Parc des Buttes-Chaumont

It was raining on my last full day in Paris. This was the most rain I had experienced to date. It was warm and I had an umbrella, so I got on the metro and went to Parc des Buttes-Chaumont in the 19th.  It’s a park I had never seen before.

My first impression was that the park is vast, wild and lush. The terrain is steep and hilly. Many paths wind up and down in every-which-way. The vistas at the top are sweeping. You can see the tops of some of the tallest buildings in the near distance, otherwise, all you see is nature.

The park has a fairy-tale quality with the Temple de la Sibylle, a miniature Roman temple, standing on top of Belvedere Island, which is in the middle of a human-made lake.

While it continued to drizzle, I saw a solitary runner, a group of young children on a supervised walk with their caregivers, a couple of old men walking with purpose, a lady wearing a front pack with a sleeping baby, a guy and his dog, and a twenty-something walking and talking on her phone.

The green grass swept down the hills like artificial carpet.

However, not everything was sweet and lovely. There were warning signs about chenilles processionnaires. Due to the many pine trees in the park, processionary caterpillars are a severe threat to dogs and humans. They are a kind of caterpillar that nests in pine trees. They are called processionary because they move in lines. They are highly irritating and can cause skin rashes and breathing issues. According to the web they are getting more prolific across Europe due to global warming. Some places in Europe are even vacuuming them up with the kind of vacuum used to remove asbestos.