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| Balloon, water spouts & Eiffel Tower in the background |
Early morning on the avenue Stalingrad and there are few people on the street as I head to the metro. I want to reach the parc André Citroën as early as possible, to avoid crowds, as the website advised. I’d been told by Nicole that there was a balloon there which took people up into the skies above Paris. What could be better on a Sunday morning than that? (Ballon de Paris)
Line 7, Villejuif Louis Aragon to Jussieu, change to line 10. This little train gets through the stations at a great rate, Maubert-Mutualité, Cluny la Sorbonne – which is very fancy, with artistic mosaics on walls and ceilings, but this is a stalwart rather than a fancy train, it's an older model, it is plain, decent, serviceable, with hard seats, the fabric covering worn away in places, door handles you have to turn instead of pressing a button, the way they all used to have. Scratched metal doors and dim lighting. Mabillon, Sèvres Babylone, La Motte-Piquet Grenelle. It won’t take as long as I thought to reach Javel-André Citroën.
When I walk up the steps from the metro I recognize the street from 1998 when I was last there, I remember the cafe opposite, painted bright yellow. I head along the rue Balard and enter the parc which is full of runners. The main flat area of the parc is clear to see, with the mighty balloon parked there in the middle, in front of a huge glass-fronted reflective building,
It’s a grey day but once we take off and the balloon rises, everything is visible – the Seine, muddy brown, the bridges, all the buildings, sparkly-white and clustering around the river.
And then there are closer, chunky-looking buildings with geometrical formations
and over the other side the Tour Montparnasse looms up darkly among its lighter, lower neighbours and even further over, the syringe-like needle of la Tour Eiffel.
Built around the same time as the lacy metal tower was the church of Notre Dame du Travail and continued the metalwork theme. Its arches and supporting pillars are made of metal. It was built, says the information plaque, to accommodate all the workers who came to build the Exposition Universelle of 1900. The original church, Notre Dame de Plaisance, was not big enough, so this one was built for them, between 1899-1901, and hence the name. It is so unusual and may even be unique, I don’t know of other churches which have metal arches rather than stone ones. The architect was Jules Astruc. The iron came from the Palais de l’Industrie built for L’exposition universelle of 1855 and demolished in 1899.
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| Notre Dame de Travail, with ironwork, floral decorations & organ |
And almost before I knew it, we were coming down again. There had been no strong winds, no wild buffeting of the balloon, no sudden unexpected or frightening ascents with Paris dwindling to a pibnprick of a city while we voyageurs were swept out far away, into Belgium or Germany or even, heaven forfend, across la Manche. Everything was under control.
Afterwards I look around the park. There are different areas, all laid out separately, with great formality. There are constructed water features tumbling down steps, or some which come bubbling up in fountains. And a series of box hedges sculpted into different cube-sized heights and depths, surrounding a few trees.
I walk back to the metro. The Boulevard André Citroën is closed to traffic. A marathon is being run by hundreds of people with a group of drummers sounding out an encouraging, repetitive beat. A few yellow leaves are scattered on the pavements by the metro Javel-André Citroën.
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