everywhere |
