La promenade trop loin!

Sunday started with coffee at La Perle and then on to the Marche Bastille. What fun! Noisy and crowded with stalls selling fresh fish and shell fish, all sorts of meat and poultry, breads, cheeses, nuts and spices, fruit and vegetables, and ready-made meals, including the very delectable Tomate Farcie (stuffed tomato). The air was full of "Avec ceci?", "C'est tout?" and "Bonne journee, madam." Had ourselves a Thym Lebanese pizza - deja vu for me from last year.







Alongside the Opera Bastille, we climbed the stairs to the Promenade Plantee, which is an elevated park built on an abandoned 19th century railway viaduct that runs for 4.5 km along the Avenue Daumesnil, and then moves to ground level and continues to the "peripherique" or outside edge of Paris, at the eastern edge of the 12th arrondissement. I had mentioned to Brent that the promenade disappears off my Lonely Planet maps and, although he was not perhaps listening at the time, I was right and he now refers to Sunday as "the magical mystery tour". Now, that's what a holiday is all about!



The Promenade is planted with all sorts of trees, flowers and climbers, and includes garden seats and alcoves, spots to gaze down at the street view, water features, rose arbours and is accompanied on either side by the changing architecture through the suburbs.








































When the Promenade finally came to an end, my plan was to stumble into the Bois de Vincennes, a natural wooded park that includes the Parc Floral de Paris and the Chateau de Vincennes. We didn't quite stumble in - more like, get lost for an hour, in desperation use the public loos at the Cemetiere (no queues!) and finally, using the map on the back of bus shelter, find our way to the Bois. There is so much of the Bois to explore, we could only see a tiny part, but it was worth the walk. We exited the woods just near the Chateau and Parc Floral. We were too tired to explore the Chateau but appreciated its grandeur from a distance. There was an Animal Expo in progress at the Parc Floral, which explained the huge crowds and maniacal traffic around the park, but it was not nearly as frightening as the Techno Parade!

Thank Paris for the metro home ...