Paris: cruising the Seine and the Canal St Martin

Our first morning in Paris; I had already booked a boat trip (I do love a boat trip, we collect them) which not only took in the section of river from the Quai d'Orsay past the two islands, but also joined and travelled the length of the Canal St Martin as far as the outlying park at la Villette - which was where we went last October to see Jordi Savall at the Cité de la Musique.

Because of a combination of meteorological, geographical and tidal phenomena the Seine was exceptionally high, something which was rather a source of wonder for the time we were there:

Trees stood straight up out of the water,

and steps led down,

to disappeared quays from which boats should have been boarded,

and people waded out to stand in the river under submerged trees on quays which weren't there, which was probably rather dangerous. (Tom took the last four photos). So when we came to the lock at the beginning of the canal, which led onto the bassin de l'Arsenal, the three metres we should have had to lift the boat was reduced to a scant half metre, and on the way back down to perhaps thirty cm (that's a foot to us imperialists). 

The trip was run by an outfit called Paris-canal - that's to their English version web-page, and the English is as funny and charming and friendly as that of their tour guide, a young chap called Nicholas. He and the boat driver, Dominique, were the only crew, and a very good one. As we waited for the water to pump through the nine locks and raise us the twenty-seven metres of the ascent, Dominique nipped down to the galley (I know all the nautical terms, me) and brought up a couple of big thermos flasks of coffee and hot water and served everyone coffee and tea in plastic cups for a euro a throw (no milk, a big box of sugar) which was very welcome as it was a chilly wet morning.

Through the marina of the bassin, which housed many smart craft of all kinds, including this one whose name pleased me,

and we entered the marvel which is the tunnel, which runs two km under the place de la Bastille. The oldest parts date from the very earliest years of the nineteenth century, there was no means of artificial lighting and so the whole length is punctuated by wells, through which the vegetation of the park above filters a strange greenish light:

Emerging from the tunnel, the boat winds its way up through the canal neighbourhoods, under the graceful little iron footbridges,

where the inhabitants loitered to watch the boat go by, beneath and beside canalside trees in their spring foliage (including one of the squares of Paulownias in the previous post)

past attractive domestic architecture, including the Hotel du Nord, glimpsed momentarily near to this elegant art nouveau building:

and of course up through its nine locks, with all their trappings and accoutrements and accumulated growth and excrescences

Later this year, Nicholas told us, the canal will undergo its periodic draining, to clean and dredge it and check that its ancient, largely wooden, structure is still holding up. At that time, he said with relish, many things are found: old sofas, fridges, bicycles, and the police open and close many enquiries...

If you're ever in Paris, and looking for a sightseeing thing to do, especially one which saves your legs a bit and offers shelter from the elements while still providing movement and variety, I can't recommend the canal tour too highly. There's so much to see and to learn in areas just a bit off the core tourist track, a slow green vein into the heart of the city.  The pace of travel on the canal is uniquely conducive to discursive talk, the telling of stories, and observation of detail both in the long and the near view, to distracting and getting distracted. Nicholas the guide, as well as being charming and easy on the eye, was an enthusiastic source of much knowledge and anecdote on a great variety of subjects: history and natural history, art and architecture, boats and water and the science and workings of them, from the volumes of water under us in the Seine in flood or the raising of the lock, to the time the Mona Lisa spent in an apartment in the Hôpital St Louis quarter, the high number of royal finance ministers who met their end on the two-tier gibbet of Montfaucon, quotes from Arletty, or drawing attention to the tiny freshwater mussels, a sign of clean water, clustered in nooks and crannies of the lock walls. He was happy to chat and answer questions and explain things in more detail, and told us happily how he loved his job, being in the fresh air, meeting people, sharing the canal with them...

In fact, we liked it so much that rather than duck down into the metro when we arrived at the end of the trip, we decided to come back on the boat too, even though it meant killing time, and having lunch, for a couple of hours in la Villette, which wasn't too bad really.

By the afternoon, the sun had come out and there were far more people on board, which was interesting for people watching. The experience of descending the locks was quite a different one, more open with more of a direct sense of the gradient and flow we were traversing. 

All in all, a good time was had by all. 

(Thanks to Tom, who took quite a lot of these photos, 1 - 4, 11,12, 14, 17, 22, I think, and the last one, obviously!)