The Parc Monceau, the St. Martin Canal, and trying to do laundry

We left about noon to walk down by the rental car office and then to the metro station to go to the canal.  Although we had walked down by the rental car office before, we somehow had missed it, so wanted to be sure we knew where it was.  Leon had gotten out the map and determined that we should take the metro from the Monceau station so that it would be easy to get to the canal without even having to change trains.

As we walked toward Parc Monceau, we passed this building.  There did not seem to be a sign in front of it, but it looked so completely out of place in Paris.

Parc Monceau is a big park (about 20 acres) that was built by the Duke of Chartres, a cousin of King Louis XVI, in 1778.  The duke was a friend of the Prince of Wales and loved all things English, so designed the park to have a formal English style layout with “follies” scattered throughout.  The follies include some random columns, a classical colonnade, and even a little pyramid.  The park was set up to be a public park from the very beginning, but this did not save the Duke, who fell to the guillotine in 1793.  The park was nationalized for a while, then was given back to the Duke’s family when the monarchy was restored.  They sold off half of it for lots for fancy houses, then in 1860 the city bought the remainder of it and restored it as a public park.

A new city wall was built around Paris in 1787 and formed the boundary of the park.  Where the wall was is this building.  It was originally a customs house on the lower floor with an apartment for the Duke at the top.  

The metro stop is just outside the park, and has the beautiful art nouveau Metro sign.  We went down, tried to figure out how to buy metro tickets from the machine, and a little old lady took pity on us and helped us figure it out.  Dumb Americans!

We got off the Metro at the Jaures station and walked over to the canal but did not see a canal boat, so we walked up a little farther, crossed the street, and found the Basin de la Villette where the canal boats were.  There was a movie theater, a restaurant, and the canal boat ticket office in a long building on one side of the Basin.  The Basin is the widest part of the canal and has shops and condos and apartments along the other side.  The water from the basin is used as landscape water, to wash streets, and to power fountains in Paris. We saw ducks and swans swimming merrily along beside us.

Leon said that since it was so cold that he did not expect many people to be on the boat ride, but I wanted to get a front seat in the heated area, so insisted that we get in line.  As soon as we got on the boat, a tour bus unloaded a group, and pretty soon almost all the seats were full.  Some people chose to sit outside, but except for going up to take a couple of photos, I was perfectly content to sit inside where it was warm.  The buildings on either side of the canal in this photo are some of the original warehouses from when the canal was used commercially.  The building on the left now houses a Holiday Inn Express and the others are restaurants and offices.

The boat ride goes only 4.5 km, and it takes two hours to make the trip.  When the canal was new, there was so much traffic on the canal that it took a full day to make the same trip.   The canal was built by Napoleon between 1806 and 1825.  Water for the canal comes from the Ourcq River and flows into the Seine.

There are several cute little pedestrian bridges over the canal said to have been designed by Eiffel.

This is the original customs house that was built on a bend in the canal.

We went through a series of 4 double locks from the Basin to the Seine.  Our boat would go into the first lock, drop down about 10 feet, then go into a second lock where we dropped another 10 feet.  We went only a short distance before we came to another set of double locks.  We would drop down below street level and go under bridges, and at two different times we passed through swinging bridges where car traffic was stopped, the bridge swung open, we came through, the bridge swung back, and traffic could flow again. 

 There are tow paths along most of the canal and inside most of the tunnels. 

About halfway to the end of the canal, the water flows underground through long tunnels.  We were underground for about 2 km, and there is a bend in the middle of the tunnel.  There are big air holes in the ceiling of the tunnel all along the way.  It lets light into the tunnel and also provides ventilation.   Leon and I liked the tunnel trip best of all since we had been through locks on the Canal du Midi boat trip with Caroline and David last summer.

The tunnel goes underneath the July Column, a tall column monument built to commemorate the people who died in the Revolution of 1830, sometimes called the July Revolution, that ended the rule of Charles X.  The column is hollow, but inside its base are the bodies of the 504 people who died in that revolt, the victims of the 1848 February Revolution, and a mummy that Napoleon brought back from Egypt.  A golden Miss Liberty is on the top.

The boat tour ended at the Port de l’Arsenal, or the Paris Marina which is right at the end of the tunnel.  The Marina holds 230 boats.

We took the Metro back to the Champs Elysees, and as we passed by the BMW store, we saw this exhibit of fun vehicles and thought we had to take some photos for Jason. Dad wanted to point out that the blue car has only 3 lug nuts holding on the wheels. Oh, and you can't really tell in the photo, but the blue car is a 1 person car...there is only one seat on the driver's side, sort of like a cockpit. 

 We stopped by to pick up some breakfast supplies, then went to a little crepe shop for dinner.  I had the duck breast crepe with salad while Leon had the beef and cheese.  We got a dessert crepe that had ice cream, caramel, and meringues, but we dug into it so quickly I forgot to take a photo.

We tried to figure out the washer/dryer combination.  So far, we have washed the same load of clothes 3 times trying to figure out how to get the dry cycle to work.  Leon thinks he has it figured out now, so I’ll let you know how it goes.