Category — gardens and walks

This photo in Toulouse was taken one afternoon last week as I walked beside the Garonne along the Quai de Lucien Lombard towards the Pont Neuf. It was the first really sunny day for over a week and many people sat on the quays enjoying the sun as it shone in the hazy sky of late Autumn. A romantic young couple caught my attention.

The Garonne is one of France’s principal rivers, flowing 575 km from its origin in the glaciers of the Pyrenees, on the Spanish side of the border. It ends its journey in the Bay of Biscay estuary, La Gironde near Bordeaux, where it meets the Dordogne. Passing through Toulouse it is too shallow and bedevilled by treacherous currents for boats, and so its broad surface is often very tranquil, devoid of all traffic except the occasional rower or police launch. I saw the rather strange sight today of a man propelling himself along in the middle of the river while standing on a narrow kayak.

The graceful Pont Neuf was built between 1544 and 1632, and inaugurated in 1659.

(guest post by photographer Andrew McRae)

Guest post.

One of Paris’s lesser known (by tourists, anyway) treasures, the 4.5km Promenade Plantée – literally translated as ‘the planted stroll’, and also known as la Coulée verte – is a pleasant walk on the west-east axis of Paris from Opera Bastille to the Périphérique in the east. The section to the Jardin Reuilly is about 2 km. The promenade is elevated above street level on what was formerly a defunct railway viaduct (the railway closed in 1969) of 75 arches. The original red brick arches have been restored, renovated and enclosed with glass. They now house arts and crafts workshops, galleries, furniture showrooms, a restaurant and a café. The walk itself is a tranquil stroll between beautiful garden beds, at an eye-level with third-floor apartments. One can ascend to the viaduct behind the Opera near Bastille(or at Avenue Ledru-Rollin) at the western end. There are other stairs located at intervals.

In the early 1990s, the City of Paris and SEMAEST, Société d’Economie Mixte d’Aménagement de l’Est Parisien, transformed the weed-infested railway line into the Promenade Plantée, although walking along it one would imagine it to be much older.
The design was created by landscape architect Jacques Vergely and architect Philippe Mathieux.

The architects for the Viaduct des Arts were Patrick Berger and Jamine Galiano. The Promenade Plantee was the model for the plan developed by the Friends of the High Line in New York City.

The photo to the right shows a small group of artists completely absorbed in their work. The man in the foreground in the red t-shirt had a tiny palette of water-colour paints which he was using on a very small sheet of paper; all his equipment fitted into a case smaller than an iPad! Just as I took the shot the fellow in the grey jacket ambled with a studied insouciance into the space, making a nice foursome; the artists were so engrossed they looked up at no one.

Below, a gallery of photos from the Promenade and le Jardin Reuilly at the eastern end of my walk. Click to enlarge.

[Show as slideshow]