Still no leaves on the trees, but…

Paranthesis: No leaves on the trees... Actually, this is not true any more. I prepared this post a couple of days ago. Suddenly, yesterday, the spring arrived!

 End of parenthesis.

Last Sunday I had the pleasure to walk around for a long moment together with some fellow “greeters”. We are volunteers who regularly take smaller groups of Paris visitors beyond the usual tourist spots. Feel welcome to make an appointment for your next Paris trip. You can do it by going here or by clicking on “Parisien d’un jour” in the sidebar. … and tell your friends!

Sometimes we also visit places and make walks just between us, between “greeters”.  So last Sunday, on the proposal by one of us, Isabelle, we made a walk along Rue des Pyrenées, with some deviations, on the top of the Belleville / Menilmontant areas.  I have already posted about this part of Paris, but I thought that the area is worthy of some more pictures.

So, the spring is definitely late and last week there were still no leaves on the trees - the “April in Paris” is until now not quite what it should be. Anyhow, there is now at last some kind of a spring feeling, especially in nice company, as during this walk together.

  

We are quite on top of Paris and the view over the city is really nice.

There are a number of nicely decorated buildings.

On the façade of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste-de-Belleville church, you can curiously enough read “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité”, originally a rather revolutionary message. I have not been able to find out how this inscription has ended up here.

This was much more of a workers’ area with a lot of small industries. There are still a number of small idyllic alleys, small individual houses with little gardens, old buildings more or less transformed or under transformation…

… mixed with much more modern ones.

The area is known for the high presence of urban art (see previous posts) (Nemo, Jérome Mesnager, Jef Aerosol, Mosko, janaundjs, Fred le Chevalier, Paul Santoleri, Cyclope…). I noted that the Belleville Park had got some - at least for me - new very nice sophisticated decoration… and there is of course also a lot of tagging.

I even saw some live animals, including some small chicken in a flower shop window.