Parc de Belleville

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On the eastern side of Paris, in a part of town that has virtually no appeal to tourists, is the pleasing little parc de Belleville, a rather hilly set of gardens with an excellent view of the city from its upper elevations. The Belleville quarter of the working-class twentieth arrondissement overall is a rather dreary part of town populated mostly by immigrants these days, and this park provides them with a welcome change of pace from the relative griminess of the rest of the neighborhood.

The park faces roughly southwest and affords an excellent view of Paris. This photo was taken in the afternoon, hardly an ideal time to see the view, but it’s all I have at the moment. If you look closely at the horizon, you can see quite a few Paris monuments.

You are facing directly west in this photo. If you squint really hard, you can recognize, from left to right on the horizon: the Panthéon, the Pullman Montparnasse hotel, and in front of it the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, the Hôtel de Ville with the Montparnasse Tower behind it, the Pompidou Center, the Invalides with the Front de Seine behind it and both the church of Saint Eustache and the Louvre Museum in front of it, the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Palais, the Madeleine and Opéra Garnier, the Arc de Triomphe, the church of Saint Augustin, the Concorde Lafayette hotel, and finally some of the skycrapers at La Défense. Not bad, eh? (If you are wondering how I managed to find all this, keep in mind that I have the original slide, and I know where to look!)

Photographed on May 28, 2001.