The weather was spectacular and I haven't ever walked through Parc Buttes des Chaumont when the air was warm – I was there in August 2006 and it was even cold then – so I had to go.
That entailed taking line 4 to Gare d'Est and line 7 to Louis Blanc and a goofy little spur off 7 to Metro Stop Bozaris.
And then into the Parc.
Parc Buttes des Chaumont was built on the site of an old garbage dump by Monsieur Haussmann who re-did a large part of Paris (mercifully they left le Marias in its medieval state) for Napoleon III. The Parc has all kinds of cliffs, streams and waterfalls. Unlike most French gardens it is not regimented. It's more like Hyde Park than like Jardin de Luxembourg from a vegetation standpoint. And all the hills and stream traces and water covered cliffs are made of what was – in the 1870's – a new material: concrete. I think that's chaumont.
So I took a bunch of pictures and a few movies in the parc and exited where rue de Crimée terminates the Parc in one straight line slice.
I walked down rue de Crimée to Basin de Villette and down it to Canal Saint Martin and down the Canal taking pictures as I went. When I got to rue du Faubourg du Temple, which I thought I remembered terminates at Place de la République and off down rue de Turbigo to les Halles and on to Pont Neuf and home, behind the Institut de France.
By the time I got home it was time to go buy a poulete for dinner.
By the time I got home from poulete, grocery and vegetable shopping and had written this it was well nigh on to wine time again.
So my deeper and longer thoughts, and I assure you they are legion, must wait yet another day.
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