Métro Station of the Month: Bastille

I love the Paris métro.

It’s fast, reliable, easy, very user friendly, inexpensive, efficient, and hardly ever breaks down. I wish everything else ran as well in Paris.

One of the other things I like about the metro are the unique, individually designed stations. The Arts et Métiers with its pure copper rounded walls with portholes, the Louvre-Rivoli with glass benches and Louvre treasures in glass vitrines, and the Concorde with the square white tiles, each with a single letter on it, spelling out phrases and words like intricate word puzzles.

I love the Paris métro so much that I am doing a monthly feature, focusing on particular metro station.

This month it’s the Bastille station. The Bastille station is a major hub with 1,5, and 8 lines stopping at it. There is a colorful mural on the wall of the #1 train, going toward la Defense. The somewhat jumbled and overwrought scenarios depict the struggle of the French Revolution. Photos are dispersed through out the posting.

Feel free to share your favorite metro stations in the comment box.


The Statue of Liberty with the Angels

Here is a brief history of the Paris métro.
The Métro opened on 19 July 1900, its first line being from Porte de Vincennes to Porte Maillot (not surprising it is now the line number 1). Fulgence Bienvenüe was the engineer in charge of construction, the architect Hector Guimard being responsible for the Art Nouveau entrances .The system has 199 km (124 miles) of track and 15 lines. There are 368 stations (not including RER stations), 87 of these being interchanges between lines. Every building is within 500 metres of a métro station. There are 3500 cars, which transport roughly 6 million people per day. There are 15000 employees of the metro.

For a more in depth history, click here.

A French Revolution Song and Dance Number?

Great Poster

I am pleased as punch to announce the launch of Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour walking tours I will personally be leading. The Eye Prefer Paris Tour
includes many of the places I have written about including small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes & food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks, and much more.

I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you my insiders Paris.

Check it out at www.eyepreferparistours.com

 

Comments

[Truffaut]

Regular postings about various stations is a great idea. I just posted an article about the letter tiles in the Concorde station on our communal Paris blog.

As far as favorite stations, I'm not sure I have a single favorite--more like specific elements I like in different stations. The greatest treat, however, has to be those (very) rare occasions when the high-speed people mover is working at Montparnasse. There's nothing quite like the feeling of your hair streaming out behind you as you fly through the tunnel at what feels like 20 mph. And there's great sport in watching all the people ahead of you tumbling over themselves as they approach the end of the tapis roulant.

[b]

What great shots. And such a wonderful concept, to feature various stations. The Métro is such a prominent part of Paris, it deserves attention.

[michel]

I prefer Paris to!
and for the Bastille station, one of the two painters is a friend of me