Paris: Off the Rails on an Inner-City Nature Trail by Annabel Simms
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I had always thought of the residential 16th arrondissement as one of the most boring districts in Paris, until I discovered the Sentier Nature by chance while hurrying to a doctor’s appointment. I didn’t have time to investigate, but the doctor’s receptionist was able to tell me where it ends, although she didn’t know where it starts.
Months later I returned to try it out, starting from the Porte d’Auteuil métro where it begins along the Boulevard Montmorency, and finishing opposite no. 27 Boulevard de Beauséjour where it ends just before the Restaurant La Gare, the former station of Passy-La Muette.
Notices at the beginning and end of the walk inform you that the line was part of the Petite Ceinture, the Victorian goods and passenger line encircling Paris which was closed down in the 1980s. The tracks here were removed in 1993 and within a few years the line had become a flourishing wilderness, overgrown by trees.
Green Corridor
It was also a unique habitat for over 200 species of plants, birds and butterflies, most of which had disappeared from the rest of Paris. In 1997 a volunteer group of residents and ecologists cleared it and persuaded the city to open it to the public as a ‘green corridor’, in which weeds would be actually encouraged to flourish.
It was opened in December 2007, but as yet, not many people seem to know about it. It is used mainly as a shortcut by local residents and I saw no one sitting on the benches or reading the informative notices about the fauna and flora along the route. I did see harebells, wild cyclamen, buddleia and mushrooms and picked up the shell of a bird’s egg, but it was the beckoning lure of the path stretching ahead, almost hidden by trees, that I found irresistible. My only complaint is that the walk is so short.
Illuminations
It could easily be combined with a visit to the Musée Marmottan, just off the avenue Raphael, 200 metres from the Sentier Nature via the shortcut across it at rue de Ranelagh. The Museum is one of the high temples of Impressionism in Paris, famous for its collection of Monet’s waterlily paintings and including the one of Le Havre, ‘Impression, soleil levant’, which gave the movement its name. It also has work by Degas, Caillebotte, Pissarro, Rodin, Renoir, and Berthe Morisot in particular, as well as a small collection of medieval manuscript illuminations.
The Restaurant La Gare, still with its station clock, is at the end of the Boulevard de Beauséjour, on the way from the Marmottan to the nearest métro, La Muette. At street level, a bar leads onto a terrace overlooking the glass roof of the former station and the greenery of the Sentier Nature stretching into the distance below, framed by tall Art Nouveau apartment buildings. In the restaurant downstairs, the glass roof arches over an astonishingly grand vista of tables with linen tablecloths, plush seats, alcoves and mirrors.
It reminded me of a 1930s gentleman’s club, and you can in fact get the newspapers here. The vaulted glass roof extends outside over an even more secluded tree-framed terrace, created from the original platforms, with the platform signs ‘Voie 2’ and ‘Voie 3’ still in place. Despite its frenetic website, La Gare is an oasis of calm and you can linger on the heated terrace with a snack at any time of the day.
Reverentially Preserved
If you want to explore the charm of the former village of Passy, continue east of métro La Muette along rue de Passy, turning right into the engaging little place de Passy with its graceful green fountain and café. The cobbled rue de l’Annonciation with its 18th-century shuttered houses and irresistible food shops leads from here to Balzac’s house at the very end, to your right across the rue Raynouard. It is easy to miss because it is on a hill, sandwiched between two streets, reached by steps down from the rue Raynouard.
I found the house, with its provincial green shutters and secluded garden, with the Eiffel Tower in the background, more interesting from the outside than inside, although Balzac’s study, in which he wrote La cousine Bette, has been reverentially preserved. To the right of the house, more steps lead down from rue Raynouard to the rue Berton, a cobbled narrow passage with its old gas streetlamps still in place. Balzac’s reason for choosing the house was its back entrance onto this street, which he used to escape those creditors who had managed to get past his password-protected front entrance.
Rue Charles Dickens
If you follow rue Berton into the avenue Marcel Proust and then continue along the rue Charles Dickens, you will come to the square Charles Dickens, and the small arch of the medieval entrance to the Musée du Vin on the left, almost hidden by modern apartment buildings. Its collection is housed in underground stone passageways extending deep into the hillside, which were once the cellars of a wine-producing 14th-century monastery.
They are linked to the passages of an even older stone quarry, used for the building of Notre Dame. The steep admission charge includes a glass of wine and there is an underground restaurant, but, again, I found the Museum’s setting more interesting than the contents. You can glimpse the stone passageways from inside the entrance without actually paying to go in.
Rather than taking the nearby métro at Passy, I would recommend following rue des Eaux downhill from the Museum to the river, and crossing the avenue de President Kennedy for the Pont Bir-Hakeim stop for the 72 bus, on your left. This glorious ride takes you along the Seine, with close-up views of the Eiffel Tower, Trocadéro, Invalides, Place de la Concorde, the Assemblée Nationale, Musée d’Orsay, the Louvre, the Conciergerie and Notre Dame, before its terminus at Hotel de Ville, a flourishing finale to your exploration of deepest western Paris.
Annabel Simms is the author of An Hour From Paris, www.anhourfromparis.com
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