Up to the 20 districts |
Up to the map of the buildings and sites in
Paris
The 12th district is difficult to describe. Old 19th-century quarters, interesting modern office and
appartment buildings, large boulevards and a total absence of
rectangular angles: I always get lost when I walk in the 12th
district. For that reason the 12th district is a good place to wander
on Sundays.
11th 20th
Bast___________________________Pl___________________.
|Opé Fbg St-Antoine Nation C.Vincennes |
| \ |
4th| \ |
| \__Av.Dau |
| \ ---___smesni |
| \ ---___l |
\ \ ---___###################### |
\ \ Gare --- ## |
\ \ Lyon # |
\Se\ |Saint
\in\ |Mandé
\e \ /
\ \ /#######
Pt Bercy## /########
\ \ #### /#########
\ \ #### /#Bois#####
13th \ \ #### /##de#######
\ \ #### ./##Vin#######
\ \ St.Em /###Cennes#####
\ \ / ############
\ \ ./
\ \ /
\ \ / Charenton-le-Pont
\ \/
Everything in italics is outside the district. ### signs
indicate parks or forests. The 12th district is the 9th most populated
district in Paris with 136,591 inhabitants in 1990. It's the 5th
largest district (6.38 km2), not including the Bois de
Vincennes.
Opéra Bastille
The 12th district starts at Place de la
Bastille, more thoroughly described in the 11th district. The part that belongs to the 12th district
hosts the Opéra Bastille, the second most important Opera House in
Paris. Although it was built a few years ago, some parts of it are
already falling down: in rue de Lyon, you can see safety nets
installed on the wall to secure the slabs.
Along the Seine
Along the Seine, everything is modern:
- Office buildings in the north-west part, until Pont de
Bercy. The most remarkable building is Ministère de l'Economie. It
looks like a panther dipping one of its legs into the river: it's the
only building in Paris to be partially built above the Seine.
A park and a leisure area south-east of Pont de Bercy. First
a sport hall covered with grass, used for all kinds of sports,
including the Paris-Bercy tennis tournament every year. Then a large
park, with large lawns and many interesting nooks and crannies, a
characteristic of modern Parisian parks.
South-east of the park, Cour Saint-Emilion is a very original
pedestrian street. The buildings only have a ground floor, and their
architecture imitates the wine halls depots that existed here before
(you can still see railroads on the ground). All of them are shops,
bars or restaurants. You can find mostly exotic, useless and
expensive things in this street. I recommend the Club Méditérranée
shop, where you can sit and read their books, or have good
sushis. At the end of the street stand one of the biggest cinemas in
Paris.
The rest of the district is a complicated network of streets and
avenues which cross at random, without any apparent logic. Rue du
Faubourg Saint-Antoine, which starts at Place de la Bastille and
marks the limit with the 20th district is the
quarter of furniture shops.
A very original promenade, known as the "Coulée verte" or
"Promenade Plantée", lets you walk in a kind of 2.5 kilometer-long
garden. It starts with an aqueduct along Avenue Daumesnil. This
aqueduct used to bring water to Paris; now you can walk above it, 15
meters above the street. At the eastern end of the aqueduct, the
promenade passes through a lawn full of almost naked Parisians
between May and September. Then it continues for more than one
kilometer, passing either above or under the streets: you never see
one car.
For all of you geeks, the easter end of the aqueduct is where
you'll come to buy your computer or any part of it. Surcouf, under the
archs of the aqueduct, is a gigantic department store that sells an
incredible variety of hardware and software components. It's extremely
busy and noisy on Saturday afternoons. I'll call it the Louvre of
Geeks. But it's not nessarily the cheapest: many people come to
Surcouf to get information about the products, then buy in the many
little shops in the neighborhood.
Bois de Vincennes is worth a walk per itself. It's one of the two
large forests in Paris, with the 16th district's
Bois de Boulogne. Both have lakes and prostitution. Bois de
Vincennes also contains a zoo famous for its Monkeys' Rock.