The Tunnel de Napoléon

The last thing you expect to see when visiting a site during the annual Journées du Patrimoine is a dead rat, but then the Tunnel de Napoléon is not a typical heritage site. 

The tunnel is the second place linked to Napoléon III I visited during the weekend, but it has very few similarities with the Cité Napoléon. Whereas that site, an experiment in social housing, was concerned largely with the hygienist ideals of light and air, this storage tunnel near the Parc de Bercy is tenebrous and fetid. But it is also apparently worth preserving.

The Cité Napoléon

The recent Journées du Patrimoine (heritage days) event gave me the opportunity to explore two places usually closed to the public - both of which are linked to Napoléon III.

The first, the Cité Napoléon is the better-known of the two. Situated on the Rue Rochechouart in the 9th arrondissement, it was the first attempt to create decent housing for the working classes in Paris. 

Place Fréhel: the Missing Tooth on the Rue de Belleville

The Place Fréhel, I recently discovered, is an excellent example of a 'dent creuse.' The Place is a mysterious little parcel of land with some interesting stories to tell, but this additional piece of poetry is both pleasing and apt.

The Secret Life of the Gare Montparnasse

Like churches and hospitals, places of purpose, with distinct rules and behaviours, there is a special atmosphere in a train station that I find difficult to resist. For most, the train station is a point of departure or arrival, a place to spend as little time as possible. For others it is their place of work, for others still a place to sleep or beg. Rarely is it a place to visit.

Through La Chapelle, in Search of the Croix de l'Evangile

At the bottom of the Rue Marx Dormoy, near the La Chapelle Metro station sits Le Capucin. It's the epitome of the banal Parisian cafe, the kind of place where you can still eat hard boiled eggs at the bar. On this morning, my neighbour at the counter is one of the city's street cleaners, his flourescent green plastic broom - matching his uniform - propped up outside at the doorway. The coffee is unsurprisingly tasteless, but it jolts me in to action, and sends me off on my mission.