Summer is here, the mercury is rising and we will have to deal with the heat waves. Along the cycle paths that connect Place Denfert-Rochereau to the Seine via Place d’Italie, an urban tour in search of fresh air. A cycling route that you can take with journalist Cécile Cazenave during the 9th edition of the World Festivalfrom September 15 to 17.
1 – The Montparnasse cemetery, silence and sophoras
Hang up the bicycle on rue Emile-Richard, enter the Montparnasse cemetery through the small porch and close your eyes. It coos in the branches, and the cyclists have just gained several degrees of freshness on this June morning which promises to heat up. With 1,200 trees over 19 hectares, the cemetery is one of the most important green spaces in the 14e arrondissement. Lime trees, sophoras, cedars, maples and ash trees play their role as natural air conditioners. It is for this reason that it is listed as one of the capital’s 1,200 cool urban islands, in other words a possible refuge during heat waves.
2 – The Observatory garden, a country air
Admittedly, we had to brave the Denfert-Rochereau square. Pedaling around the Lion of Belfort remains a challenge. But as soon as the feat is accomplished, after a few pedal strokes on Boulevard Arago, here is a haven of freshness, for humans and animals alike. In front of the Paris Observatory, founded in 1667 – the largest national center for astronomy research – the small adjoining garden displays a country air. It is home to a hundred trees of fifteen different species, beds and lawns. This diversity and the fact that all layers of vegetation – herbaceous, shrubby and tree – are found there – give it rare ecological qualities among the fifty-five parks and open gardens of the 14e arrondissement. Closed for works, it will not be able to accommodate the overheated inhabitants of the summer. But its reopening, expected in the neighborhood, is scheduled for this fall.
3 – The Montsouris reservoir, a story of water
As you walk down rue de la Tombe-Issoire, you might think you’re looking at a fortress, a nest of spies or a military headquarters. Faced with the barbed wire that surrounds the Montsouris reservoir, we even say that what it contains is a treasure. The former “reservoir de la Vanne”, then “de Montrouge”, today “de Montsouris”, was built in the 19th century.e century by Eugène Belgrand, Baron Haussmann’s engineer and father of the drinking water network in Paris. It remains one of the capital’s five main drinking water storage reservoirs. This is taken from springs, wells and surface waters of the Seine and the Marne before being transported by aqueducts to seven treatment plants which in 2019 produced around 500,000 cubic meters of water per day. By the end of the century, under the effect of climate change, a 10% to 30% reduction in the flow of rivers and a 10% reduction in groundwater recharge on which the agglomeration depends is expected. Parisian.
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