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In the footsteps of the past in Belleville Park, one of the most beautiful panoramas in Paris

2021-04-02T10:40:55.584Z


This recent garden, on the hillside, offers one of the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets in the capital. Small guided tour.


Walk along a vineyard, greet a cat posted on a low wall like at home and suddenly turn your head towards one of the most beautiful panoramas in Paris.

And one of the least frequented by tourists.

Because even before the pandemic, nothing to do between the tranquility of the belvedere overlooking the park of Belleville and the crowds of the Sacré-Coeur.

Only the locals stroll here, their garden sloping not so gently down Belleville.

You can enjoy, if you have a sense of the right time, one of the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets in the capital.

The city stands out almost entirely there, from Beaubourg and its dazzling colors to the Eiffel Tower.

Welcome to Belleville Park via rue Piat, on the high side.

In the past, Robert Doisneau and Willy Ronis took some of their best pictures of the neighborhood from here, with children playing on the stairs and streets of the time.

Most of which no longer exist.

The park was born in 1988 on an island of life but also of insalubrity.

The two beautiful staircases in the park follow the path of old alleys, including rue Vilin where the writer Georges Perec grew up before the war.

Gone, apart from its first numbers.

The two beautiful staircases in Belleville Park follow the path of ancient alleys ... LP / Philippe Lavieille  

By borrowing what remains of it, and which leads to the entrance at the bottom of the park, one cannot imagine all these world swallowed up.

We contemplate its traces in a book like "Belleville, Belleville, faces of a planet", which can be found in the neighborhood bookstores.

They were almost slums.

“As early as the 1930s, the whole neighborhood was declared unsanitary.

A bit like the Montmartre maquis, they were poor neighborhoods with odds and ends and small gardens, ”explains Jacky Libaud, a naturalist guide who offers tours of the park and the neighborhood through his association Coopaname.

Of all this, we see nothing.

Well almost.

"The landscapers who designed the park have kept the traces of the past", underlines the guide.

Suddenly, we open our eyes wide.

The vines at the top of the park bear witness to the wine that was once worked all over the hill.

The apple trees are reminiscent of the courtilles, these gardens adjoining farms, as in the days when Belleville was a village.

Jacky Libaud.

LP / Philippe Lavieille  

Even in the 19th century, the Parisians climbed there - the slope is severe - as one goes to take the air in the countryside, towards the many taverns called "L'île d'Amour" or "La carrotte filandreuse".

The town of Belleville was not attached to Paris until 1860. The water which descends through the park from basin to basin evokes the old aqueducts of the Middle Ages which converged on the Parisian monasteries.

All this, one would not have guessed it without Jacky, naturalist who monitors here the population of hedgehogs, a very endangered species because their habitat is more and more divided.

We see them early in the morning in the park, as well as colonies of birds, including hawks and rattlesnakes that nest on the church of Ménilmontant.

So many different atmospheres here.

At the opening of the park, one of the most beautiful hours for light, regulars play games of anthology table tennis.

The alternation of copses and massifs on the hillside is inspired, according to our guide, by the layers of Persian nature, like a succession of small gardens that descend in this drop of 25 meters.

Getting lost through the paths drawn in the greenery in the morning is very gentle.

In the afternoon, when the weather is fine, the lawns are taken by storm.

The idleness of Belleville very much appeals to the inhabitants of the district.

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For a guided tour:

baladesauxjardins.fr

WE MEET ... Bernadette and her cats

Bernadette, 86, regularly feeds a dozen cats in the park, including "Plumeau".

LP / Yves Jaeglé  

The park shelters a colony of invisible cats as soon as the crowd approaches, so much the copses offer hiding places.

In several places, we can see completely authorized and official cabins, small chalets for felines built for them by associations.

Abandoned, they take advantage of this greenery from which their enemies the dogs are prohibited.

Bernadette, 86, walks there and feeds them almost every morning.

Bellevilloise since 1960, she saw the birth of the park in what was for her "the area, with the kids playing everywhere".

She then discovers abandoned cats that she systematically sterilizes.

Because their presence is debated: the City tolerates them, but some naturalists think that these domestic animals have no place here, where they disturb the ecosystem by attacking shrews, lizards and chicks.

“That's why they have to be sterilized.

Unfortunately, not everyone makes the effort like me, who will not be able to take care of me for a long time to come with my trap door and take them to the vet, ”launches the old lady, annoyed by the serial abandonments.

WE DISCOVER ... a revived vineyard

Along with those of the Parc de Bercy (12th century), Georges-Brassens (15th century), Montmartre (18th century) and the Butte Bergeyre (19th century), Belleville is one of the five vineyards maintained by the City.

The grape grows on these stony soils.

The vineyard was created a year after the park in 1989 to evoke the Carolingian era, when vines covered the area.

The first harvests were carried out in 1994. On the heights of Belleville, the Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay grape varieties have produced nearly 250 kg of grapes each year.

This represents 110 l, or 200 bottles.

At the end of September, about fifteen volunteers harvest the bunches of grapes, as in the four other vineyards of the City, helped by municipal officials.

Pruners in hand, residents of the neighborhood fill the bins with fruit.

On the first Sunday in October, during the Vine and Grape Festival, we taste the wine made from last year's harvest.

All year round, a gardener in the park watches over the vines with the advice of an oenologist.

In March, at the time of flowering, gardeners watch the leaves to treat the sick ones.

You may have the opportunity to see them.

WE TAKE ADVANTAGE TO ...

Le Monte-en-l'Air bookseller-gallery-café, rue de la Mare (20th century), in the Ménilmontant district.

Google Street View  

Read at Monte-en-l'air.

Belleville is the kingdom of small bookstores that often have a local history, sometimes linked to the anarchism inherited from the Paris Commune, or a passion for what cannot be found elsewhere.

Like the Le Monte-en-l'Air bookshop-gallery.

The name is inspired by the bookseller who was an acrobat in another life, and publisher.

At the foot of the Notre-Dame-de-la-Croix church, in front of a garden and a small square lined with trees, this bookstore has a unique collection, on the history of the district but also comics, photography, or ... football.

There is “Les cahiers du football”, a very aesthetic and very rare magazine, yet a pure pleasure for lovers of cross-sections.

Le Monte-en-l'air, 2, rue de la Mare (Paris XXth)

Eat a cabbage at Benoît Castel.

Right now, we need sweets.

Especially for those who will be spending long hours on the lawns of Belleville Park.

Stop at rue Sorbier, near the upper entrance to the Park.

We discovered by chance this bakery-pastry which practices the art of cabbage like no one else: their chocolate cabbage or vanilla cabbage completely rediscovers the notion of eclair or nun.

Three addresses in the neighborhood, but the one that almost borders the garden is a delicious French-style coffee-shop.

Right now it will be take out, but it's really cute.

Benoît Castel, 11, rue Sorbier (Paris, 20th century)

Source: leparis

All news articles on 2021-04-02

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