You can take the metro ride, along line 2, but nothing beats a bicycle ride, in the open air, along the boulevards de la Villette, de Belleville and de Ménilmontant. In a few hectometres, sometimes steep if you venture on the surrounding hills, you (re)discover in the north-east of Paris neighborhoods with a popular atmosphere and history still present.
1 – The dome of the PC, an UFO-like dome
You only enter it during European Heritage Days. We must therefore wait to contemplate the interior of the concrete dome of the Communist Party headquarters, built between 1969 and 1980, and its retro-futuristic decor made of ionized aluminum slats. But nothing prevents you from contemplating, from the sidewalk, without even getting off your bike, the spherical white cap, imagined by its designer, the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, representing the fertile womb of a mother. Once this emblematic monument of the 19e rounding well printed in the retina, in the saddle!
2 – On the Butte Bergeyre, a perched village
Climbing the steep, U-shaped slope of Rue Georges-Lardennois takes some muscle, with electric bikes counting for nothing on this ascent to the five well-hidden alleys of Butte Bergeyre, a former gypsum quarry. Until the end of the 19the century, the cows graze there. During the Belle Epoque, its slopes housed the “Les Folles Buttes” amusement park. The football matches of the 1924 Olympic Games took place partly in the stadium built at the top by the Sporting club of Vaugirard. The houses that stand there today date from the 1930s. The character of Vernon Subutex, created by the writer Virginie Despentes, chose a bench there to enjoy the view of Montmartre. We understand it. You need a new calf, or even biceps, to carry the bike and come down from this timeless island by the stairs that lead to Avenue Simon-Bolivar and get back to the slopes of Boulevard de la Villette.
3 – Full view at the Belvedere of Belleville
This time, no need to procrastinate. Before attacking the steps that go straight up to the top of Belleville Park, you have to make up your mind to hang your cycle on a post, on the side of rue Julien-Lacroix. To occupy the ascent, we will remember that two centuries ago, these slopes were covered with vines, which made it possible, in the adjacent taverns, to serve the “Guinguet” and the “Piquette”, two wines, not infected, but young and therefore slightly pungent. The garden, created in the 1980s, retains a few cultivated vines which this year yielded 150 kilos of grapes harvested in mid-September. The belvedere crowns them. From its guardrail, the young people of rue Piat love the landscape and they are right. On a clear day, it’s a parade of Parisian materials, from the glass roof of the Grand Palais to the golden dome of the Invalides, then the blue pipes of Beaubourg, the light stone of the Tour Saint-Jacques and the black slopes of the Tour Montparnasse. Hat’s Off.
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