The Day After the All-Nighter in the Catas: La Petite Ceinture

So because I have absolutely no respect for my legs when they wake up and say "Nope,  not today. Not after you spent all night crawling in the Catas, you can't surely expect to be able to walk four hours down la petite ceinture". Well apparently I do. And we did. After not very much sleep we set off to knock another chunk off the map, and I am so glad we did. Maybe this is one of my favourite sections, it was certainly the most interesting, and worth pushing past the achy-ness for. Even if I did get stuck on top of a fence when my legs TOTALLY gave up on me.

This seemed like an appropriate photo to start with, because I really can't get away from the LPC...!

Some close up details of the sides of the station (pictured further down).

 The station, now La Flech d'Or, a music venue.

My companion for the weekend (who agreed to join me on his only spare day in Paris trekking down the tracks!),

Another close up.

I found the way this part had been decorated really interesting, and as a result took way too many pictures! However, moving on to the next station...

This bit was full of people practicing street art, so we didn't hang around long. My appalling French is not up to par with engaging in conversations about such things.

This guy had a pretty spiffing hat, shame he moved so fast I wasn't able to get a decent shot.

We then seemed to hit a section full of pandas, and love and clovers. And "Rain is Pink". I am not too sure what they were on when they wrote that.!

I leave you with one such panda: Be Lucky he says.

Frolickings Around France: Some Abandoned Hospital Somewhere between Lyon and Paris

Yes the title is wonderfully specific, but truth be told I am really not sure where it was and if I told you I'd have to kill you (apparently). It's a secret. 

All I know is that we were driving to Lyon, but this friend that was kind enough to take me to Lyon from Paris is totally unable to just have a "normal" trip-- by "normal" I mean staying at ground level and entering buildings that are not marked "entree interdit au public". So we stopped here. 

Dam big kitchen, I could not help but think of the cakes I could make in here.

There was quite a lot of destruction in this building, glass, feathers, graffiti, the lot. 

Oh yes! There was a theater, despite my insane feather allergy I got up.

Follow the spots to the shiny black shoes...

I took a lot more photos, maybe I will share more, for now this is all you are getting. If you want to see more photos, check out my DA here.

LPC: Gare Frigorifique Bercy

So continuing the mission of walking the WHOLE petite ceinture, I carried on where I left off from the previous (and rather intensive) weekend, here- near porte de Vincennes. After walking for what felt like hours last weekend, though in reality that was probably due to spending all night underground, we just weren't able to carry on any longer! 

I have collect a few pictures here to share with you... Because I am seriously not good at organisation, I have not done the ones from before yet! 

I love a good stretch of railway.

Look closely- this one has a mouse face.

There was even an abandoned train, sadly it was otherwise occupied.

We got chased out of here by a squatter. Needless to say it wasn't a very successful visit, mostly we had to keep a distance, despite the frustratingly unlocked gates and doors everywhere.

This is a side view of the station which you can see from the road. We had our picnic lunch on a piece of track on a bridge over the grimey Seine where we found this: 

Moss art! It means storm I believe, just made me think of The Tempest.

More to come soon (enjoying the bad English here).

Abandoned Factories in The the Midlands (UK)

A while ago I went on a trip around a few sites in the UK with a new urbex buddy, who since has come to visit dear old Paris, and I realized I hadn't shared all of what we saw that day... So here is more of a photo post.

I enjoy a good dead animal (in that I find them fascinating, I would rather they were alive of course).

What I remember most about this trip was getting onto the roof and sunbathing whilst listening to some truly shit rehearsals going on nearby and eating copious amounts of homemade and very orange pumpkin cake...

 

The thing that cracked me up about this sign was the current state of the toilets. Not great.