As Paris goes by
Sara Evans passes lovers and landmarks on a gentle cruise down the Canal Saint-Martin
T HE chestnut trees here bloom spectacularly in May. Filling out with pom-pom-sized balls of candyfloss-pink petals, they line the edges of the Canal Saint-Martin in northeast Paris glamorously.
By the quayside of the Porte de l’Arsenal, where the River Seine meets the Canal Saint-Martin, I climb aboard the Canauxrama cruise boat and step inside the wooden seating area. From the port, we’ll cruise 6km to the Parc de la Villette, where the Canal Saint-Martin ends and the Canal de l’Ourcq begins.
The engine starts and my 2.5-hour journey commences. Within minutes, we are in the semi-darkness of a wide subterranean tunnel that runs under the Place de Bastille.
Passing directly under the July Column that commemorates the hundreds of lives lost in the July revolution of 1830, I imagine the terrible sounds that must have accompanied the violence that happened above.
Floating quietly in the dark beneath such a historically significant landmark feels eerie but, after 20 minutes or so, we sail back into daylight.
The banks of the canal are edged with pathways, parks, shops and cafés. Closer to the water’s edge are ornate Victorian lamp posts and pretty wooden benches. Graceful swing bridges and charming iron Eiffel-style footbridges span the width of the canal.
Despite the early hour, Parisians are out. Children kick balls and feed the ducks. Sweethearts hold hands. Old men lean on trees and watch younger men play chess. And from the balconies of canal-side apartments, later risers — some still in their dressing gowns — smoke and drink coffee.
If the people are fascinating, so too are the buildings. We’ve passed by the Saint-Louis hospital, about 400 years old; the Hôtel du Nord, around which the classic 1938 film of the same name was based; and the home of Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian mason who stole the
Mona Lisa from the Louvre, keeping her here, undetected, for a few years.
There are also old glassworks, warehouses and mills, although most of these, since the commercial transportation of coal and sand stopped in the ’60s, have been reinvented as trendy loft conversions.
As I approach my journey’s end, new waterside cinemas, theatres, restaurants and landscaped gardens come into view. Old barges live second lives as bars.
My cruise over, I visit a barge bar and raise a glass to the canal, whose construction was, after all, funded directly by a tax on wine under the orders of Napoleon in the early 1800s.