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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2009 19:58:29 GMT
The Canal Saint Martin is one of the most beloved things in Paris, yet it only gets a passing mention in the guidebooks, since it is not an official monument and is located in the more working class areas of Paris. Nevertheless, it was well presented in the film Amélie, where she came to skip stones on the water and lament her life. I recently took some photos of the canal, and maybe I can interest a few people in going the length of the canal to see it for themselves. Obviously, in the center of Paris, it starts from the Seine. There is a lock permitting access to the river, but the first basin before the official start of the canal is called the " Bassin de l'Arsenal" which is a port for pleasure craft. They are only allowed to remain there for a limited time, but I would not be the least bit surprised if bribes or other methods allow influential people to remain moored there indefinitely. One of the first views that a lot of people get of the Arsenal is through the windows of the Bastille metro station on line 1. This is the one and only place that line 1 peeks out into daylight. Ramps take you down to the pleasure craft port. I was there in April when the gardens alongside the basin were just beginning to blossom and grow. There are also some cafés and restaurants which create a nice change from the urban madness at street level. However, one of the most interesting aspects of the Canal Saint Martin is that it disappears for more than 2 kilometers beneath the streets of Paris at Place de la Bastille before emerging again. This is one of the best and most mysterious elements of the pleasure cruises that one can take along the canal. Here is where the canal disappears. The line 1 metro station is just above it. The canal is not allowed to suffocate under the streets, however. There are numerous skylights all along the 2 kilometer section. (to be continued)
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2009 20:05:01 GMT
Here are some tunnel views (not my own photos):
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Post by Jazz on May 2, 2009 20:21:18 GMT
Thank you Kerouac, these are wonderful photos! I love them all. One of the months I lived in Paris, my apartment was on rue de la Roquette, perhaps a five minute walk from 'Bassin de l'Arsenal'. These bring back some incredible memories...I would walk along the canal many times and once took the three hour boat ride. I agree that the area is often ignored and this is a loss.
Many people dismiss the boat ride as boring. I disagree. One hot day I had walked since dawn and was exhausted. Lunch was at the small restaurant at the basin, then, the slow, cool and refreshing ride. For the time that you are underground, the light from the skylights plays upon the water, lovely. Then you proceed, lock by lock. This was another unique experience for me and I clearly remember the beauty of the moss on the old stonework as the boat slowly rose. Each bridge has its own character. Then, I meandered back along the canal to the Seine, but that is another story. The next trip, I would like to take the much longer boat trip which continues up Canal l'Ourque?
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Post by Jazz on May 2, 2009 20:22:34 GMT
Oh! I just saw the tunnel photos...yes, it is that beautiful.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 2, 2009 23:40:17 GMT
How breathtakingly wonderful!! It's surprising that the canal and its environs aren't featured in one movie after another -- the setting is so beautiful and romantic.
The very first thing I learned to do on a boat -- on the Tombigbee Waterway -- was to manage the lines for the locks. A very old system, locks are one of the most fascinating things to be encountered on a body of water. And to encounter them in that beautiful canal in the heart of Paris would be beyond magical.
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Post by Deleted on May 3, 2009 5:45:04 GMT
After the long tunnel, the canal finally emerges again in northern Paris. Navigation on the canal takes a considerable amount of patience due to numerous locks and drawbridges. Quite a few old traditional cafés are along the canal here -- the exact opposite of the chic tourist places in the center of the city.
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Post by BigIain on May 3, 2009 10:22:42 GMT
Fascinating as always K! I am assuming that boats can navigate through the long tunnel if they are low enough? And thanks again for the pics, I like the cafe/bar pics just above this, they are the very type of place that I seek out in any French town to try and avoid too many tourists.
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Post by Deleted on May 3, 2009 10:43:35 GMT
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Post by Jazz on May 3, 2009 11:09:32 GMT
This is an exceptional thread. The shots of 'the curve' are lovely...and I ate and drank both at L'Ecluse and L'Atmosphere....very pleasureable and welcoming.
The photos of the Iraqi and Afghan refugees could well have their own thread. Definitely not seen by about 90% of the tourists. Do the small tent villages still exist along the canal?
I am looking forward to Bassin de la Villette!
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Post by auntieannie on May 4, 2009 21:00:26 GMT
"Est-ce que j'ai une gueule d'atmosphere? !" ;D
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2009 21:14:17 GMT
On the other side of "Stalingrad," the canal emerges into a large basin, which used to be an industrial zone. Now it is a zone of outdoor dining and lots of other activities. The first thing along the bassin, is the MK2 cinema multiplex, created from former boathouses. There are six screens on each side of the water with a little ferry connecting them. During the 'Paris Plages' operation from mid-July to mid-August, the Bassin de la Villette has perhaps become the most important area of the event for Parisians. While all of the activites along the Seine are mobbed with tourists, the Villette section attracts Parisians and almost no tourists. There are picnics... There is dancing... Actually, there are so many picnics that it is hard to find a spot along the water after 8pm. It is really a quite pleasant place for a stroll at the end of the day. A lot of people play pétanque. Small kids do what small kids do best. The name of the promenade is something that warms the heart of most Parisians. At the end of the basin, there used to be two huge double warehouses, one on each side of the water, occupied by artists. One of them burned down in the 1980's. It was the most spectacular fire in Paris in the entire decade. I lived in that neighborhood at the time and saw it with my own eyes (and didn't have my camera!). For 15 years or more, there was an empty lot on the other side of the basin, and then they finally built something to echo the shape of the original. It is a Holiday Inn Express and a St. Christopher's Inn hostel. The Bassin de la Villette ends at the Pont de Crimée, and the canal changes name to become the Canal de l'Ourcq. The Pont de Crimée is the only bridge in Paris that uses cables to raise the roadway with big pulleys. Next report: the Canal de l'Ourcq to the edge of the city.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 4, 2009 23:35:00 GMT
This is out of this world! Really, if there were no other reason to go to Paris, this section alone would justify a trip there. Thank you so much for this -- it's better than a film!
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Post by Deleted on May 5, 2009 9:18:23 GMT
Here is a map to give you an idea of the route of the canal after it emerges from the Bastille tunnel. I should have also mentioned the Rotonde de la Villette at Place de la Bataille de Stalingrad, which is one of the finest pieces of architecture in Paris. It was built in 1785 by Claude Nicolas Ledoux as a toll station for merchandise coming into Paris. the designthe neighborhood in 1829modern times - now a café and music venue
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Post by mockchoc on May 6, 2009 10:06:00 GMT
bixa is right, it seems very romantic. Thanks for showing us.
It would be a nice place for a honeymoon I think.
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Post by pookie on May 6, 2009 10:26:39 GMT
Paris is my most favourite city, definatly a place to honeymoon.
I havn't been to Canal Saint Martin as yet, another reason to visit again.
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Post by Deleted on May 6, 2009 18:58:41 GMT
Even though the Pont de Crimée is raised to let boats through many times every day, I rarely get a chance to see it raised. The day I was taking pictures, I was lucky. Then I continued along the Canal de l'Ourcq in the direction of the gigantic Parc de la Villette on the edge of the city. There is a big fluvial intersection before long, because a completely different canal, the Canal Saint Denis, branches off in a different direction. Facing the vast expanse of water, there is a quite reasonably priced Ibis Hotel there, with one of the nicest views in Paris. Normally, I see Hungarian and Czech tour buses parked in front. After this intersection, the Parc de la Villette begins. This whole zone used to be devoted to cattle sales and slaughterhouses. Obviously, these had to be moved out of Paris, but not before the government made one giant mistake. Instead of moving the slaughterhouse out of the city, it was decided to build a fantastic new slaughterhouse that would take care of most of the meat for the entire country. In the mid 1970's, when the building was almost finished, somebody finally came to his senses (I think his name was Valéry Giscard d'Estaing), and said "What were we thinking?" The whole site was abandoned for years, until the presidency of François Mitterrand. He always had grand ideas, and this was a pretty good one. The abandoned slaughterhouse was turned into the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, one of the largest science museums in the world. For those familiar with the Pompidou Center in the middle of Paris, this building is more than 3 times bigger. It is so big that the museum cannot even fill it. In a couple of years, they will be inserting an 18-screen cinema multiplex into the unoccupied far end of the building. Next to the building is the Géode, the largest Imax screen in the world. The Parc de la Villette is huge. It has vast prairies, one of which is so vast that it hosts the outdoor summer movie series, which sometimes attracts up to 15,000 spectators. For the first 10 years or so, it was free, but since last year it costs 1€ per person due to some obscure accounting issues. This is a different field which is used for playing football and frisbee, when it is not covered by hundreds of picnicking families on the weekend. We musn't forget the "submerged bicycle" that the childen love so much, or the "Dragon de la Villette," a slide that was meant to be temporary but which became permanent by popular demand. Other sections of the park beckon, but we are only talking about the canal, right? Canauxrama is one of the companies that runs excursions up and down the canal. This photo was clearly taken before the height of the tourist season began. Often you must reserve in the summer because the cruises sell out. Just before the edge of the city, there is the Cabaret Sauvage (the "Untamed Cabaret," a very alternative music venue). The canal continues 130 km to the Ourcq river. Improve your French by reading more about it. [glow=red,2,300]The End[/glow]
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Post by lagatta on May 6, 2009 21:08:56 GMT
I really like those Parisian historical markers, as they go into far more detail than such markers usually do. Translating all that resembles my work far too much, but people should learn "en amont" (upstream) and "en aval" (downstream). Mont and Val (Valley) make them easy to remember. Those expressions are also used figuratively, as in English and many other languages, in terms of economics, production processes etc.
Ibis hotels and their ilk are very standardised and en principe, not very romantic, but I have romantic thoughts about that one as I stayed there with my long-distance sweetie when we were at the European Social Forum in 2003. I kind of like them in a funny way, as one meets ordinary French people and other European tourists; they have a breakfast buffet that is nothing exceptional but can be a nice place for a chat. They are a good moderately-priced option for anyone with "special needs"; I believe there are a couple of rooms with provisions for disabled people, and they all have lifts, unlike some of the more "charming" cheap hotels that can be a problem for elderly people, families with small children etc. Once I we were at one in a horrific hot spell, and it was nice to be able to take several showers a day.
As an interpreter at the Social Forum, I had meal tickets to be used at the Forum's temporary cantine. It was run by l'Union paysanne, and small farmers and artisanal food producers from all over France were vying with each other to feed us lovely stuff. I was drinking gobelets of fine white wine from Alsace for 1€ a pop, and you can only dream of the cheeses! I bought some wonderful ewe's milk cheese, picked up some hunks of great bread, and also bought an exceptional bottle of wine, and we had the most wonderful picnic back at the Ibis!
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Post by BigIain on May 6, 2009 21:54:56 GMT
great feature Kerouac. I really enjoyed that.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 6, 2009 23:04:40 GMT
I love your use of the word "grand" in the exposition above. A city such as Paris should be grand, and to see these huge public spaces used grandly and wittily is well, a grand experience.
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Post by imec on May 8, 2009 21:08:15 GMT
Fantastic! I'm quickly realizing my week in Paris will be nowhere near long enough to see all this cool stuff. How creepy would those tunnels be at night?!
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2009 21:22:03 GMT
There are actually some cool artistic light effects that have been installed in those tunnels for night viewing. Unfortunately, the tourist boats don't run at night, so you won't be able to see any such thing for yourself.
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Post by Jazz on May 8, 2009 22:26:46 GMT
This has been a special and beautiful jouney along the canal, Kerouac. While I walked along a few times, I didn't have a camera and I didn't know what I was looking at. I found only one book on the canals, at the bookshop of the Carnavalet, but it is in french. You have clarified so much for me and opened up new possibilities.
Imec, Kerouac has lived in Paris for 35 years and Lagatta and bjd often go there. I have spent perhaps three months in Paris, the last 2 times for a month each. There is so much to see that it is overwhelming. In this last trip, I finally took the Canal Saint Martin boat trip and enjoyed it very much. It is long, about 3 hours, slow and languorous. I decided to take the afternoon trip from Bastille arsenal which leaves at about 2PM. Thus, if you are up early and walking yourself into a state of exhaustion, it is a pleasureable relief to sit for three hours and see Paris from a unique perspective...you could take a picnic lunch for the boat trip. Then, meander back to the Seine. The light of the tunnels is strange and wonderful, even in daylight.
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Post by imec on May 8, 2009 22:45:58 GMT
SOLD! The canal trip by itself sounds terrific - a picnic would be the icing on the cake! Do you think they'd mind if we discreetly enjoyed some wine with the picnic?
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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2009 5:02:17 GMT
No problem at all to bring wine. It is considered to be the normal drink with food anyway in this part of the world.
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Post by auntieannie on May 10, 2009 12:06:54 GMT
really good. When I sat my bf to have a look at it, he asked "when do we go visit Paris, then?"
Thank you, K!
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Post by HoneyBee on Jun 12, 2009 18:06:53 GMT
I am thrilled to find this! I attempted to walk along the Canal St. Martin when I was in Paris 3 years ago. I started at the north end (the Stalingrad metro, perhaps), and intended to walk back towards the center of Paris. Being directionally challenged, I actually walked further north and called it quits when I reached Parc de la Villette. I did see the Dragon de la Villette, though! Next time I'll do it right.
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Post by spindrift on Jun 13, 2009 16:33:47 GMT
This was the most satisfying thread I have ever read. Thank you Kerouac.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 13, 2009 16:42:58 GMT
I am ecstatic that you enjoyed it, spindrift. There are lots of good threads here, but I admit that you have to hunt around to find them among the chatter.
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gyllenhaalic
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Post by gyllenhaalic on Jun 13, 2009 17:16:54 GMT
Thanks, k2, for posting all those lovely pictures. I just emailed my sister to see if she wants to do this tour. Since we're both boat AND wine people, this should be a perfect afternoon for us!
Love all your wonderful pictorials! It falls to me to plan where we will go each day, and I am really finding your pictures and descriptions helpful.
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Post by patricklondon on Jun 13, 2009 21:50:17 GMT
I spent two weeks last summer on a home exchange just near the Canal and the Bassin de la Villette: wonderful to see it again through someone else's eyes.
And for auntieannie (and anyone else for that matter), here's the famous clip from "Hotel du Nord":
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