Parc de Belleville: The Balcony over Paris
Why is it significant?
Lean on the railing of the top terrace and let the whole city spread out at your feet. Straight ahead, far away, the Eiffel Tower stands on the horizon. To the left the dome of the Panthéon, the towers of Notre-Dame, the glass of the business district beyond.
Key Facts
| Place | Parc de Belleville: The Balcony over Paris |
|---|---|
| Address | Parc de Belleville, 27 Rue Piat, 75020 Paris, France |
| Geo Coordinates | 48.87160, 2.38480 |
| Part of Walk | Rebel Hill: Buttes-Chaumont, Belleville & the Secrets of Père-Lachaise in Paris |
| Generated | Generated |
Lean on the railing of the top terrace and let the whole city spread out at your feet. Straight ahead, far away, the Eiffel Tower stands on the horizon. To the left the dome of the Panthéon, the towers of Notre-Dame, the glass of the business district beyond. Few places in Paris give you this much sky... and almost no tourists know it exists.
You are standing on one of the highest hills in the city, and the park below you is surprisingly young. It opened in 1988, on a slope that had been a patchwork of old houses, workshops and wasteland. The designers laid it out in terraces stepping down the hill, with a long chain of pools and cascades running through the middle, one of the longest artificial waterfalls in Paris. On a summer evening the steps are full of neighbours watching the sun go down behind the tower.
Look out for the rows of vines growing on the slope. They are a small salute to the past. For centuries these hillsides were covered with vineyards and orchards, and the wine of Belleville, rough and cheap, was poured in the taverns you heard about in the Rue Dénoyez. The hill also hid springs, which is why water became so precious to the people below... you will see that at the next stop.
Under your feet, the hill is hollow. Like Buttes-Chaumont, this slope was quarried for gypsum, and some of the old galleries were simply filled in when the houses above them started to crack. And in the 1790s, the inventor Claude Chappe tested his optical telegraph on these heights, with wooden arms on a mast spelling out messages from hilltop to hilltop. A street nearby is still called the Rue du Télégraphe.
Take one last look and try to spot the Panthéon, Montparnasse Tower and the Eiffel Tower in a single sweep... the whole story of Paris on one horizon. Then leave the park by the upper gate on the Rue Piat and walk east to the Rue des Cascades, a lane that remembers where Paris once got its water.