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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2014 20:53:08 GMT
I still have a lot of things to discover around Paris, and probably most of them are in the suburbs, because Parisians rarely feel an imperious need to venture beyond the city limits except to take trips of a considerbly greater distance. I assume it is the same for most Londoners, New Yorkers and denizens of quite a few other "world capitals." We unfortunately consider our cities to contain the vast majority of the "interesting stuff" and the only reason that the suburbs exist is to put the "uninteresting stuff." Of course I oversimplify. What about Versailles? What about the basilica of Saint Denis? What about Fontainebleau? -- to name just a few. And since you made me mention Versailles, that is an excellent point of departure to launch this little subject. Even visitors to Paris feel certain that the route to the château of Versailles is as follows: Paris >> wasteland >> Versailles. And yet all of them taking the RER C to Versailles will be travelling right over the subject to this report -- the viaduct of Issy. It was impressive right from the start, because it is one of the biggest viaducts in France. But it is really quite a bit more than that. I had noticed what had been done to it several years ago when I would take a friend by car from the southern suburbs back to Paris. To go to the suburbs, I would take an expressway, get off at the designated exit, usually get lost, and then finally find the address after hunting around a bit. But if I was taking my friend with me back into Paris, he would direct me on a route that would go under the viaduct where I would always think "wow, that is big!" and then "wow, what have they done here?" But it has always remained a bit vague in my mind as to the exact location, so even though I promised myself that I would go back to get a better look, I never did until yesterday. Even though I was not sure exactly where to go, I took the metro to Porte de Versailles and then tranferred to tramway line 2, which I knew passed by the viaduct if I could figure out which station to get off. I skipped the first tram stop where I could see the viaduct a few blocks away and told myself "the next stop will be better." Famous last words. I decided to get off at Les Moulineaux, which in any case was the last station for which my travel pass was valid without paying a supplement.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2014 21:02:30 GMT
Really, anywhere in Montmartre is a breeze compared to the climb. I finally reached the top. At least I had climbed a sort of historical monument. I was actually far above the viaduct level now. You can see the rail line down there. The viaduct had ended because of the hill. I will not forget this place. There were other climbing ramps, but they were all being renovated. I was thinking "why don't they put hillside escalators here like in Hong Kong or Medellin?" The moment I had the thought, I spotted the escalators under construction to go to an even higher level. And after walking along that very high avenue, I found a path down to the RER C line -- the location of the viaduct! Here is the current RER station. But it used to look like this.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2014 21:13:28 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2014 21:26:53 GMT
Okay, so maybe it wasn't an exciting day, but I enjoyed finally seeing something new and rather unusual.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 4, 2014 2:23:50 GMT
I've never been there - so many towns surrounding Paris. I think part of the European social forum in 2003 was there, but I was only working at La Villette and St-Denis.
Correction: no, if I recall the southern location was Ivry.
I liked the buildings in the background of this photo:
I suddenly thought "what about the other side? Maybe it's different!" So I went through a passage to see the other façade.
They look like the old interwars Habitations bon marché, some of which are very nice indeed.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 4, 2014 14:42:53 GMT
Extremely interesting! Does the sign at the top of the climb say that 76% of the surrounding area was under cultivation in its heyday? (can't really read French). I love those double handrails, such a civilized touch.
My cynical thought was that those moutons ain't grazing because someone somewhere is braising. 40 kilos of grass-fed meat could be a tempting proposition for a poacher.
The various constructions in the arches of the viaduct are fascinating. The mid 18th century aqueduct that tapers to an end near the city center here has homes within its (much smaller) arches. All of the new construction or renovations are not allowed to actually touch the arches, just as in your photos. That seems like a wise rule.
What time of day did you go? No people or moving cars in the pics!
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Post by mich64 on Jun 4, 2014 17:00:52 GMT
I enjoyed this very much. As we past each little town I remember wondering if people living there travelled into Paris to work or were there jobs there in the community back from the tracks that were beyond our view? I remember seeing some rather substantial gardens which reminded me of the stories from my mother-in-law of how there whole yard was a garden to supplement their family income. We chose seats up top on the train so we could see as much as possible. It is wonderful that you take advantage of the opportunities of everything that is around you.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 4, 2014 17:02:46 GMT
No, it doesn't say that 76% of the area was under cultivation, but that vineyards represented 76% of the cultivated area.
I noticed that the place where the sheep and goats are supposed to be had large "area under videosurveillance" signs all along the fences.
Actually, I was there around noon on a Monday, but you know how people usually flee my camera.
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Post by mossie on Jun 4, 2014 19:24:57 GMT
I thought your time on site coincided with the grazing animals siesta. Some super architecture here.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 4, 2014 23:25:15 GMT
Here I was attempting to translate that little sentence into Spanish, to give bixa a better sense of the French. (My Spanish is not perfect by any means). Le vignoble recouvrait, en période de prospérité, jusqu'à 76% des terres cultivées. attempt at translation: El viñedo cubría, en los tiempos de prosperidad, hasta 76% de la tierra cultivada. Not much wine is cultivated around Paris any more. I think only Champagne and perhaps part of Alsace are approximately that far north. Mich, I'm sure that there are people who commute to Paris, others who work in Issy, and still others who work in another suburb. There are quite a few jobs there. Lots of info in French wikipedia, I haven't have time to read over the English or other versions I can read. fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issy-les-MoulineauxInteresting about the Corsican and Armenian populations...
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 5, 2014 0:07:51 GMT
I thought your time on site coincided with the grazing animals siesta. Some super architecture here. Kerouac likes us to believe that he is retired, but I have it on good authority that he's started a new career as a shepherd.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 5, 2014 2:00:24 GMT
I had neighbours from the Abruzzo region at my last flat, and the old guy (a generation older than Kerouac, or me) still remembered every detail of being a teenage shepherd in those high hills. Even as he was beginning to lose his short-term memory. I loved the stuff about the sheep in this thread, though I had a hard time reading the description of them. Perhaps I'll trot over to my branch library tomorrow morning, where they have computers with much larger screens.
The neighbour died soon after his wife. They were married at a very young age, and lived together for at least 60 years.
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Post by mossie on Jun 5, 2014 14:47:49 GMT
Don't talk to me about sheep. My first job on leaving school was to work on a very large mixed farm which ran a large flock of sheep on the nearly barren chalky hillsides. We had to help with the annual sheep dip after they had been shorn. this involved driving them in single file through a narrow concrete trough which was filled with a revolting foul smelling brown liquid. As each sheep arrived at the bottom it had to be totally immersed in this muck and then was released out the other end. By now they were very unhappy sheep.
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Post by tod2 on Jun 6, 2014 15:42:24 GMT
This photo essay has been of real interest(excitement too!) to me as I visited the area on my last trip - I can't believe I was so near and yet so far from Les Arches d'Issy! From La Defense Grand Arche we took the T2 all the way to the Issy Val De Seine stop before making our way down to the river and Ile Saint-Germain. I recognized the area of your photos where you walked back to the Jacques-Henri Lartique stop which is the same place we walked back to. It's a lovely trip and definitely worth a visit to see those arches! Thank you so much for finding them.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2014 16:36:05 GMT
Yes, I know that the Seine is only about a block and a half away from the tram line at that point.
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Post by tod2 on Jun 7, 2014 6:36:27 GMT
Here is my photo of one of the gardens on Ile Saint Germain looking towards all those tall cranes you showed us closer up. Just a hop and a skip away! I'm sure huge progress has been made in the two years since I was there but the walkway up to the station is exactly the same!
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