Porte de Versailles
rolled and bound carpet fragment used to baffle water-flow whilst cleaning the streets
The direct way from the Porte de Versailles back into the centre of Paris is one of the most satisfying of routes. It is nearly as complete as the directness of purpose of the route from the Porte de Charenton, which follows its eponymous street from the edge all the way to the Bastille.Here the journey follows the Rue de Vaugirard almost from the péripherique past the Porte itself and the lumbering Parc des Expositions, until eventually past Montparnasse it turns a corner at the Jardins de Luxembourg, and meets Boulevard Saint Michel. The street is an archetype of Paris : the tall narrow buildings meeting in the middle as if they were leaning together, creating a funnel that you walk into, as far as the eye can see. This, below is not Rue de Vaugirard, but Rue Popincourt in the 11th, on of my favourite streets doing that very thing I describe, and of an older unchanged Paris than that walked back from Porte de Versailles.SC
notes from an urban hibernation 