I assigned myself a task today, which I do from time to time in order to make my weekends productive. I have no yard to mow, no car to wash, no TV to watch, and no roommate to annoy. This dearth of stuff, for lack of a better word, means it is likely that I will spend a random Saturday divided between sleeping and chugging three euro espressos at a cafe reading an English language newspaper.
The Great Plate Debate seemed an appropriate target for my attention. The GPD was ready for arrondissement number twelve, which is a forgotten area in eastern Paris. It lacks the sex appeal of many of the other arrondissements – just about anything you have on a list to see when you visit Paris is guaranteed *not* to be in the 12th. The only thing I know about the arrondissement is Gare de Lyon, named after the city of Lyon (second biggest in France!) is there. The gare is one of the six big ones of Paris, along with Gare d’Austerlitz, Gare de l’Est, Gare Montparnasse, Gare du Nord, and Gare Saint-Lazare. A list of gares is all well and good, but what I really needed was a list of good restaurants in the 12th. In order to get one I decided to go for a run.
I left my apartment in the 5th with a set of keys, a French credit card, a ten euro bill to buy a water when I was about to die (it was hot and even though I walk to a metro every day I’m not in any shape to run across a city), a scrap of paper, and a pen stuck behind my ear. Just normal running gear. I was initially hoping to snag one of those Velib bikes to get across the Seine but was predictably denied in my efforts by the anti-American credit card machine, and thusly reduced to running on pavement longer than expected. When I finally staggered into the 12th I was rewarded by a discovery of what is now one of my favorite “parks” – La Promenade Plantée. I use quotes because La Promenade is actually an old elevated railroad track that has been creatively and stunningly transformed into a 4.5 kilometer park and pedestrian path. Imagine if they converted the elevated tracks in Chicago to a park – that’s basically the concept. The distance – which is a bit over 2.5 miles – means that La Promenade spans the entire arrondissement. It’s hard to explain how awesome this really is. The pathway is lined with flowers, trees, bushes, benches, bamboo, and there was even a rectangular pond about fifty feet long up there. To be running through all that, assualted by the different fragrances and finally free of the exhaust from the street traffic, high above the ground was a very cool experience. The last part of La Promenade Plantée is an arching bridge over a bright green park, at the end of which is a restaurant called O Cantina – a Mexican restaurant. How much better can one park be?
There is an organization in New York City that is attempting to do the same thing with some abandoned tracks – http://www.thehighline.org/ – and if you live in NYC I would strongly suggest supporting it! Here is a quick blurb that the High Line folks wrote about the Parisian Version:
