The Canal Saint Martin (almost) without water.

The Canal Saint Martin (see previous post) has to be emptied every 10 or 15 years for cleaning, repairs... Now it’s time again. The canal looks of course nicer when it’s filled with water, which should be the case again in about three months – spring time!

The canal goes from the Bassin de la Villette (see post here) to the Port de l’Arsenal (see post here). It’s to a large extent covered. We can see that the tourist boats are waiting on both sides to be back in business.

Here are some more photos from the open part.

As we can see also from the top picture, it’s (unfortunately) evident that the empty-of-water canal will reveal a lot of dumped things. I haven’t yet heard of any really sensational findings, but the research has just started.

Anyhow, there are obviously a large number of Velib’ bikes (see here).

The search for items of all kinds goes on and sometimes there seem to be things which can still be used. It’s also time for maintenance of the locks etc… Some people were trying to save some fish…,

… but a small water level is kept to save the fish which have not been rescued or which have not slipped away with the water, escaping into the Seine River. The birds seem to enjoy the present water level.

Walking along you discover also some street art, l’Hôtel du Nord… One wall which normally is revisited by street artists is now covered with “Fluctuat Nec Mergitur”, ([Paris may be] tossed by the waves but does not sink) the Paris City motto.

I continued my walk also along the covered part of the canal. I wanted to check if the water level of the Port de l’Arsenal, on the other side of Place de la Bastille, was normal. It was. 

The promenade brings you to see some reminders of the Paris 2015 events (see here). The Café Bonne Bière (5 victims) is reopened, the Bataclan is not, but there are still a lot of flowers around. I especially noted a little booklet made by the pupils of a French teacher in Scotland. There are also still some flowers to be seen where a policeman was shot dead by the fleeing terrorists after the attack on Charlie Hebdo – one year ago today (their office was quite close).