The Ultimate Mission: To Walk the Whole La Petite Ceinture Railway in Paris Pt. I

NOTE: I started writing this about a month ago, then something kinda awful happened and I distracted myself by spending almost four days underground. Having spent over a year hanging out on this beautiful, special place and meeting only interesting and lovely people, I wasn't really prepared for what happened. I lost two cameras (digital and film), two decent lens, my headphones and barely functional iphone. I am very sad about my cameras but the experience itself was so much worse. So PLEASE PLEASE be careful, especially in the tunnels around Belleville and Ménilmontant . Preferably skip it. It is not worth the people you could run into down there...! Like we did.

Enough of the misery! I felt I had to warn you and now I have. On with the epicly long post.

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LEFT: My map that I gradually annotated as I went around, marking off all the bits I had done. For those who are interested my "tour" starts in the south in the browny pink bit.

About a year ago I moved to Paris and set out to walk the whole of the la petite ceinture railway that encircles Paris. I have somewhat completed my mission. I say somewhat because actually a third in the west of the city has been re-purposed for the RER line C and other parts have been ripped up and/or used for other things-- for example the park in the 15th Arr. Thankfully a lot of it I managed to beat them to it or some how manage it regardless and only encountered a few minor issues and one threat of arrest... And only a couple of angry homeless people. I think I did well! (See update above....!)

The obsession started a year earlier, I had come to Paris alone for a week to attend a conference on Nabokov (I am way cool right??!), and whilst I was walking to and from the metro each day I saw this over the wall. After two or three days I decided it obviously was not in use and wondered if it was possible to get down there. Then went back to Birmingham and forgot all about it.

A year later I moved to Paris and was pointed in the direction of this clip on the BBC.

I realized then it was the same thing and that I just HAD to walk the whole dam thing. Why? I am not sure. I also realized it was a race to beat them to it before they uprooted the tracks all over Paris. 

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Gare: Abattoirs de Vaugirad

So I went back to where I started a year ago, armed with a camera and my over ear headphones, and spent a good while trying to find a way in.

Near Parc George Brassens is this section of the railway, in the 15th.

This was the first station I encountered, 'Abattoirs de Vaugirad', which was not used for passenger service. Rather it was used to serve the nearby abattoir and now just consists of the loading bay and remains of where the building would have been.

Remains of the building that served the slaughterhouse and would have had a ramp leading down to the platform.

Some more shots of the area.
I believe the writing above is a quote from "A Season in Hell" by Rimbaud that translates roughly as
One evening, I sat Beauty in my lap. — And I found her bitter. — And I cursed her.

(Or at least this is what the copy of Rimbaud I found in English said).

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Gare de Montrouge-Ceinture

The next station I found was Gare de Montrouge-Ceinture, which sadly no longer exists. This spot became a truly special place for us, we had picnics on the platform in the tunnel, late night drinks on the steps, many a afternoon walk down the tracks and a few other special things... (You will know what I mean if you know!).

Having spent a great deal of my student days in Paris hanging out on this part of the track, it became a mission to get into the station above the tunnel... we eventually managed it when they started tearing it down and in the process met a very eccentric Spanish guy (who asked us if we thought he would survive if he jumped off the balcony). 

RIGHT: An example of the graffiti down at Montrouge-Ceinture.

BELOW: These little white rabbits cropped up all over the place, and down a rather mysterious hole... You may catch my drift. Crawling down the hole after Mr. Rabbit was an experience to remember.

"I'm late! I'm late! No time to say hello, goodbye...!"

The balcony

I should clarify that the reason why the Spanish dude wanted to jump off the balcony was not because he had had enough or anything, but because of this:

Taken from my instagram feed here. 

In the early stages of demolition they poured a load of sand in, which I presume the dude wanted to hurl himself into, we persuaded him that the gap between the balcony and the sand was too big. And from experience new the sand was full of giant rocks. (For the record climbing up and down that was rough, I somehow ended it up doing it at least five or six times and DID NOT get much better at it).

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Gare de Parc du Montsouris

There isn't really a station here anymore, having said that, it is one of the prettiest parts in the greener months.

ABOVE: We finally got to the end of a long tunnel and the sun was gorgeous, look at it bleaching out my photo! BELOW: This is the same place, facing the other direction, Man the tunnel was long...!

I don't think this section will be readily accessible now. Since they started renovating the previous station it is harder to get through. People do, but usually at weird times of night as it is flooded with construction workers during the day. When we openly flouted them there was only one or two, I see so many now that I think it would be hard to be so brazen about it.

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Gare d'Orléans-Ceinture

The astute map reader will notice I have skipped a bit, I will try and back track at some point but as these stations are all derelict there is not much to see.

This station was renamed after traffic stopped on the Petite Ceinture, it was then named Gare du Boulevard Masséna after the road it is on.

This whole episode was frankly hilarious. I had spent the last few weeks holed up at uni finishing papers and staring at the beautiful sun praying to be free. Except when I became free no one else was (they were still scribbling), so I decided to track down something I had seen on instagram that was apparently on the railway. It was a huge iron bridge. So I spent a while staring at Google Earth isolating places to check out. Scribbles on my map, and plotted routes then grabbed my bag and left.

So I was not kitted out for any kind of urban exploring, I had only my iPhone, and my kids red rucksack covered in fire engines. A huge "here look at me" if there ever was. Oh and I was wearing sandals.

I got to where it should have been and it wasn't. After some circling I saw this through the fence and decided it must be the old station (it is), but there were no tracks. There was a man on the other side of the fence taking photos so in my broken French I quizzed him how he got in. I didn't really understand so kept going. To cut a long story short I ended up running through a construction yard with men shouting after me. I figured if I got off their property fast enough then they would leave me alone. It worked.

They had been ripping up the tracks in the immediate vicinity but further down they were still there.

This one part had loads of railway bits lying around on it. 

BELOW: a bit of a blurry pic from my instagram.

Here you can see where the PC SHOULD be.

I have since walked past this part a number of times. I took these photos in May 2014, from what I can see now, all the tracks have gone around here. I am not sure what they are doing to the station but it is still there.

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Gare de La Rapée-Bercy

The actual station here has been demolished but this is int he vicinity of it and, well I liked the look of it. Also the gate was unlocked so we went in. There was a reason for that. A rather angry homeless man lives here. And since it looks like a few more have moved in... So keep your wits about you here.

This, however, is what excited me the most. THERE IS STILL A TRAIN ON IT! I had no idea what it was being used for but it looked occupied so I did not try to get in. Just as well as since 2013 it has been a homeless shelter. Neat eh? I think it is a good use for it.

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Gare de la rue Claude-Decaen and Gare de Bel-Air-Ceinture

Both of these stations have been destroyed now, but here are some photos I took around where they would have been.

Walking along here was a bit exposed as to one side there was just a chain fence and then the main road so everyone could see us. So I would be careful along here. AND there is a security guard. 

It was very easy to get to though, we just climbed the fence as there were fortunately placed holes. 

This is about as exciting as Bel Air got. There was some fairly decent stuff to clamber over in between, but it is POSSIBLE it was still in use. I am not sure how we got away with a few bits we did there. 

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Part II is here. This is just too dam long...!

Abandoned Places III: Jardin d'Agronomie Tropicale (Human Zoo)

So after weeks of planning to go, but not quite managing to for one reason or another, we finally made it to the Jardin d'Agronomie Tropicale. The Jardin d'Agronomie Tropicale, aka The Human Zoo, is located just outside Paris by the Nogent-sur-Marne commune and the bois de Vincennes (in English, a suburb just outside Paris Nogent-sur-Marne, bordering the Vincennes woods). Here lie the remains of the colonial exhibition of 1907, where buildings were constructed to represent the countries under French colonial rule, Indochina, Madagascar, Congo, Sudan, Tunisia and Morocco. There are also a few other Asian elements, a bridge amongst others. These buildings were made to represent the "villages" of the countries they represented and had inhabitants shipped over to live there whilst the exhibition was open, for people to come gawk at. Hence "Human Zoo". The entrance point is shown below with a typically Chinese archway. Being surrounded by such distinctly non-Parisian architecture was beyond surreal, knowing how close we were to Paris, yet feeling hundreds of miles away was indeed unsettling. Especially when you consider what the purpose of the place was.

The first section had a very strong Asian feel to it, and for me it was especially surreal having been born in Tokyo and travelled around various parts of Asia whilst very young but barely remembering it, I kept getting these ghost inklings of a memory that I could barely grasp. Below are some pictures of the Asian "village" followed by a picture of the Indochina building, the back of the pavilion and an interior shot of one of the Tunisian buildings. 

We got inside the Tunisian building fairly easily, walking through here you could clearly see how much it had fallen into a state of disrepair, and how much France don't want to draw attention to its existence.

There were also several greenhouses that housed exotic plants, one or two are still in use and the others were being potentially in the process of being revamped whilst we were there (our brief exchange with the gardener yielded little, aside from the generous permission to let us roam free inside the greenhouses).

 (This another shot of the inside of the Indochina building - I am still learning how to format blogspot how I want to…).

 Below: side view of a sweet little house that overlooks the veg plot, and the interior of one of the greenhouses.

Here is inside another greenhouse and the outside of another, followed by more pictures of the inside of the greenhouses.

Here are some photos from when we were wandering around the Moroccan area, which was especially "weathered".

The remains of a chair where presumably there was a fire at some point.

 Below are more photos of the Moroccan pavilion, which of course we snuck into too...

This building was particularly surreal, the remains of the shower blocks and kitchen was still visible, it just astounds me that they really shipped as many as 35 000 people to places such as these in the colonial era, just for people to look at… It was even stranger to be inside the buildings, watching people walk past the windows and look in at us (obviously wondering how/why we got in and whether we were actually supposed to be there)-- I can't even imagine how it must feel to be shipped to a foreign land for the sole purpose of being watched. 1984 anyone?

Clearly at some point, as is always inevitable, other people have gotten in and made their mark.

I love being in buildings such as these, that have been left to be taken over by nature and gradually collapse. Its an odd type of beauty, and a reminder that the mark of humanity can be eradicated, eventually.

 I especially adore the way the greenery completely takes over, how structures once completely man-made, are now under the control of nature.

Finally, at the end of our trail, we were met with a memorial and the back of the entrance point. This place really was stunning and very eerie. I would strongly recommend a visit if you are looking for something unusual in the Il de France region or feel in need of an escape from the Haussmannian boulevards of Paris (despite Haussmann's attempt at renovating Paris, it is somewhat claustrophobic at times). It will be well worth the trip.