[ Dec.2019 ] There was an elevated railway near our hotel in Paris, and it seemed that people were walking on it, so we decided to check it out.
According to our guidebook, it is a park called Promenade Plantée which was opened in 1993.
Originally it was a railway which connected Bastille station in Paris and the town called Vernuil-l’Étang which is about 42 km south west of Paris, but it ceased operation in December 1969.
The Bastille station itself was demolished in 1984 to build Opéra Bastille and around that time they seem to have started planning to make a park using this old railway site.
Because it is as high as four storeys above ground, it was interesting to see the city from the higher point of view.
There were many people jogging there as well as some walking their dogs on the morning of this Sunday.
We walked only a part of the whole length which is apparently 4.5 km, but we could see that it was very well maintained with the bamboo tunnel, flower beds and so on.
Because it was winter, there were not many colours, but in spring it will be a colourful promenade.
Our guidebook says that this place was used in the romantic film called ‘Before Sunset’.
I have not seen that film, but I could imagine that you could feel romantic here mainly because the height gives you a certain surreal sensation, though you have to be careful not to bump into any of those joggers.
Apparently it is the world’s first elevated park according to our guidebook, but I remember walking in London a few years ago on the former railway site and a part of it was elevated.
And that park was opened in 1984.
Anyway, the reason why we came back to the starting point without walking all the way through on the Promenade Plantée was because it was becoming lunch time.
We had decided to go to a restaurant which was a butcher and they do not accept any bookings.
So we went down to the ground and saw that under the elevation, there were a row of fashionable shops.
It was a shame that we did not have enough time to look at them.
We approached to the address of the restaurant and the area was very lively.
We did not know but the restaurant was located in the road of the street food market called Marche Aligre.
It was very different from the small market we had come across the day before and this was more down-to-earth with many ethnic people such as Arabs.
Especially the vendors were mostly ethnics.
French people seem to love market.
It was so crowded that we had to push our way through the people.
