Bassin de l’Arsenal

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This is bassin de l’Arsenal, or, more formally, the Port de Plaisance de Paris Arsenal, a man-made lake between the Seine River and the Canal Saint Martin. It is a very pleasant port for pleasure boating that is virtually unknown to tourists, just south of the place de la Bastille.

You‘re looking north in this photograph, which was taken from a pedestrian bridge that crosses the lake roughly at its midpoint. Off in the distance is the northern shore of the lake. You can see the square, dark opening of a tunnel leading north from the lake; that‘s the Canal Saint Martin, which runs underground for a kilometre or so before returning to the open air and continuing on to another lake south of La Villette. Just above the opening into the tunnel is a row of windows forming part of the Bastille station of Métro line 1; from within the station, you can look out over the lake to the south. Above that is the vehicular roundabout of the place de la Bastille, and you can see the centerpiece of that roundabout, the greenish July Column, at its center. On the right and next to the roundabout is the Opéra Bastille, the newest and largest opera house in Paris.

In the seventeenth century, this lake was just a ditch through which a small stream drained into the Seine, and the city limit of Paris ran along the left side of the ditch (from the viewpoint seen in this photo). The fortress of the Bastille itself was about even with the northern end of this lake, on the right, behind those trees; nothing remains of it above ground at the original site, but you can see chunks of it elsewhere here in my gallery.

Behind the camera in this photo is the remainder of the lake and the set of locks that moves boats between the lake and the Seine just beyond. Most of the boats in the lake are quite nice, as you can see. The park that runs along the east side of the lake (to the right in this photo) is quite pleasant (note all the people relaxing there on this warm summer day).

Photographed on July 21, 2000.