Up on the Arches-Promenade Plantee

LIZ SAYS: This is one of those things you have to live in Paris to see or understand. There is a promenade above the streets, beginning in the Bastille and ending at the Vincennes Du Bois. It is a lovely walk in the present, complete with the disregard of youth, graffiti, drunks and the public expression of beauty that is a rose.
Below are the arches, a street level of repurposed art shops and interior improvement spaces. But, just up two flights of stairs is a whole new view of Paris. Above the ground level, but not skyscraper high, is the promenade, trimmed with roses, flowers and bamboo, where the viewer is just so high, viewing the private gardens of the fortunate few and the streets below. The architecture is odd from this height. I can see the odd angles of the buildings which, from the front, look complete, but from above look oddly angled. To be sure, there is graffitied names of insecure youth everywhere they could reach, but what is more impressive is the way the path cuts through buildings, the path, trimmed by the flowers that are left after the public snatches a sniff. I actually saw a woman pluck a rose, sniff it and then throw it away, like so much trash. But, still, there were more for those who followed after.
Just the idea of such a place is what makes Paris so special.